Hey, this is Ryan Fitzpatrick and you are listening to the e A Podcast with Eric Allen. Take it away? All right, thanks fits well. For the first time in two thousand and sixteen, our quarterback returns here to the Jets Podcast network, and that, of course is Chad Pennington. Chad, so excited to have you back for another year. Listen. Unfortunately we're gonna have to start on a little bit of a sour note. There is no joy in Jetsville right now. Is the Green and White fall to fall?
Uh in their season opener three to twenty two to the Cincinnati Bengals. Chad, what were your takeaways of that ball game as you process the film? Well, Eric, first of all, and great to be back for another uh season of Jeff foot ball. And uh, you know, watching the game, Uh, you feel good about some things, and then you don't feel good about some things. And that's kind of how the game went and why it was three to twenty two at the end and not in
the Jets favor. So when you look at the film, I think you say, while there's there's some really good things on film that the Jets can build upon, there's there's some great things that happened with the defensive line, the pressure on the quarterback, great things in the running game. A few pass players were made uh a noon while being able to be incorporated into the passing game was
huge for the Jet. So you see some sparks, you see some potential there, but then you also see where a team um allowed the opponent uh to beat them and not based upon what the opponent did, but more based upon what you didn't do UH as far as your team. And so that's that's disappointing. I'm sure the coaches and the players are all disappointed in that because this is certainly a game that that the Jets needed to win. They should have won, and they did. You
mentioned the defensive line. Let's start on that side of the ball. Seven sacks in all for the Jets. That tie their most ever in the season opener. They had nineteen. In nineteen sixty six, they had seven sacks as well, so we're gonna have to go back a few decades to reach that total. But six of those sacks came from the defensive line. Steve McClendon in his first appearance with the Jets, he had two sacks. Leonard Williams Chad who I thought had a fabulous summer. Two and a
half sacks and he had five quarterback hits. Moul Wokerson, he's fully back from the broken leg heat a second and a half and oh yeah, the Jets are now getting Sheldon Richardson back this week off of his one game suspension. How good can this defensive line be? Well, this defensive line can be the best in football. There's
no doubt about that. They have the potential. Um they have the athleticism, they have the versatility, and I think what's really interesting in what should be exciting for Jets
and um as their secondary is coming along. I have that defensively, from a coordinator spot and just from a play following spot, you can really rely upon your defensive line to create the quarterback pressure and not necessarily have to rely upon your blitz package to do that, which then frees up another defender to help in the secondary with double team coverages, more too, safety looks and things
like that. So with the play of the defensive line, which was extremely positive on Sunday, think against the Jet defense, more options and more versatility to see what they want to do from a coverage standpoint. Obviously, Chad. The defensive backs weren't happy in the locker room after that game. Everybody on that team wanted to get the victory so bad. But that was a secondary who's played together before. And Todd Bowls spoke about his postgame news conference saying, there
were too many bus in the defensive backfield. What was your reaction watching some of those big plays that Cincinnati was able to get. We know the pressure was there throughout the game, but the Bengals still were able to hit on a few big plays and that ultimately was the difference in this ballgame. Well, any time as a defense, you go into your game plan and you say who is their best player, and whoever you determine their best player is, you builded the game plan to say he
cannot beat us. And that's how you build the game plan. And when you look at the stash sheet and you watch the game, Unfortunately for the Jets, their best player in the Bengals with a J Green, helped beat them. And so that's what's most frustrating as a defense, that's
what they're most frustrated about. It. They knew who their best player was, they had a plan for him, and in a j Green still helped the Bengals beat the Jets, and so, um, that's what you have to take away from this game is the game plan was to stop a J. Green and a J. Green was not stopped. And so whether it be a bust in coverage, a lack in tackling, whatever it may be the case, the best player can't have twelve catches for a hundred eighty yards and and and have such an impact on the
game as a J. Green did. So that's what's most frustrating. Um. I know that they'll get a fixed with Reeves being such pro and and having the leadership skills that he does, and then the secondary playing together, they'll get to fix. And they need to get a fixed because there's some other parts of the defense they're playing extremely well, and when they get the secondary part of the fix, they're going to be very hard to try to execute against Chad.
You just match a Rivus and Hugo wrote into me on Twitter and he said, what is Puttington's take on where Revus is at at this point in his career? Well, I think we've been spoiled, um, as Jeff fans and fans of Drelle revs are watching him as a younger player, seeing how dominant he was, and he was so dominant as a younger player, we when we see just a little bit of lack in production or we see even pass being call on Durrell Revers, we have a shock
factor from it from a fan perspective. And so I still think Reevers is one of the top quarters in the league. Does he do some of the same things or have some of the same capabilities that he had four or five years ago. Probably not, But he's still effective. He's still very good. He still allows the Jet defense to be more versatile because of his cover skills. He just has to adapt and and how he plays, and so and so does the Jets defense as the player
gets older. Yeah, well, now let's go to the other side of the ball. So I really liked what I saw to Matt Forte. We didn't see him too much in the preseason. Saw him get his feet wide against the New York Giants. He was bothered by a nagging hamstring hamstring injury at the beginning of the summer, But while Chad he really impressed me. As a person who's been uh covering the Jets for the past sixteen seasons.
I haven't had the opportunity to watch too much Forte other than highlights, but his receiving ability as advertised, he's very smooth, what vision he has and also I love his little cutbacks. What did you think about him and his first performance for the Jets and how can he help this team over forward? Now? I was excited to see his performance. I was excited to see the performance
of the run game in general. The run game provided such a huge spark and and when the Jets did a spark u after the decense gave up a big play or a touchdown, the run game provided that. And that's really nice to see. Uh. For Forte, you can see that he does a great job and not dancing in the whole thing. In the whole he finds that one cut and he goes. He does have vision, he does provide versatility out of the backfield, so you know that he's just not a first or second I'm back.
He's he's all down by downs and then when you have him will help as well. I mean, you have a nice one too. Punks there maybe not as physical as they were last year with Chris Ivory, but at the same time, Steel very effective, and the reason they can be effective is because of jam Daily's use of formations and spread formations and personnels with form wide receivers, three ride receivers of tied end that allows those two
running backs to operate in space to be successful. You mentioned the offensive line, and I know a lot of Jets fans aren't focused on that right now, but what I'm excited about with this team is the play in the trenches. You mentioned the defensive line and you said, hey, I think this could be the top defensive line in
the entire National Football League. Now you go to the other side of the ball, and rightfully so, a couple of question marks there as we answered the season because we just didn't know because we hadn't seen this unit together. Ryan Klaytie replaces the britishaw ferguson your old left tackle, buddy, and then obviously Brian Winners got some starting experience last year, but it was Willie Cologne who started at right guard two thousand fifteen opening day and then at right tackle.
With Brenod jock Amini on the pup list, the Jets alternated right tackles in the season opener. By night Gelana started, but brun quality got in there as well. Protection was good against a solid front that includes Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap. And you mentioned that they moved the ball on the ground, and I don't think a lot of people took as much note of that chad as maybe
they should have. Well, and the good thing about the Jets offensive line is that no one's talking about them, which means their performance was solid because normally when when people talk about an offensive line, it's because their performance was not followed and they've given up sacks, so they didn't produce in the run games, and so no one has said anything because there's nothing really to say, uh
from a mistake standpoint. I'm sure there's technical things they need to clean up a few uh uh m e s mental heirs every once in a while, but for the most part, they were solid and it was very impressive, like you said, to have two right tackles on the in the opener and the half such solid performance that is extremely that's unheard of. You don't You don't hear that,
nor do you see that. And for the Jet to be able to basically play six lineen uh in a season opener and have The production that they had is impressive and it's a tribute to the offensive line codes in the offense and Jane Gailey and those guys because they did have a solid they had a solid winning performance. Wasn't their best performance, no, but they had a winning performance.
All Right, We're gonna keep it real here on the e A Podcast bottom line because we've talked about a number of positives, but we also talked about a couple of them. Excuse the Jets head in the season opener, and I'm gonna take a fan question off on Twitter right now. Chet Jet Life five sixteen asks what are the Jets going to do to improve the red zone plays? And then he asked specifically, why why wasn't there a
quarterback sneak on the one inch line? Here's my thing and I'm gonna let you get to the red zone here Jet my take on the Monday morning quarterbacking. Throughout the years, I've never heard people talk about what did the defensive coordinator call in that situation? But when things go wrong on offense, it's always the play calling. Well, yes, and that's because most people when they want watch the game,
they will only watch the ball. They don't watch anything around the ball, so that it's never about the defensive play calling. But there's no question from from the Jets offensive siety, it was about the red zone. And I only not only say it was a red zone, it was the deep red zone. Uh. It's one thing to get inside the twenty and then you kick a field goal from the eight team, But when you get inside the twelve three three times and you don't come away
with three of those touchdowns, that's huge. That there's the game offensively, and so whether it's running or passing, the execution was just not there. Sometimes the ball was forced into places it probably shouldn't be forced, and so not the execution just wasn't enough. Even in the last the last chance that they had in the red zone, receiver gets knocked off the covers the ball has already thrown. The red zone is a difficult place to execute because
the space is really tight. You have to anticipate holes in places, and sometimes you don't take into account whether an extra defenders in that area or if the receiver gets knocked off, that messes up the whole timing. And so it's it's it's very there's a lot of intricacies within the red zone. But certainly the offense, the Jets offense knows that you can't come away with that type
of performance in the red zone expect to win. What was your take on the trifactor Fitzpatrick, Eric Ducker, Brandon Marshall Because I think sometimes we're spoiled so much that we think that every game these guys are gonna combine for twelve catches and a hundred and eighty five yards and three touchdowns. Against Cincinnati they combined for five catches and a touchdown. Decker got in beautiful back shoulder strike
from Fitzpatrick. But was that more so Cincinnati doing a good job on their end focusing on your top targets or was it more of a case of the Jets having some options emerging. We've talked about four to and I know you really liked what you saw at the Quincy Innumera. Well, there's two reasons. Number one, the only way that you get more opportunities and the only way that receivers can have more opportunities is to convert on
third down. So when you're four twelve on third down, you don't have those opportunities, You're you're limiting your opportunities, and so that's why production of Decker and Brandon Marshall, that's one of the reasons why it wasn't there, or at least it wasn't what we normally expect. Secondly, um the production was a little bit down because of the play of Quincy and Noon one, which is really a positive.
The the way that Jan Gailey and the Jets offense got him involved, the plays that he made is awesome to see because they need that, they need that for future games later in the season, and it also opens up areas for Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker to work as well. So those are the two reasons. But if you really want to get these guys involved, you have to be better on third dawn, so that now you
create another set of down. Even if you only even if you get from four to twelve to six or twelve, which's fantastic, that's six extra opportunities those guys have to make plays at the minimum. Plus if you convert some of those opportunities, not even on third down, the first second down, with those two sexture plays that you have,
now you have even more opportunities. So third down, to me, it's it's where it's out when you're trying to make sure that Brandon Morsel and Theeric Decker get the production that you need them to get. Let's get the quarterbacks take on Ryan Fitzpatrick nineteen of thirty five, nine sack just the one time fits Uh in a good rhythm with his offensive line. As we talked about two touchdowns, the first one beautiful drive, I mean tremendous drive. That
opening drive. I really liked the way uh Jan Gailey Uh called that one and the Jets executed out of the gate to take the seven nothing lead. And then the back shoulder passed two Decker for a second touchdown, and then he interception late as the Jets we're trying to get that game winning drives set up an attempt for a Nick Folk field goal. What do you think of Fits overall? Well, I thought that it was for
him and what he's capable of. It was average. It certainly wasn't a losing performance, but it wasn't a game winning performance either. Um. Even if the Jets win the game, I think he would tell you I can play much better, UM and be more effective from a completion percentage standpoint, said nineteen and thirty five, you'd like to see that
around twenty two and thirty five. You need to see three or four more completions to sustain drives, to have a chance for bigger plays, just to create some more production in the passing game. UM. On a positive note, Uh, he did a great job of getting rid of the ball quickly, UM, not taking the sacks, not leaving the jets in long yard and situations. So he managed the game well. And then the last thing I would say is in the red zone, UM, all it needs to do is just be careful of being so honed in
on trying to get random marshal the ball. Um. Sometimes they're gonna take that option away, and they're gonna be other receivers that need to step up and make plays, whether it be Decker or noon Law or they have too great running backs out of the backfield that can really do some good things. So I'm sure they'll talk about that. That's something that I see moving forward. All right,
We're gonna move forward. What's your take on Todd Bowls coming out early on Monday saying to the media, I am not going to talk about the Cincinnati Bengals, and he was asked a number of times about week one, he said, we have moved on to Buffalo. What do you think about that philosophy? As the Jets only have basically two days to prepare before they head out to Buffalo. Yeah,
he has no choice. I don't think coach Bowles is trying to be mean or trying to be uh an adversary to the media, which when it comes to talking about the meals. But he has no choice. Literally, the Jets have no choice. They had to flush this game and get right onto Buffalo because within a matter of days they can really get this bad taste out of their mouth. And within ten days they played two games and they could be sitting there at one on one. So this is huge. Um, you know, I thought the
opener was really really big. Now with the lost this second game, I mean, this is it. This is where it's at, especially for earlier, early part of the season. They have to be able to come out and grab this win, and they're going to be very capable of
doing this. Uh. Playing in Buffalo early is a good thing, and they certainly have the recipe as well as the players and the team to to get to one and one and and beat what's going to be an emotional time for the Buffalo Billings UH their home opener on Thursday night. It's gonna be a big time challenge, but the one that it's one that the Jets can take on. Well, what is the winning recipe this week? The Jets. The Bills were thorn in the Jets side last year. One
a pair of decisions, two seventeen identical scores. Jets finished ton of six overall last year, just three and three inside the division. And like I mentioned, h buff We'll got him a couple of times last year. UH. To me, there's two keys in this game, turnovers and red zone UM. Against Rex Ryan, typically it's gonna be all about turnovers and what his defense can try to force. UM. And if you look at the last two games last year,
that's what it was about. It was either about turnover here and there, and sometimes if you look at the last game, it was a turnover in the red zone, which is a double whamming. So that's what it's gonna be about. UM, Jets not having turnovers and when they get in the red zone, yes they need points, but they need more touchdowns and field goals. UM. This is also a game that you realize that it's not going to be a game where the Buffalo Bills are going
to score thirty points. And so that really plays into your decision making as a quarterback. UM that really um magnifies turnovers, It really magnifies getting points in the red zone. Can't have black field goals, can't have missed extra point. You just can't do that. It's this is a game that you expect. It's going to come down to try to win seventeen three to twenty maybe even the seventeen fourteen games that I think the Jeffs are talented enough to put up. So do you think you just mentioned?
And that was very interesting And I love getting your thought process here because you were out there in the field when you look across the way and you're Ryan Fitzpatrick and you're in the film room this week, and you look at the Bill's defense and say, Okay, they were solid against me last year. They played very well in the season opener against Baltimore. They lost to the Ravens, but they had four sacks and only gave out thirteen points. They gave their team an opportunity to win. And we
know rox Ryan as a termendous defensive play caller. When you're saying that the Bills are probably not a team who is gonna be able to score thirty points on most occasions, especially against your defense, Uh so does fits have to have a different approach when he plays the Bills that there's this game is going to be about situational awareness as a quarterback and realizing that, um, you you must force the Bills offense to beat you. So
as an offense yourself. Um, there may be a time where it's it's second and ten and you really like this throw on the end route, but because the windows a little bit too close, the risk is much greater than the reward, and so you don't take that opportunity because you know that the Bills can't score as much as they would like unless they have big play capability. And with the you know, unavailability or availability or depending on what happens with Samuel Walking, that really affects things.
And so, um, you've got to go in with that mentality a keep playing close to the vest, keep do not give the Bills a chance to cathwize on our mistakes or our turn and overs where we give them short field deal. Position is going to be huge. Rex. Ryan loves to playfield position game and let the defense dictate that, and so you have to understand what type of game it's going to be. It's very similar to
when I was with the Jets. When we play the Miami Dolphins, we knew that it was a really good defense. Their defense ran the team. As long as we hung in there for four quarters, we would find a way to punch it out in the end, and we did seven out of eight times. What do you expect on the other side of the ball. Totally different offense like you mentioned, uh, Cincinnati, we know what they can do.
Big playoffense. The Bills, I wouldn't consider a big playoffense, but they can get you if Tyrod gets out of the pocket because he loves the long ball. The Ravens made him sit in the pocket last week. You mentioned Sammy Watkins. We don't know where he is percentage wise. He plans on playing this week, obviously surgially surgically repaired foot in the offseason. They do have some players tight on.
Charles Clay is one of the better receiving options at the position of football on my mind, and Shandy McCoy is a tremendous back who can make something out of nothing. They are banged up up front door defensively, what's the game playing against this team? Defensively? It's gonna be like you said, Keith Tyrod Taylor in the pocket. Make him a pocket passer. He doesn't have the hight. He's not
known as a pocket passer. He was fifteen and twenty two for like a hundred eleven yards against the Raven So even though he had a high completion percentence, the ball wasn't mean moved down the field and he didn't. He wasn't able to extend plays, which that's normally where he finds his opportunities to create big plays when he extends plays to be able to get outside the pocket. So keep him in the pocket, make him a pocket passer, and then the Jets must eliminate the big play. They
do those two things. This to me is a twenty four or third teen Jet win. Uh. I like that. I like the sound of that. How are the Bills going to counter? What do you think's got have gone through? Greg Romance mind as he prepares to face Todd Balls and Casey Rodgers net defensive line. The way they got after Andy Dalton. Uh, a solid linebacker group and a secondary who is gonna be held bunt on coming back and playing a lot better than they did on Week one.
How how do you think the Bills are gonna attempt to attack this team? Well, they're gonna make sure that they're going to eliminate negative plays on first and second down. They can't allow the Jets defense to establish the tempo on first and second down and impose their will upon them to wear on third down. They're sitting there a third and eight, third and ten, third and twelve. That doesn't that's not going to be good for the Bill.
So they're gonna try to be creative on first and second down with not your normal run packages, but using I think they're gonna try to use wide receiver screens, running back screen, really get creative on the perimeter to create first and second down yards. Uh, use a shade McCoy, use some of their weapons out on the perimeter. That that's necessarily not conventional, but for them it will have to be conventional against the Jest defense, something they'll have
to really focus in on. So I think they'll have a huge package when it comes to screen and short throws, empty package, different things like that, and not just lining up and thinking that we can move the ball in conventional sets. Chad, you played a number of times. It used to be called Ralph Wilson Stadium. Now I think they're calling a new era field in western New York. You know, you know the fans are gonna be crazy either right on top of you as far as the
stadium is concerned on that sideline. Um, do you believe in the philosophy as a guy who was out there playing that you have to survive an initial surge from the other team based on the motion of just playing at home. Well, part of the survival though, is to be you know, extremely focused and prepared and when you have an opportunity to make it play in a big play at that you've got to make it. Can't be drops, whether it be interceptions or receptions on the offensive side,
can't be anything like that. And so that's how you not only whether that storm of emotion, but you also just flat take it away to be very solid. And what you're doing now at the same time, part of whether in that storm is not looking to try to make you play, not pressing too hard to try to make you play, allowing the game to come to you do what you're supposed to do with this sigment and the alignment that you have within the system. And then once that big play opportunity is there to be had,
you have to capitalize. Now, I'm gonna ask you to put your analysts tap back. You consider that's a key early game, don't you, because you not being in the locker room anymore, and know the schedule ahead, and and it is tough on paper when you look at that Kansas City Seattle at home at Pittsburgh and then road trips the Pitts again Arizona. Uh, and this is a divisional game, and you would have a lot different feel
inside the building and outside as a fan base. Right if you get this one and you're one on one after two and everything's fine, no questions, because if you look at the four the games are being played, you say, okay, you know, one on one after the first two games with a playoff team and the opener, and and then you have the Buffalo Bills who played extremely well at home and are improved one on one. It's not great,
but it's not terrible. Um So, now in the position that they're in by losing the opener, although there's some great things ahead and great things that have happened in the opener, you say this to me, and they've got to win this game, uh, to really feel good about their progress as a team and to build some momentum moving into this next four game stretch. This is one that they definitely need to have and and then and mind you that it's also a division game, so winning
those division games are extremely important, no doubt about that. Well, I enjoyed it. Our season has kicked off. Chad Pennington back in the analysts chair, and uh, we're gonna be talking to you after that Bill's game, Chad, enjoy the rest of the week. Okay, Eric, thank you,