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Footballguy
Article on Eric Smith
When the NFL lockout officially ended, Darrelle Revis noticed several missed calls from a number that wasn’t stored in his cell phone.
The Pro Bowl cornerback quickly realized the caller was his head coach, Rex Ryan, asking him to hurry back to Florham Park so the 2011 Jets could begin to coalesce. When Revis reported to the Jets' facility, he sat down with Ryan, and some of the defensive coaches, who talked to him about their vision for the season.
As the free-agency negotiation period began, they wanted their core players’ input: How can this team get better? What players do we need to have in place?
“One of the visions was to start Eric Smith, and keep him in, and keep him comfortable,” Revis recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, he should have been starting.’”
A few days later, the team re-signed Smith to a three-year deal as a starting safety, fastening in place a duo at the position — along with Jim Leonhard — known by their teammates to be intelligent, reliable and rarely prone to mental errors.
In last week’s preseason game against the Bengals, each had an interception before the first quarter ended — perhaps sending a message about what Smith, now a full-time starter, and Leonhard, healthy after his season-ending tibia fracture, can achieve while patrolling the middle of the field together.
Smith started 20 games over the past four years, but this preseason — including Monday night’s exhibition game against the Giants — he has finally carried the role of a designated starter. Because Smith is also a special-teams ace, the Jets spent last season mixing in him and Brodney Pool opposite Leonhard, until Leonhard’s injury in December.
This year the team agreed to pull Smith off one of his special-teams jobs, the center on kickoff returns, to keep him fresher and consistent in a starting role on defense. Though he did see his name in parentheses on special-teams coordinator Mike Westhoff’s depth chart — still listing him as an option there — so he wonders if that plan will last.
“The one good thing about the lockout, I felt like coming into camp, I was in the best shape of my life,” said Smith, who trained at alma mater Michigan State, in his native Ohio and at TEST Sports Club in Martinsville. “I had it in my head, ‘I’ve got to be prepared for (both roles).’ I feel like I can do it now, but after all the hitting and stuff during the season, it might start to take its toll.”
The Jets believe Smith can handle the workload, and want to take advantage of what he brings to the defense.
Last season, communication in the secondary was cited as a recurring issue, but Leonhard expects the interactions to be smoother with the same partner potentially next to him all season. Leonhard said each safety is able to take care of his side of the field, lessening the number of people he has to direct before the snap and allowing the secondary to make better adjustments.
According to Revis, there has yet to be a communication snag among the first-teamers in training camp.
Safeties have a critical role on the Jets, as opponents can be expected to look away from Revis and Antonio Cromartie on the outside, and to targets in the middle of the field. Last year, running backs and tight ends accounted for nearly one-third of the passing yards the Jets gave up.
Leonhard said the defense — including linebackers and substitute defensive backs such as Pool, Kyle Wilson and Dwight Lowery — feels more prepared to defend the middle after reviewing last season.
“Teams were throwing to tight ends, to backs, the other guys that were in man-to-man coverage,” Leonhard said. “We had Cromartie and Revis outside, so we wanted to play a lot of man. But I think we got ourselves in a little trouble at times by doing it too much, being too predictable, and that’s not when this defense is at its best. We have a huge playbook and when we use it all, we really create problems for an offense.”
During the playoffs in particular, the Jets accessed parts of the playbook that had not been emphasized during the season — namely, using more zone coverage against Indianapolis and New England, which led to victories. The change was a bit of a curveball for Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, and let the Jets better account for certain inside threats without double-covering them.
With an opening-day secondary expected to be composed entirely of players with experience in the system, the Jets see room for growth from last year’s sixth-ranked pass defense.
Defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said he has taken advantage of the daily morning walk-through to work on “graduate-level details” of how to play certain routes and formations. He expects to be more comfortable mixing in a greater percentage of the playbook to the game plan each week, avoiding tendencies based on down and distance.
“We have the ability that we can kind of morph into anything we want coverage-wise because of how experienced we are,” Pettine said. “The menu, the call sheet, really opens up just from who is in there.”
Smith, one of those pieces, said it “feels good” to be in a role he has worked for since 2006. In that time, he’s had to win over a new coaching staff, find a role in a new defense and prove that he can be a special-teams captain and starting safety.
Revis, who has watched Smith’s development, made sure to tell him early in camp, “Congratulations.”
“He knows a lot of us appreciate him,” Revis said. “Me and ‘Cro,’ we know that it’s like the weight of the world on us being out there on the islands, and we’re cool with that. But having those two back at the safety position helps us a lot; it helps us be the best passing defense we can be.”
You mean right before the drive they took 90 yards for a score that brought them within a TD with 5:33 left? That doesn't make sense. The game was still very much in doubt at that point. It was the defenses inability to get off the field due to the Pace penalty and pass to Bush that sealed it.
I think Revis shuts down Johnson, and if Sanchez can limit his turnovers (a challenge against this year's Bills) the Jets should win.
