Awesome game! Lots of thoughts...

[Sperm Edwards]

I don’t post much during games in the game threads since I’m usually not home in front of a full keyboard, and am not a big cell phone typer, so I’m putting it all here for my 2 imaginary friends who might read something this unnecessariy long, lol.

What an immensely fun game to watch. 

For me - probably like many others - heading into this game I was looking at a handful of key people, but none of them would have mattered much if not for the most important among them. Then Darnold started out with the pick 6 across the body/field. All right, no one liked seeing it but - Skip Bayless aside (lol) - no one was seriously looking any more into it than an, “OK now that’s out of the way.” He settled down for the most part after that, which is supposedly one of his better qualities. He had a bunch of throws that were on the money, but some others - some where receivers bailed him out, some not - where he really wasn’t leading his receivers well. Even still, who cares. First career game, MNF (or even if it wasn’t) and anyone can have butterflies. Everyone knows he can throw better, and indeed he did settle down better as the game went on. 

First half, while we generally held the lead, was a combination of just being happy we weren’t losing in a “Darnold getting in his lumps” game, and yet at the same time the underlying thing that was hardly said by the worst announcing crew in memory: Stafford looked positively Hackenberg-esque. Throws were off throughout the whole game. And not to be outdone, when he wasn’t missing his targets, they were dropping them. While a couple were nice grabs - Lee’s 2nd in particular - they were just horrible throws where it looked like he was trying to throw to the Jets player. 

There isn’t much to get upset about in a rout win. Any are of course future concerns not current displeasure overall today.

    • Lee had a rough play or two in the first half (one in particular where he was easily tossed aside). Then the first half ended and he looked like a different player — my guess is this is what he looked like at OSU because I’d never seen it before from him. Time will tell if this continues or if he was just in a zone sparked by Stafford’s errant throwing. I didn’t realize until they flashed it on the screen that we held the NFL record for most consecutive games without a defensive TD until tonight. Glad it’s over lol. He had a solid 3-4 good plays in the 2nd half, including 2 picks (one returned for that TD). If he does even half that once or twice a month even, we’ll all happily overlook his getting easily pushed out of plays here & there.

    • I know others somehow see it differently, and the announcers were kind to him as well, but so far Trumaine Johnson looks nothing like a $14m corner. He was beaten comfortably on a couple of completions in particular, plus at leat one other incompletion on an errant pass or drop (forget which off the top of my head right now) where his coverage sucked. He did make a nice grab on his pick, though it was clearly a terrible throw not glue-like coverage, and then he coughed it up giving Detroit a fresh set of downs. Think Claiborne also got lucky on a would-be TD, but he overall he played better than TJ.

    • While the OL had some downs in particular where the pass blocking wasn’t so hot, they settled in nicely after that. Time will tell if this better play will be the norm, or if everyone on Detroit just lost all motivation after a while the way Stafford was playing (like when Sanchez and Geno or othersp previously looked so hopelessly bad at times for us); it infects and brings down the rest of the team, and it looked like this happened with them tonight. Detroit’s not great, but they’re not this bad either.

    • Playcalling: the 3rd & 1 (or was it 2?) end around attempt. Running backwards while we were only in long-FG range to begin with, in a close game… let’s leave it at: we won the game so hopefully it was a gross error in judgment that ultimately didn’t cost us, and he never does something this unnecessarily risky and dumb again. Hard to say how he would have called the rest of the game, but there’ll be plenty more games this year. As it was, the D and special teams scoring - plus a conservative-run-turned-60yd-TD - and some nice receiver grabs, with the line generally looking good, meant the offensive playcalling wasn’t really spotlighted (let alone scrutinized) today. Would he have gone into a shell early if McCown wasn’t barking in his face not to (following the opening pick 6)? We’ll never know, but maybe the way things turned out today will influence him not to do so going forward, even if he might have today. 

    • Adams had some up and down, but certainly more up than down. He got his first pick finally; by then it was meaningless beyond his personal stat line, though you’d think from his dance he just won the game by himself. He had a nice tackle behind the LOS in the first half, but seeing as he was untouched, he got all the credit for a play that was due more to the run getting stuffed to the right side and the back just being a sitting duck. Had Detroit’s OL cleared a lane then Adams wouldn’t have even been near the action. It’s a team sport, though, so what matters is the stop itself on a play resulting from group effort. Adams also made a nice strip on a might’ve-been TD pass, though in fairness the game was over at that point as well.

Other player notes:

    • After some early lapses in protection, the OL overall did a really good job giving Darnold adequate time most dropbacks. They played far better than expected in the ground game in particular. Hopefully that’s on them playing well not just Detroit playing heartlessly, since only 1 of those 2 things is of future use. 

    • Henry Anderson had just an outstanding first game. I think especially by the 2nd half a lot of the Lions team was just going through motions, so he’s not going to look like this every week, but he sure looked solid tonight. 

    • Was great to see Enunwa in a game that counted after a year off (sometimes it’s tough to get excited one way or the other about preseason performance). Darnold looked really comfortable throwing the ball his way. Pryor also had a really nice grab. Robby came down with a great catch on the bomb TD that was a little underthrown, making the coverage seem better than it was. He’s more than just fast.

Non-player game notes: 

   • The announcers. I don’t even need to elaborate (though I always do). I get they’re trying to expand the announcers’ gender pool from 1 to 2, and if she was decent no one would seriously care about a woman calling the game (ok maybe not no one, but their initial disgust would fade over time). But wtf was that? How is she the glass ceiling breaker? She’s got a grating voice that I guess is her trying to impersonate some guy - badly - and she just never sounded like she had a feel for the game. Her comatose partner-in-crime (Griese?) was no better. It was an unfortunate and unnecessary distraction from an otherwise crazy-enjoyable first Darnold game.

    • The refs. Two bad calls stick out for me. We got a rare gift on a completion that should have been overturned. The ball touched the ground and on replay it looked like it helped the catch so was more than incidental contact. Maybe it was a makeup call because the unsportsmanlike they handed to us for Nickerson for taunting, I think right around then, was total horse**** garbage. It’s an emotional sport where momentum is a factor. Guys try to psyche themselves into a zone every game, and that’s all this looked like. He didn’t lay his hands on anyone, he didn’t follow anyone flapping his mouth all the way to the other team’s sideline, he didn’t grab his jock and fake-spooge at Lions player(s) or fans, nor did he do anything that didn’t seem quite routine. The ref threw a flag like he was an elementary school gym teacher who stresses nonsense like it doesn’t matter if you win or lose. 

    • Patricia looks like a total ass. Maybe it’s the beard; maybe it’s that I know whom he coached under forever; maybe it was that stupid pencil tucked behind his ear so it looks like he knows how to write; maybe it was the dirty look on his face like he was constipated; and maybe it was his enormously fat gut that shows he has no personal self-control. Whatever it was, like Mangini in his first coaching gig (and then again in his 2nd one) I don’t think he gets that while he doesn’t have to be their BFF, the moody douche routine worked for Belichick (and others) when you’re a winner on your own. Doing it on a new team as a first year HC probably just makes everyone hate his constipated-looking fat beard face.
 

Overall, just a great game throughout, especially the laughable 3rd Q when we seemed to score a TD every 30 seconds for a while. Again, going into it, I would have been ok with a loss where Darnold looked just not-terrible and not-overwhelmed while getting in his requisite rookie lumps, and where no one got badly injured. This was quite a bit better. 

Go Jets!

[BROOKLYN JET]

Good start to the season, could not ask for much more.

They need to steam roll the fish next.

[RutgersJetFan]

HOT TAKES BITCHES.

[LionelRichie]

this game just got away from detroit and patricia showed his inexperience in not being able to stop the momentum.   the lions looked terrible and i have no idea what their game plan was.  the jets OL looked great tonight and darnold was even more of a stud than i expected.  

i think the 17-17 in the 3rd was more of a realistic sense of where this team ultimately is but i couldn't be happier with overall result.   Really fired up for the sunday game which is more than I can say for a week 2 in recent memory.   

[Sperm Edwards]

3 minutes ago, RutgersJetFan said:

HOT TAKES BITCHES.

The hottest

[Villain The Foe]

Putting in my vote for "Coach Of The Year" for Josh McCown. 

[Scoop24]

What Downs did Adams have ? 

[RutgersJetFan]

13 minutes ago, Sperm Edwards said:

The hottest

My biggest take from the game is that I completely forgot we had Quincy Enunwa.

[Sperm Edwards]

7 minutes ago, LionelRichie said:

this game just got away from detroit and patricia showed his inexperience in not being able to stop the momentum.   the lions looked terrible and i have no idea what their game plan was.  the jets OL looked great tonight and darnold was even more of a stud than i expected.  

i think the 17-17 in the 3rd was more of a realistic sense of where this team ultimately is but i couldn't be happier with overall result.   Really fired up for the sunday game which is more than I can say for a week 2 in recent memory.   

Yeah it was crazy. Fun to watch, but a Lee pick 6 plus 4 other picks plus a return TD isn’t likely to happen again this season (let alone become at all commonplace). 

[RESNewYork]

26 minutes ago, Sperm Edwards said:

  • Adams had some up and down, but certainly more up than down. He got his first pick finally; by then it was meaningless beyond his personal stat line, though you’d think from his dance he just won the game by himself. He had a nice tackle behind the LOS in the first half, but seeing as he was untouched, he got all the credit for a play that was due more to the run getting stuffed to the right side and the back just being a sitting duck. Had Detroit’s OL cleared a lane then Adams wouldn’t have even been near the action. It’s a team sport, though, so what matters is the stop itself on a play resulting from group effort. Adams also made a nice strip on a might’ve-been TD pass, though in fairness the game was over at that point as well.

Adams played well last season. Adams played well last night. 1 game does not make a season but this reads like a an Adams detractor who makes excuses for his solid play.

Picks count because it stops the offense from scoring. Every pick tonight was celebrated.

Pass breakup at the end zone counts, pass breakup covering a WR up the sideline deep counts

Tackles for loss count. Defenders don't play one on eleven. 

[Saul Goodman]

7 minutes ago, RutgersJetFan said:

My biggest take from the game is that I completely forgot we had Quincy Enunwa.

Just picked him up for my fantasy team. I never draft or pick up Jet players. 

[RutgersJetFan]

1 minute ago, Sperm Edwards said:

Yeah it was crazy. Fun to watch, but a Lee pick 6 plus 4 other picks plus a return TD isn’t likely to happen again this season (let alone become at all commonplace). 

This is where I'm at. Great win but it's clear the Jets got incredibly lucky with that game today. It's easy to get over a pick-6 when every single other break for the rest of the game goes your way but it rarely works out like that. It's really hard to take much from this game with Detroit handing the whole thing over. Like when Darron ******* Lee has two picks and scores a touchdown, you know something is up.

[Gas2No99]

So . . . you DID or DIDN'T Like the new White Face Masks? 

[Paradis]

I read the whole thing.

[Sperm Edwards]

9 minutes ago, Gas2No99 said:

So . . . you DID or DIDN'T Like the new White Face Masks? 

Like I said, I didn’t post in the game thread, but my impulse after Darnold’s pick-6 was to post something like, “OK now I’m good with a uniform change. Get the new ones in here already before the green infects and ruins this poor kid for good.” 

[JohnnyLV]

touching the ground even moving after it hits the ground is irrelevant now in terms of a catch...no one seems to get the new catch rule

[cant wait]

lee looks a lot better with a better run stopping MLB next to him, he has sideline to sideline speed in coverage. adams made a couple splash plays, one on a run blitz and one on the hit on tate in the end zone, also had his 1st career pick. D Line play was stifling, and the lions OL was considered one of the better units in the league. Trumaine Johnson is a beast. Nickerson had a couple nice plays and an extremely stupid taunting penalty on 3rd down. Enunwa is the slot beast he was before the injury. and THE KID IS GOOD

[Sperm Edwards]

6 minutes ago, johnnysd said:

touching the ground even moving after it hits the ground is irrelevant now in terms of a catch...no one seems to get the new catch rule

It looked more like the other new “rule”: they’re going to really try to cut down on overturning plays called on the field. If they’d called it incomplete I don’t think they would have overturned that challenge either.

[Sperm Edwards]

5 minutes ago, cant wait said:

lee looks a lot better with a better run stopping MLB next to him, he has sideline to sideline speed in coverage. adams made a couple splash plays, one on a run blitz and one on the hit on tate in the end zone, also had his 1st career pick. D Line play was stifling, and the lions OL was considered one of the better units in the league. Trumaine Johnson is a beast. Nickerson had a couple nice plays and an extremely stupid taunting penalty on 3rd down. Enunwa is the slot beast he was before the injury. and THE KID IS GOOD

The stupid part of the Nickerson taunting penalty was the ref throwing the flag at all on it.

Trumaine Johnson didn’t look anything like a beast today. Hopefully he will, though, because he was beaten by his man 3-4x today even while missing a good chunk of the game.

Agree on the rest.

[JohnnyLV]

38 minutes ago, Sperm Edwards said:

Yeah it was crazy. Fun to watch, but a Lee pick 6 plus 4 other picks plus a return TD isn’t likely to happen again this season (let alone become at all commonplace). 

We STILL scored 34 points on offense.

[Sperm Edwards]

3 minutes ago, johnnysd said:

We STILL scored 34 points on offense.

Technically, 31, unless you want to credit the offense with the interception that gave them field position in FG range. Plus I’m not taking points off the board for us, but Detroit already looked deflated before that point.

Hey it’s still great to see (nice to see us piling on even more towards then end, for a change; we’re more accustomed to seeing it the other way around).

[Defense Wins Championships]

Great post overall but I disagree with the assessment of Trumaine Johnson. He's not Revis but he was a blanket out there outside of a few plays. There's a strong reason on why the Rams franchise tagged him throughout two consecutive years and it's because he's one of the top 1-3 man on man coverage CB's within the entire league. 

Matthew Stafford dropped back and threw the ball damn near 50x (46) so of course you're going to see his WR's breaking open from time to time but for the most part both of Trumaine/Claiborne played their asses off. 

[kevinc855]

The Adams point is way off. Dude made a play, stop looking for every hole possible in the team man lol

[rangerous]

i didn't watch the game but it almost sounds like it turned out too good.  they only have a few days to get ready for the next one and then even fewer for the next.  these will be the telling games.  can they recover from a win as well as a loss?  the previous jets teams seemed to have trouble doing both.

but it does sound like darnold is as good as advertised.  recovering from a pick six is huge. he didn't have gawdy stats but better than we've seen for a long time.  and it does look like the defense had detroit's number.  stafford is not a bad qb and they held him down pretty well.

too early to see where this is heading but winning 9 out of the next 15 is easier than winning 10 out of 16.

[Dunnie]

The Jets absolutely mauled the bills in a similar fashion a few years ago in a week one season opener ... I think they went 5-11 or something that year. The only point I'm trying to make is that season openers are not always a great indicator of things to come.

 

Still hella fun to watch.

 

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[prime21]

#33

If this didn't happen then...

If that didn't happen then....

?

[genot]

Oh where, oh where are the Lee, Adams ,and Williams detractors. Come out and post. Give credit where credits do. Parry Nickerson. Thanks Mac.

[genot]

19 minutes ago, Dunnie said:

The Jets absolutely mauled the bills in a similar fashion a few years ago in a week one season opener ... I think they went 5-11 or something that year. The only point I'm trying to make is that season openers are not always a great indicator of things to come.

 

Still hella fun to watch.

 

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

Doing it in a home teams opener, in a dome stadium, with a rookie QB, is very impressive.

[ECURB]

6 hours ago, Villain The Foe said:

Putting in my vote for "Coach Of The Year" for Josh McCown. 

I would even say they should add a year to his deal.

[bla bla bla]

I also agree on Trumaine Johnson, I’d say it was slightly underwhelming for what I was expecting. He got burnt a bit on crossing routes, might be losing a touch of speed but with them throwing as much as they did he is bound to get beat a few times.

There absolutely should have been a review of Nickerson’s INT, was pretty confident that toe tapped in.

I cant wait to see this team with Maye back in coverage and adding an edge. Great all around win for the entire team.

[GREENBEAN]

“MAkes everyone hate is constipated looking fat beard face”.
One of the finest lines I’ve ever read on JN ... period!


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[Philc1]

30 minutes ago, genot said:

Oh where, oh where are the Lee, Adams ,and Williams detractors. Come out and post. Give credit where credits do. Parry Nickerson. Thanks Mac.

They all played really well as did Skrine.  Adding Trumaine Johnson was huge he’s a legit #1 Cover Corner so he can take the other team’s best wr in man on man and free up everyone else

[HighPitch]

With the jets suddenly winning time of possesion, darnolds slow but steady marches, our D was fresh and not winded. Thats a new thing

[Philc1]

Just now, HighPitch said:

With the jets suddenly winning time of possesion, darnolds slow but steady marches, our D was fresh and not winded. Thats a new thing

Offensive Line deserves a ton of credit they opened up holes all over the place last night

[genot]

17 minutes ago, Philc1 said:

They all played really well as did Skrine.  Adding Trumaine Johnson was huge he’s a legit #1 Cover Corner so he can take the other team’s best wr in man on man and free up everyone else

Sometimes it takes a while for the light bulb to go on. In the NFL you can't wait too long. Writing off a Lee, who has incredible speed and athleticism after only two years, was a little harsh.