First off, a baseball update. The A’s once again beat the Rangers, making tonight a one-game playoff for the division crown. Out on the other coast, both the Orioles and Yankees pulled out one run wins. That most likely means the Orioles will be your wildcard, facing the loser of Oakland-Texas, but it’s certainly not out of the question that we could see a one game playoff for the East crown.* *This was confirmed to me by John Kruk this morning on Mike & Mike. That also means that, if game 163 does happen out East, somebody will be logging some serious travel time. But, today, I want to talk about football. And it’s not even about one of my teams. No, today we’re covering the New York Jets. As I’m sure most of you are aware, the Jets are downright terrible this year. Mark Sanchez looks exactly like everybody who’s not a Jets fan thought he would.* Their top receivers, Santonio Holmes and Dustin Keller, are hurt. Holmes is done for the season. Keller (Boiler Up!) is listed as questionable, so he might be back soon. But it won’t be soon enough for this team. *Yeah, he and the rest of the offense looked awfully good against a mega-bucks Buffalo defense, but then again, a lot of teams have looked good against what looks like an enormous bust of a Bills defense. There is starting to be a lot of noise, on national shows, at least,* to see what “His Holiness” Tim Tebow can bring to the team at quarterback. I’ll be upfront, I’m definitely not a big Tebow guy. But I do think the Jets are missing a big opportunity here. I just think the talk to this point has been misguided. *I would imagine this is true in New York, too, but I can’t confirm that. Tebow is not a great quarterback. That’s just all there is to it. The Broncos defense had a lot more to do with their success than anything Tebow did. But, if you remember, Tebow has been billed and continually built up to be a “football player.” And I do think he can be dangerous. I don’t remember if it was on Mike & Mike or The Grady & Big Joe Show,* but they made the point that, right now, if you see Tebow come out onto the field, you know he’s going to do something, which lets the defense key in and limits his effectiveness. *That’s a local 1070 show, if you didn’t know. It seems to me that the best option for the Jets right now is to keep Sanchez in as quarterback, but they need Tebow out there every snap. You can use him as an even more versatile Randall Cobb.* Line him up as a half or fullback. Line him up at tight end, or even as a wideout. Move him around the field, and he will draw defenders. And when he does get an opening, he’s still a very strong, athletic dude.** Give him the football in a little bit of space, he will get it done. And I do think he’s more solidly built than a lot of receivers, so I don’t worry about him taking hits. *If you haven’t seen what Cobb has been doing for the Packers, you might want to start paying attention. And snap him up for your fantasy team if he’s still available. **I guess I’m not totally sure what kind of hands Tebow has, but I’ll bet they’re pretty good. And, you know, once you line him up in those positions, you don’t necessarily have to use him like you would a typical running back/receiver. As much as he’s below average for a quarterback throwing the ball, he’s shown he can be serviceable. Run some gadget plays with him. Have him line up as a wideout, drop back, take a long lateral, then wing it downfield. It’s like a halfback pass, except with the chance to reap bigger rewards, and you’re using a guy who has spent some significant time playing quarterback in the NFL. And I’m sure the Jet coaching staff can come up with more creative ways to use in in that fashion that I could. And what’s the downside? I mean, your team is pretty well a lost cause at this point anyway. If it doesn’t work out, at least you tried something different than continually banging your head into a wall. As I’ve written here before, if you’re going to go down in flames, you should at least be entertaining about it. Even moreso in a market like New York. And if doing something out of the box like that doesn’t earn you serious cred in the coaching community and the media, they’re the ones who are broken. Come on, Rex Ryan. If any coach is going to pull this off, it’s you. I have faith! Comments are closed.
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