Sunday, November 4, 2007

Kellen Clemens First Half

At the risk of getting a little too excited a little too early I think all Jets fans should be happy with what they have seen out of Kellen Clemens in this first half. This does not look like a quarterback making only the second start of his career. He has been reading the defense ahead of the snap all day and done a fantastic job of calling an audible when it was needed. I expected to see at least 2 or 3 mistakes that a normal young quarterback would make but so far these have been avoided. Instead of throwing the ball to avoid a big hit he has been tucking it in. On a pivotal third down and seven he kept the drive alive with a very nice run up the middle of the field which was turned into a huge gain when a personal foul against the Redskins was added on at the end of the play. The throws have been reaching their targets with a fairly have level on consistency (11-17), they have been reaching the receivers in stride and everyone is getting involved (7 different players have recorded a catch).

Some people may be concerned that he has only thrown for 98 yards; didn’t we bring him in to use his powerful arm to throw the ball downfield? Yes that is one of the reasons but his arm power has been helping the Jets offense greatly today. The receivers have been spread out wide all over the field, Cotchery has been lining up outside the numbers on several occasions. Eventually this should allow Thomas Jones and Leon Washington to get some much needed yards on the ground and maybe Jones will see the end zone for the first time this year in the second half. I had my finger crossed hoping that we may have seen an epic 2 minute drill at the end of the half to put the Jets up 24-9 but that may have been asking for a little too much. That being said it’s too bad that Mike Nugent doesn’t have a stronger leg. As a huge Ohio State fan I cannot complain about many things he does because the man has nerves of steal but this is the NFL and a field goal in the 50-55 yard range should be something that he can make 25-30 percent of the time.

No comments: