Few players\u00a0on the current Jets roster should be more tuned in to Woody Johnson, Charley Casserly, Ron Wolf and Neil Glat’s coaching search than outside linebacker\/defensive end\/defensive tackle Quinton Coples.\u00a0 The former first round pick out of the University of North Carolina has had a turbulent introduction to life in the NFL for a myriad of reasons and has yet to become the\u00a0player the Jets hoped he would when they drafted him with the 16th overall selection in the 2012 draft.<\/p>\n
As a rookie, Coples’ playing time was limited as he was utilized in multiple positions along the defensive line but started only two games.\u00a0 His part-time role saw him compile 30 tackles and 5.5 sacks.\u00a0 Fairly\u00a0respectable production from a\u00a0youngster with somewhat limited opportunities.\u00a0 In season two Coples underwent a transition from the defensive line to outside linebacker.\u00a0 Add an ankle injury early in training camp to the role\u00a0change and what you had, was\u00a0a player trying to learn the nuances of\u00a0 a new position on the fly while hobbled with an injury for much of the early part of the season.\u00a0 The result was a pedestrian 38 tackles and just 4.5 sacks, but expectations were raised as Coples managed at least one sack in four of the last five games to close out the season.\u00a0 The late surge in production left room for optimism heading toward 2014.<\/p>\n
Entering the 2014 season, Coples was healthy, at an ideal playing weight<\/a>, had a year under his belt at OLB, and a full off-season to prepare.\u00a0 Despite all of that, and his strong finish to 2013, the results weren’t much better than the previous season.\u00a0 In 2014, he managed just 35 tackles and saw a slight bump in sacks with 6.5, a career best.\u00a0 While Coples earned high praise coming out of college\u00a0due to his\u00a0size at 6′ 6”\/280lbs\u00a0and uncanny versatility<\/a>,\u00a0it could be argued that his ability to play multiple positions has stunted\u00a0 his growth thus far.\u00a0 At this point, any fans holding out hope\u00a0for\u00a0Coples to eventually “break out” won’t\u00a0have any other\u00a0way to explain\u00a0his underwhelming and inconsistent\u00a0play thus far.<\/p>\n With Seahawks Defensive Coordinator\u00a0Dan Quinn and Buffalo Bills’ former Head Coach Doug Marrone rumored to be the current front-runners for the Jets’ coaching vacancy, Coples may have reason to be excited.\u00a0 Both coaches come from teams that employed a 4-3 defense in 2014.\u00a0 Another candidate, Arizona Defensive Coordinator Todd Bowles\u00a0used a 3-4 look this past season.\u00a0 If either\u00a0Quinn or Marrone get the nod and choose to use a 4-3, Coples may find himself once again playing with his hand in the dirt.\u00a0 While\u00a0he has been inconsistent since entering the league three years ago, many feel\u00a0Coples has done his best work up front\u00a0as a defensive lineman, and\u00a0the numbers support that opinion.<\/p>\n For example, while filling in at DE for an injured Muhammad Wilkerson from weeks 13-15 this season, Coples was credited with 6 hits on the quarterback, compared to only five QB hits over the other 13 games in which he played OLB.\u00a0 Clearly\u00a0he would have more opportunities to rush the quarterback\u00a0from the DE position as pass coverage would be a rarity, but not at a ratio that one would expect three games to exceed the results yielded over the remaining 13 contests.<\/p>\n Position changes are nothing new to Coples.\u00a0 As a defensive lineman in college\u00a0he was moved back and forth from defensive end to defensive tackle and excelled at both.\u00a0 Playing DT as a Junior, Coples was All-ACC\u00a0logging 59 tackles and 10 sacks.\u00a0 Despite that success,\u00a0he was moved back to\u00a0DE for his final season and tallied 55 tackles\u00a0to go along with\u00a07.5 sacks.\u00a0 Looking at his production in both college and the NFL, it’s fair to say that if Coples ever does “get it”, the best chance he’ll have is\u00a0playing for a coach who puts an end to his days as a linebacker, and lets him get after the QB on a more regular basis.\u00a0 With a 4-3 alignment creating the need for an additional lineman, that may be Coples’ best shot at finally\u00a0realizing his full potential.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Few players\u00a0on the current Jets roster should be more tuned in to Woody Johnson, Charley Casserly, Ron Wolf and Neil Glat’s coaching search than outside linebacker\/defensive end\/defensive tackle Quinton Coples.\u00a0 The former first round pick out of the University of North Carolina has had a turbulent introduction to life in the NFL for a myriad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":27518,"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":[1337,213],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-27510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-home-slider","8":"category-jet-news"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Coples-Chase-Brady.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-79I","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27510","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=27510"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27522,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27510\/revisions\/27522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}