Gang Green Nation
Let’s talk about takeaways from the Jets’ preseason opening win over the Green Bay Packers.
This should calm some nerves about the offense.
As I said yesterday, Justin Fields’ performance in the preseason isn’t anything worth getting too high or too low over. But that goes double for what happens on the practice field during training camp.
In the week leading up to this preseason opener, there was a lot of discussion of a string of poor practices by Fields and what this meant for the offense.
Look, I’m excited the Jets are playing again too. It can be tough to find interesting angles to analyze the team. Still, it’s getting a bit out of hand the way training camp is scrutinized.
Camp and the exhibition games exist to help teams train for the regular season and work through problems on both sides of the ball. Somewhere along the way this has been forgotten, and the mere process of working through issues is now treated as a crisis.
Fields might end up succeeding or failing as Jets quarterback, but a solid preseason game should show us the absurdity of the breathless coverage of training camp stats.
This seems like the plan…sort of.
The starters for the Jets and the Packers did not play for very long on Saturday night. Still, it was obvious that the Jets’ starters were crisp, and the Packers’ starters were not.
Was this a function of the tough training camp Aaron Glenn has put the Jets through? It’s probably a stretch to say that based on a couple of series.
Still, I think this resembles what the Jets want to see in the early part of the regular season. The hope is that Glenn’s tough camp will have the team playing at a higher level than the opposition the first couple of weeks when everybody is still figuring things out.
Penalties aren’t a big concern.
In an all around outstanding performance, there wasn’t much to complain about for the Jets. One of the few exceptions would be penalties. The Jets had 10 flags thrown on them for 91 yards.
This might bring back memories of the undisciplined football of a year ago under Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich.
It’s understandable to think that way, but this is different. It is August. Players are still working their way back into football shape. Things tend to be sloppy this time of year. Many of the players who committed the penalties won’t play a big role for the Jets or even be on the roster this year. There are other factors in preseason that naturally lead to a high penalty count, like the way offensive lines are shuffled series to series.
The only genuine issue I had was the series where the Jets took two personal fouls to help the Packers get a field goal. That has to change. Everything else is natural for August.
