YOU take what the defense gives you, Eric Mangini said three different ways this week, without saying much of anything at all.
Asked about the pass-run balance that, thanks to 130 Thomas Jones yards, was greatly improved last Sunday until the Jets needed 1 yard and didn’t give him the ball, the coach said:
“You always want a balance, but don’t attack strength for the sake of chalking up a number. You want to evaluate weakness and attack that.”
Queried whether his offensive line can enable Jones to run 20-25 times a game, Mangini answered, “It’s different each week because of the schemes. You have to do a good job of adjusting.”
Pressed about a pass rush that seems worse than a year ago, even if the numbers show it down so far by only three sacks, Mangini replied, “It depends on types of protections they are running, the volume of blitzes versus those protections. There’s a lot of variables.”
There are few variables to the coach’s answers, non-answers that played a lot better on the way to 10-6 than they do on the way to 6-10. Mangini is the same coach now he was a year ago, merely playing a harder schedule consisting of more teams better aware of the Jets’ schemes. In 2006, those schemes were their strength more than were their players.
Mangini is resisting an inevitable quarterback change because, for lack of a game-breaker, thinking their way down the field is what the Jets do. Chad Pennington remains more capable of doing that than Kellen Clemens, at least at this stage. And Mangini is not ready to begin 2008 when 2007 is not half over.
“We’re always going to play the players that give us the best chance to win and I feel Chad gives us the best chance to win,” the coach recited when asked if there were mitigating reasons, such as fear of sending a message he was writing off the season, or bailing too fast on the respected team leader.
Another loss today in Cincinnati and perhaps Clemens starts against the Bills next Sunday. But our guess is still not. Turning the team over to a raw quarterback is a hair-brained scheme not to the taste of a coach who, by sticking to a 3-4 defense when he has better 4-3 personnel, continues to show he is all about the scheme, not the players. Now, if he had some more good ones, perhaps Mangini would be a different coach. But the roster that he coached up to 10-6 a year ago has been upgraded by Jones, not Reggie Bush, and by Darrelle Revis, not Deion Sanders.
The Jets have a strong corps of receivers but no Randy Moss to help open up the underbelly for the out throws that Pennington had less trouble making a year ago on two good ankles. The Jets have decent front-seven personnel, but no outside pass rush like the one driving the Giants back toward the playoffs.
It gets harder when opponents know better what you’re doing. Also, when failures inside the 5 yard line cause cranky players being pushed harder than ever during practice to question whether you still know what you’re doing.
Unlike the Falcon foofs who challenge Bobby Petrino then drop passes, Chris Baker catches everything thrown toward him. A good and underutilized soldier, he earned better than a private admonishment for publicly questioning obviously poor play selection. And Mangini would earn a vote of confidence from his team if more passes were thrown Baker’s way.
It wasn’t Mangini’s playing career at Wesleyan or his Bill Belichick-tied resume that caused players to buy into 10-6 a year ago. It was decisions that mostly worked. Inevitably, they aren’t working as well the second time around. And won’t until the Jets get a guy or two who can line up and take what he wants, the hell with what opponents are trying to give them.