For several years now Jets fans have been spending their Sundays watching some of the most inept quarterback play in the NFL.\u00a0 From Mark Sanchez consistently ranking among the league leaders in interceptions, to Geno Smith who seems destined to follow in Sanchez’s footsteps.\u00a0 As\u00a0a rookie, Smith threw 21 interceptions and is currently on pace to end up in the same ballpark this season, averaging just over one interception per game.\u00a0 Smith is also tied for the NFL lead in fumbles with five, but has been fortunate enough to lose only two of those.<\/p>\n
Despite the numbers however, many fans have pointed to the fact, and rightfully so, that like Sanchez, Geno Smith has had a lack of\u00a0viable targets and spotty pass protection.\u00a0 Two developments from this past Sunday’s game could help address some of those\u00a0issues.\u00a0 A breakout performance from a key rookie, and a season ending injury to LG Brian Winters.<\/p>\n
One of the few bright spots in this past Sunday’s loss to Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos was the emergence of rookie tight end Jace Amaro.\u00a0 The Texas Tech product established career highs catches (10), and yards (68)and also scored his first NFL touchdown.\u00a0 Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg made good on his pre-season promise of\u00a0using Amaro in multiple positions throughout the formation and it worked.\u00a0 Amaro lined up at WR in bunch formations, in the slot, and split out wide.\u00a0 His best performance to date was good enough for opposing defensive coordinators to take notice.<\/p>\n
If Amaro can become a legitimate factor for\u00a0 the offense while lining up at TE\/WR, Eric Decker can stay healthy, and Jeremy Kerley starts getting his number called again, then the “no weapons” argument doesn’t have as much credibility.\u00a0 This isn’t meant to imply that Amaro’s production should make the Jets an offensive juggernaut, but we’ll no longer be worrying that Geno Smith’s top targets\u00a0are Stephen\u00a0 Hill, David Nelson, Greg Salas, and a wildly inconsistent Jeff Cumberland.\u00a0 The trio would represent an upgrade for Smith, and thus, one would expect improved production from the signal caller.<\/p>\n
While Sunday was\u00a0a great day for Amaro, the same can’t be said for starting LG Brian Winters.\u00a0 Winters suffered a torn ACL that landed him on season-ending injured reserve.\u00a0 While Winters has been plugged in to start at LG since early last season, the results haven’t been impressive.\u00a0 While he has flashed some run blocking ability, his pass protection has been suspect at best.\u00a0 Currently, PFF has credited Winters with allowing twelve quarterback\u00a0 hurries which is tops in the league, along with\u00a03 QB hits and one sack.\u00a0 It was Winters’ missed block against Green Bay that led to the game changing hit on Geno Smith that resulted in a Packers interception just before halftime.<\/p>\n
With Winters sidelined for the remainder of the season, fellow\u00a0second-year lineman Oday Aboushi will be asked to step in and take his spot.\u00a0 Aboushi did an admirable job in pass protection last\u00a0week and didn’t allow any pressures\u00a0on 20 pass plays according to PFF.\u00a0 Conversely, Winters did allow a\u00a0QB hit and a hurry on 29 pass plays against the same group of defenders.\u00a0 If Aboushi, a converted college tackle like Winters, can offer at upgrade at the position, the\u00a0contributions of Amaro could give Jets fans a glimpse in to the kind of player Geno Smith is when he has a little more time and much improved targets.\u00a0 After years of futility, fans are ready for some clarity.\u00a0 Is it the QB, or is it the weapons?\u00a0 With a short week before taking on the Patriots in New England this Thursday night, Jets fans won’t have to wait long to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For several years now Jets fans have been spending their Sundays watching some of the most inept quarterback play in the NFL.\u00a0 From Mark Sanchez consistently ranking among the league leaders in interceptions, to Geno Smith who seems destined to follow in Sanchez’s footsteps.\u00a0 As\u00a0a rookie, Smith threw 21 interceptions and is currently on pace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":26700,"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-26692","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\/2014\/10\/Amaro.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-6Ww","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692","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=26692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26703,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692\/revisions\/26703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}