By Glenn Naughton<\/p>\n
With the start of the 2014 season just around the corner, Jets players and fans are anxious to see the impact that new additions WR Eric Decker, RB Chris Johnson, QB Michael Vick, and rookie TE\u00a0 Jace\u00a0Amaro\u00a0will have on what was an anemic\u00a0offense in 2013.\u00a0\u00a0However, one key player remaining from last years 8-8 team is fourth year WR Jeremy Kerley\u00a0who developed a solid rapport with quarterback Geno Smith before suffering a week nine elbow injury against the New Orleans Saints.\u00a0\u00a0With\u00a0Kerley on the shelf for four weeks, the Jets turned in some of their worst offensive performances of the season.<\/p>\n
Immediately following the\u00a0injury to Kerley, the Jets\u00a0suffered their\u00a0worst losing streak of the season when they dropped three straight against Buffalo, Baltimore and Miami.\u00a0 In those games, the Jets offense produced a total of 20 points and were held to a lone FG\u00a0in both the Baltimore and Miami games.\u00a0 While the Jets offense was nothing to marvel at, it’s worth mentioning that when Kerley\u00a0was healthy, the Jets posted an 8-4 record and averaged 21 ppg.\u00a0\u00a0When Kerley wasn’t on the field, the Jets were 0-4 and\u00a0averaged a meager 7.5 ppg.<\/p>\n
Having\u00a0upgraded the offense with both proven and potential playmakers, Kerley\u00a0is likely to have more room\u00a0to roam\u00a0out of the slot where he can continue to work underneath and use his quickness to gain separation on short and intermediate routes.\u00a0 As Geno Smith’s favorite target last season, Kerley\u00a0may get the opportunity to cement his reputation as one of the league’s top possession receivers.<\/p>\n
Of his 43 receptions last year,\u00a030\u00a0resulted in first downs, and\u00a0 his week six performance against the Patriots provided a glimpse\u00a0in to just how effective Kerley\u00a0can be\u00a0when he hauled in a season-high eight passes, six of which were good for first downs.\u00a0 The 30 points the Jets put on the board that week was one of their most productive games of the season as Kerley continually beat New England’s schemes all night.<\/p>\n
Clearly the Jets will look\u00a0to have\u00a0a more productive offense this season, and if Kerley is able to stay healthy and continue to develop a strong chemistry with Geno Smith, it may be the “old guy” out-shining the new ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Glenn Naughton With the start of the 2014 season just around the corner, Jets players and fans are anxious to see the impact that new additions WR Eric Decker, RB Chris Johnson, QB Michael Vick, and rookie TE\u00a0 Jace\u00a0Amaro\u00a0will have on what was an anemic\u00a0offense in 2013.\u00a0\u00a0However, one key player remaining from last years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":21840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1337],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured-editorials","8":"category-home-slider"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/kerley.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-6OY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26225,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26224\/revisions\/26225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}