Tuesday, October 21, 2008

To Be a Sports Writer, You Should Understand Sports

Filip Bondy: I guess he doesn't understand any sport.

"The Jets' special teams appeared clueless on a pivotal fake punt, for one thing, which is indisputably a coaching failure." The Jets had run the punt-block call instead of punt-cover the previous two Oakland punts, so Tom Cable took advantage of that (Jets ran punt-block on the fake too)*. Sure, you could say that Mangini or Westhoff should not have dialed up that play, but it was a good call by Cable too.

"Why, exactly, did the Jets get Favre if they weren't going to let him be Favre?" Maybe so that defenses have to respect the long ball and not play 8 men in the box? So the cornerbacks and safeties don't play 5 yards off the line of scrimmage? Good passing quarterbacks open up the running game as well.

"It is impossible to overstate the importance of this defeat to Oakland..." I think I can overstate it: "This loss will cause the Jets franchise to collapse." Not overstated? How about this: "The Jets loss is going to cause humanity to end."

If you're going to use hyperbole, please make it interesting at least.

"Not a word was spoken in anger or with a sense of urgency, even as the calendar and the standings scream for something different." OK, so you want Mangini to get desperate and crazy and angry? Deviate from his game plan? Can you say "cool under pressure"? I happen to love when the coach is calm, cool, and collected in the face of adversity.

My favorite part of this column is the non-mention of the miscommunication on Favre's 2nd interception. Cotchery stopped for a 8-yard-or-so hook, Favre threw it deep under pressure. I guess Favre can do no wrong these days.

* Watch the return team linemen sometime on a punt. 80% of the time, you'll see only 1, maybe 2 guys trying hard to block the punt. The other guys are covering the punting team's linemen. That's a punt-cover.

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