Jets, Giants Preseason Observations

With two of the four meaningless NFL preseason games in the books, the two New York teams are right where we thought they’d be: the Super Bowl champion-Giants look pretty good while the Jets, to put it nicely, have plenty of room for improvement.

Granted it’s just the Jets offense that gives the team a poor overall grade, but zero touchdowns through two games is cause for alarm. “It’s hard to find many positives,” said Jets head coach Rex Ryan after the 26–3 loss to the Giants Saturday night, according to the team’s website.

We’re going to try to find some positives here for the Jets but here are some observations from the two teams after their MetLife Bowl clash Saturday night:

1. Quinton Coples is looking like a good pick already. This writer, admittedly, wasn’t too thrilled with Jets picking a defensive player in the first round whose main reported weakness was “lacking a motor” but motor or no motor, he’s made an impact. Coples had a sack and two quarterback hits against the G-men Saturday. In the opener against Cincy, the North Carolina product had another sack, two tackles for losses, and a pass deflection.

2. The Giants defensive line is as we expected—very good. Against Jacksonville the team had six sacks overall and in the MetLife Bowl against the Jets, Sanchez and Tebow went down a combined seven times. Pierre-Paul had two sacks Saturday, while undrafted free agent defensive end Adewale Ojomo also recorded a pair. Of course, the Jets have a clear pass protection weakness on one side of the line, which brings us to the next point.

3. The Jets don’t look better at right tackle. This is the elephant in the room. Wayne Hunter filled in all right at right tackle toward the end of 2010, but had some real problems last year. Somehow, someway those issues were never addressed in the offseason—the hope was that Hunter would improve for 2012. Saturday night though saw the big guy get beat three times for sacks (a fourth was waved off due to a penalty elsewhere) in just one half.

4. David Wilson looks good. The rookie running back from Virginia Tech had 69 yards on 15 carries through two games and clearly looks comfortable and fast with the ball. He seems to have a knack for falling forward and finishing his runs well. This is great news for the Giants, especially since Bradshaw has an injured hand and Jacobs is gone.

5. Sanchez and Tebow are obviously having problems moving the ball. This shouldn’t a complete surprise as the two are learning Sparano’s new offense, their top two receivers haven’t really played, and time to get rid of the ball in their ever-collapsing pocket has been limited, but there’re only two games left until the regular season. Most fans were hoping Tebow’s presence would really push the talented-Sanchez while Tebow would highlight the ground-and-pound offense. Hopefully the offense gets healthy soon and Jets fans will see what they have.

6. Rueben Randle and Jayron Hosley are looking good as well. The Giants second-round pick, Randle, hauled in a 49-yarder from David Carr in the second half. Hosley, a cornerback, had the play of the game as he undercut a route, intercepted a Sanchez pass, and ran 77 yards for a score.

The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.