First off, I hate the Jets....more than any single team in the NFL. But I have to give them props for last year. Ryan had a LOT to do with it....with his scheme that made everyone on the field a potential sacker of the QB. With more quality man cover corners traded for (Cromartie) and drafted (Wilson), I see them as an even more dangerous team than last year.....at least on defense. Enter Mike Nolan to Miami. His impact on the Broncos last year was yet another reminder of his defensive expertise. He made Dumerville a star in 1 year. My question is really, can he have the same impact on this roster as Ryan did with his new squad last year? I see the potential in Wake, Misi, Starks (on the nose ala Ratliff) and Dansby but will we see the results?
Been saying since we signed him, Nolan is our best pickup this off season. Just as much, if not more than, Marshall or Dansby even though both of those are huge. Nolan will make our defense a LOT more fun to watch, and keep the defense from giving away games like they did last year. I just hope Nolan of Miami in 2010 = Nolan of Denver of 2009, that would be enough to get us deep into the playoffs IMVHO.
Good point on Nolan of 2009. I really like the personel on this defense. Sure, it's a little "iffy" in the secondary but I think our young corners are keepers and I expect improvement over last year. Clemons....as stated many times on this board no doubt....is a HUGE question mark at the FS position. Instincts, not speed, is the #1 positional trait to have at that position, IMO, so here's hoping he comes into his own this year. Because if he does, that'll free up Nolan to unleash his mirade of blitz pkgs from all over the field. A no one wants a repeat of last year where we gave up HUGE play after HUGE play. Cheap points, we simply cannot do that again this season.
We have two HUGE holes on defense. Mike Nolan's great defense gave up 21 or more points 10 times in 2005 9 times in 2006 8 times in 2007 7 times in 8 games in 2008 then was canned.Can you guess why lol His best year of late was in 2009 when his team only gave up 21 points 6 times in 16 games. So going by his pass 5 years of recent work we have about a 1 in 5 chance that his defense will play as well as our Offense should. SO the odds are we will miss the playoffs and it will be because of a very young defense with a guy who's running it on his last legs as a NFL coordinator. That's where the smart money is! I'm sure the talking heads of the site will say others wise...as Vagas takes their money once again.
I really like Nolan, but I put him a step below Ryan as a DC. That being said I think we will see a huge turn around from our defense. Denver had the 30th ranked defense the year before he got there and the 7th ranked defense his first year there. More importantly, that defense went from allowing 7.7 YPA to allowing 6.3 YPA. In SF, their pass defense declined the first year (I think b/c of the roster turnover), but then improved each year thereafter. In Baltimore, a #2 defense was steady his first year and then declined the subsequent years, but IMO that was mostly due to injuries and aging/declining talent on the team rather than Nolan. IMO the biggest factor will be the quality of the FS play. If we see any improvement that approaches the magnitude of the improvement in Denver we'll be a playoff team.
Where do you get a 1-in-5 chance from? If anything, those stats show a trend that Nolan's defenses have been getting slightly better every season and that in 2010, the team should have 5 games of 21 or more points. maybe he is getting wiser in his old age. Either way, it's absurd to compare all those seasons since it was across multiple seasons, multiple teams and very different personel playing different opponents.
I think it means that our average for scoring is @ 21 points per game (about right in my guesstimation). Nolan's defense has allowed more than that each season X amount of times (ergo, we lose those games). If you subtract X from a 16 game season, you'll come up with more non playoff years than not... I thought it was a pretty astute observation and an unusually relevant statistic...It definitely shows you the other side of the coin. Then again, I tend to get uneasy when there's too much praise being tossed around...
Nolan's average finish is 14th, which is a massive improvement over 09 and 08. As for "Nolan is Ryan of 2010" Keep in mind the Jets poured money into their linebacking corps the way the Phins poured money into the Oline, the Jest had better original material than Nolan has in Miami. That is unless Charlie Anderson discovers his inner James Harrison.
Best running game, best defense, best WRs, best conditioning prorgam, and now the best defensive mind in the league, and it can only get you 7-7 (in real games) and swept by the lowly Dolphins? Hilarious. Belichek, Lebeau, and Capers have all done ALOT more in the league, just to name a few. And Rexy's defensive mind seemed to have a hard time w/ the Wildcat until Greg Williams (another more accomplished coach) showed him how to attack it. When Rex has a few more years under his belt, and his assistants start earning head coaching jobs all over the NFL, then you can come back and claim he's the best defensive mind. Without being embarassingly wrong .
Okay. Rex is the best right now. I don't think that's too absurd of a statement. If you take a step back and see what he's done the past five years, it's pretty impressive. His defenses never ranked lower than 6th while he was DC in Baltimore. In his latter years there, he had an excellent pass-rushing unit and lousy cornerbacks. He comes to the Jets, and he has the best CB on the planet and a lousy pass-rushing unit. He needed to make some adjustments; as you can see, he is a mastermind at tailoring his system to the players he is dealt. And he took a middle-of-the-pack [that's putting it very kindly] Jets defense in 2008 and made them #1 in his FIRST YEAR. That is truly amazing. Granted they signed Scott and some other players, but you have to admit that is an impressive feat. Sure.
Well PS the 2010 do not "need" Ryan's defense, not at all. The SparanoPhins are a clone of the 1990/2007 Giants, we do not need a shut down defense, we merely need a Competent one that does not allow quick scores on long plays, if Nolan can manage that then Ricky and Ronnie can grind the clock and win games. What sank the Phins in 09 was quite simply the Defense would allow a quick score after a 8 minute drive by the offense, eliminate that from happening and the Dolphins will be a bear to deal with in 2010. That and I love the fact there should be some competition between Nolan and Ryan as for a year or two or so, Nolan was Ryan's Boss in Baltimore which should make for Top Dawggie Competition when we meet. BTW, how is Cromartie's hip doing these days?
We don't need him, but it wouldn't hurt to have him coaching our defense. He's really a great defensive mind and does a great job of motivating the hell out of you.
Interesting. I wasn't as excited as a lot of people were about Nolan but I'm hopeful that we have a lot of young talent he can use hopefully. Our defense has been lacking a lot of playmaking as well as a killer instinct, maybe he can get these young guys to make plays and finish games we will see. I do think with the youngsters we have on defense we are going to have score a lot of points to make the playoffs.
Different years, different teams, different job for Nolan in 2009 and just how much credit or blame do you hand to Mike Singletary?
