HYPOCRITICAL

I am not cut out of the cloth you need to be cut out of to be a coach in the NFL. I'm also not cut out of the cloth you need to be cut out of to be coached by the people who coach in the NFL.

So maybe I'm not the best person in the world to comment on this situation. But it's kind of got me riled up, so I'm going to.

In today's New York Daily News, Eric Mangini is quoted a few times criticizing Jets TE Dustin Keller. His slowdown in production has coincided with the Jets' tailspin the past month. So, yes, Keller could be in a position to be criticized...but that seems unfair to me.

At least Keller has showed up for most of this season. Jerricho Cotchery hasn't been a factor since Week 3. Laveranues Coles hasn't done much all year either. And none of those people can be any kind of a factor without production from their quarterback, Brett Favre.

So sure, criticize the rookie. Say that this isn't bowl season he's prepping for, that the NFL is 17 weeks long...longer, if you make the playoffs. But spread the criticism around to others who deserve it. And don't forget to look in the mirror. Because this entire team was not prepared to play 17 weeks - they played a 12-week season. And that begins and ends with the head coach - not a rookie tight end.

I SUPPOSE IT COULD BE WORSE...

The NFL certainly provides plenty of fodder for someone looking to put in perspective their team failing to make the playoffs (I am aware it isn't official that the Jets aren't in...but it might as well be...). So I present to you a list:

At Least:


1) Laveranues Coles didn't shoot himself in the leg and then have David Harris try to cover the whole thing up.

2) Then later find out that Coles was uninsured when he had a traffic accident in the off-season.

3) Shaun Ellis didn't punch Brett Favre in the weight room.

4) There is no such thing around the Jets as "Mustache Monday".

5) Eric Mangini's children are too young to have columnists question their decisions about who they married.

6) A slew of Jets wasn't suspended for using a banned substance hidden in another substance. Of course...there was that one instance.

7) They're not the Oakland Raiders.


The Jets do have their own problems, coaching and off-the-field (both involving one Shaun Ellis). But looking at the landscape of the league, those are a little more run-of-the-mill than the things going on elsewhere.

ALL OVER THE PLACE

I have lots of things on my mind this morning - I'll throw them all at you here:

Let's start with the Tampa Bay Rays. As I've been saying for a while, they're not going anywhere. The Yankees have had a couple of pretty poor weeks, so they're looking like a long shot to overtake the Rays, and the Red Sox are now without Tim Wakefield, who will miss a couple of starts - it just seems like the stars aren't aligning for them this year. I'm not sure they will even hold onto their wild card lead...but that's another story for another day.

It makes sense with the Rays - they've had this young team that has been on the cusp for a few years - if they only had some pitching, people would say. Well, now their pitching is performing. But here's what I don't understand about Tampa Bay - I get that they have Scott Kazmir, James Shields, and Matt Garza, good pitchers all. But what has gotten into Edwin Jackson? This guy has been awful his entire career - first, as a reliever, with 23 appearances and a 5.45 ERA. Then last year in his first as a starter, 5-15 with a 5.76 ERA. This year he is now 9-7 with a 4.07 ERA. Has it just taken this many starts for him to be comfortable as a starter? Or is he having one of those flash-in-the-pan seasons? I mean, Kazmir had the good stretch earlier this season where he was dominant for 6 or 7 starts in a row, but Jackson has been way more consistent recently. I totally buy into the Rays this year...I just don't know what to think about Edwin Jackson.

Now the Mets - this is their week to make hay. They start this afternoon with a makeup day game against the Pirates at Shea, before hitting the road for the rest of the week - going to Washington then Pittsburgh (a wraparound series ending Monday). That has to be 6 wins. Has to be.

Pittsburgh has given the Mets trouble in recent years, which is why I'm not automatically throwing a 8-0 out there...and also, the bullpen is bound to blow a game this week.

So 6-2, 7-1 - that would allow the Mets to take over first place - especially while at the same time the Phillies are on a west coast swing and the Marlins will have their hands full with St. Louis and Chicago.

So Friday night I was kind of interested in the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. The Wife had it on, I sat for five minutes, and it bored me. I couldn't even tell you which part I was watching because it just didn't register in my head. I kept thinking, "I'd rather watch baseball." So I put on baseball, and didn't tune back in to the Olympics until the swimming Saturday night.

Now all I keep hearing is how wonderful/exhilarating/just plain cool the Opening Ceremonies were. How could this be? Wouldn't I have been able to tell if it was going to be exciting? Is it just that it got good towards the end (4 hours after I watched) when they lit the cauldron? And that the ending was so good that people forgot how torturous the rest of the show was (like women who give birth forget all the uncomfortable aspects and just remember the joyous parts)? Someone help me out here, please.

Finally, the Chad Pennington mystery is over - he's a member of the Miami Dolphins. This is kind of like the football gods screwing with me. I hate the Dolphins. Most of that is Dan Marino residue - I guess I really don't hate them anymore...I probably dislike the Patriots more these days - but I love seeing the Dolphins lose. The Patriots is more of a recent thing - for so long they were harmless, usually joining the Jets in awfulness year to year. But the Dolphins were rivals. And I hated them.
But now I'll be rooting for them 14 out of 16 games a year. I really hope Pennington wins with them, except when they play the Jets. And the cool thing about football is I can root for Pennington to do well against the Jets, you know, 14-20, 200 yards, and throw no touchdowns or interceptions. Maybe a bunch of dropped balls, so he's not even to blame when the Jets beat them, then he can do really well in the other games.

Miami is really the best-case scenario for Pennington - he'll play right away while teaching young quarterbacks at the same time.

In Jets camp, meanwhile, Laveranues Coles is apparently stewing about the loss of Pennington. Listen, I love that Coles is so attached to Pennington...but he's got to get over it and enjoy the fact that he will have a monster season running downfield for Favre bombs. And I think he will - he told the media last week that he just needed time to get over it.

Jerricho Cotchery took the opposite approach - I don't know if it was a veiled shot at Pennington or not (I'd like to lean towards 'not'), but he commented on how hard Favre threw. He said Vinny Testaverde threw hard, but Favre's ball was "definitely the hardest ball I've had thrown at me in a long time." Just realize, Jerricho, that the difference in the speed of Favre's throws compared with Pennington's is about the same as the difference in their accuracy at certain points in the game. I hope the receivers are ready for that.

WANTED: CLOSER

Jets 20, Dolphins 17 (NYJ: 3-3, MIA: 1-5)


I was all set to sit here and write about how nicely the team bounced back from last week's 41-0 beating by Jacksonville. For a while it looked like the offense didn't respond well, but then Chad Pennington had two strikes to Laveranues Coles, and with the defense coming back nicely after allowing 41 points, and holding the Dolphins to 3, the Jets were on their way to a big win.

But - whoa - wait a minute.

There go the Dolphins straight down the field two (and a half) times, nearly coming back to tie the game. (I doubt I was the only Jets fan thinking about Dan Marino in 1994 - the fake spike game.) Olindo Mare missed the long field goal once the defense toughened up and actually stopped the Dolphins' progress. Like the Buffalo game, this is one that shouldn't have been as close as the final score was.

But it's not all the defense's fault - the offense didn't put the Dolphins away. On third down and short on the Jets last possession, they took a shot down the field, but Pennington badly overthrew his receiver. The Jets will say, at least we took a shot at putting the game away, but I say - they shouldn't have needed a third down bomb - they need to develop a running game, get a few first downs, and run out the clock. They need a back like Curtis Martin to do this.

Speaking of which, earlier this week I heard Martin was coming off the PUP list this week, meaning he could return sometime this season. I haven't heard anything about that since. I wonder if it's actually going to happen this year. I think the deadline for that is this week - so we'll see if it happens in the next day or so.

Anyway, it was a win for the Jets in a game they needed to win. And it's the first of the three must-wins these next few weeks before the bye week. Also, it makes the Jets 2-1 in the division, important if the Patriots should slip their hold on the division - and it could make the Jets' first game after the bye (at New England) huge.

Next week the Jets host Detroit. Gotta focus on baseball for now.

HOME OPENER HEARTBREAK

Patriots 24, Jets 17 (NYJ: 1-1, NE: 2-0)

This loss stung. There was plenty of good to take away from it, since it wasn't supposed to be a game, and the first half made it look like it wasn't going to be a game, but the Jets nearly came all the way back to tie. But it's still a loss, and it stinks to lose...especially to the Patriots for the 7th time in a row.

The Jets are getting killed by the fact that they have no running game. Honestly, they got lucky that they got so close in the end, because Chad Pennington got to the point where he was just tossing the ball up, and Jerricho Cotchery and Laveranues Coles made outstanding plays to turn short gainers into quick touchdowns, while Pennington was just avoiding a blitz. Pennington sells a play-action fake as well as anyone in the league - but the Jets have no running game at all, and teams are going to do what the Patriots did on Sunday - play the pass constantly, because the Jets' running game won't hurt you. I'm not even going to make a case for Cedric Houston this week, because there's no way he can be effective either, the way the Jets' O-line is playing. (And I forgot to mention this, but the Jets lost Pete Kendall to an injury last week in Tennessee - that doesn't make matters any better.)

The running numbers this week:

Barlow: 14 rushes, 42 yards
Blaylock: 6/7
Washington: 1/0
Askew: 1/0

The Jets' defense played well again, but allowed the Patriots to march down the field and score a little too easily a couple of times. The worst thing that happened to the Jets this week was the Ben Graham punt right before halftime, which went about 10 yards, and allowed the Patriots to add 7 instead of pinning them deep, going into halftime down 10-0...it became 17-0, then 24-0 early in the 3rd.

There's definitely reason to feel this could be a promising season, especially with how bad some of the other supposedly good AFC teams have looked. Miami fell to 0-2, playing an awful game against Buffalo, who the Jets will match up with next week (and the Jets have looked better than Buffalo - they need to make a statement and win that game handily next week). Denver, for the second week in a row, looked horrid, squeaking out a win against the Damon Huard-led Chiefs at home in overtime. So there's hope that the Jets could put together a decent season - but I'd feel a lot better about things if the Jets didn't give up so many points early - and instead of coming back from a huge deficit were able to keep pace with the Patriots throughout the game.

By the way, Tom Brady made some uncharacteristic mistakes in this game - mostly in the second half - throwing an interception to David Barrett, and losing the ball on a sack late in the game. The Patriots are a shaky 2-0 right now...but they're still 2-0.

Chad Pennington had his second 300-yard passing day - mostly thanks to the yard-after-catches by his receivers - but he was a (mostly) mistake-free 306 yards, with 2 TD's and 1 INT. He was sacked 4 times, but that's due to the offensive line, which still has a lot of work to do. The Jets NEED to beat Buffalo next week.