Favre, defense need to come up big against Chargers-SNY

[Kentucky Jet]

09/19/2008 11:57 AM ET

For Jets, Monday night is a new chance

Favre, defense need to come up big against Chargers

By Michael Salfino / SNY.tv

If the Jets want a win on Monday night, they should give Brett Favre a bigger role on offense. (AP)

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We're all thinking it, so we have to ask the question: Same old Jets?

I'm not ready to make that call coming off of the disappointing loss in the home opener last week to the Tom Brady-less Patriots. That game was a lost opportunity. That means the Jets have to pick off a game we expected them to lose somewhere along the way over these next three months to make up for it. They get a chance to bounce back right away and do exactly that Monday night against the 0-2 Chargers in Qualcomm Stadium.

San Diego has had the worst start imaginable -- a loss on a last-second TD pass through quadruple coverage and then two horrendous blown calls that replay couldn't reverse (once due to equipment failure), including a would-be decisive last-minute fumble, to cost them a dramatic road win in Denver. The Chargers in that game averaged 11.1 yards per pass attempt (YPA) compared to 6.7 for the Broncos. When you have that kind of differential here, you win about 99.5 percent of the time -- no exaggeration.

San Diego is an angry team right now, and Vegas, at least, thinks that anger is constructive in football, as they've made the Chargers 10-point favorites, essentially discounting Brett Favre's great history on Monday Night Football.

The Chargers are top-five right now in a bevy of key offensive stats: yards per game, yards per play, YPA, sack rate and kickoff return average (where Darren Sproles is lethal).

Defensively, though, San Diego is hurting while adapting to life without All-Pro defensive end Shawne Merriman, the key to their scheme. The Chargers also are last in sack percentage and 31st in interception rate. Those stats often run on parallel tracks. And they're bottom five in allowing yards, rushing yards per play and first downs.

So Brett Favre can do some damage with this Jets offense if the coaching staff and playcallers loosen the reigns.

Favre is like a big-time shooter in basketball. If he's hot, you have him keep throwing. And if he's not hot, you have him keep throwing until he gets hot. Turn him into a game manager and you get the worst of both worlds -- game-changing negative plays without the chance to dig himself out of trouble in his patented Helter Skelter, largely improvisational manner.

Last year, the Packers won 13 games while Favre threw more than 500 passes. Not counting the two games he mostly missed due to injury and rest, Favre averaged 36 attempts per game. In his first two Jets game, he's averaged 24.

Last year in Green Bay, Favre threw on first down in the first and second quarters (when the score doesn't significantly impact playcalling) about 58 percent of the time. This year thus far for the Jets, again in the first half only, the Jets have called pass plays a paltry 33 percent of the time. This is pathetically conservative. And the running game still isn't good, with Thomas Jones on his last legs and D'Brickashaw Ferguson remaining weak at the point of attack.

Jones, in fact, should have scored on that third-and-goal run that everyone is criticizing. All he needed to do was either follow his fullback or slide off tackle, where the pulling guard was about to engulf the safety who was the only outside containment on the play. Or he could cut back right into the arms of Richard Seymour, which is what he did. Jones knows he's lost a step and isn't looking to bounce things outside anymore.

I need to address that Keystone Cops sack at the end of the game when Adalius Thomas dumped Leon Washington, like a child trying to stop a grown man, and Farve at once. Let's not see Dustin Keller and Leon Washington on the field at the same time again, because blitzing Keller's side as he's racing into his pattern will pave the way for this kind of mismatch every time. Put fullback Tony Richardson in as a blocker when you want to exploit Keller's athleticism at tight end.

The Jets finally got rid of Ben Graham and replaced him with Reggie Hodges, who says he's "not a black punter but a punter who punts for God." Whatever, Reggie. How about some hang time for the Almighty? The Jets have had the most pathetic array of punters the last 35 years, when you figure they'd have found one boomer by accident. Graham last week arguably cost the Jets the game, relative to the Pats punter (Chris Hanson) who was blasting them high and far.

Prediction time: The Chargers are no doubt in a nasty mood. But the loss of Merriman and the compromised status of LaDainian Tomlinson cannot be discounted. Add in Antonio Gates, who was forced to wear a sandal after last week's game because of his surgically repaired toe and is definitely less than 100 percent (though still productive).

But the Chargers will score, despite the Jets improved defense. Tomlinson will play through his turf toe and Sproles is very explosive in a Leon Washington-like way if the pain again becomes too much to bear. So the Jets need to match them and I don't think the team is committed enough to an aggressive attack to win a high-scoring game. If the Jets try to win this game with their running game and defense, they're dead. And I think they'll try this for one more week before making the necessary adjustments. So, Chargers 27, Jets 17.

Michael Salfino is a nationally syndicated columnist and analyst.