The New York Jets opened their preseason today against the Tennessee Titans in a game that silenced the critics about them for now as they came victorious, in which the defense played spectacular and the offense showed some signs that this season may not be as bad as we think it will. Josh McCown started the game and went 3 for 4 with 72 yards and a TD in the opening drive of the game. That would do it for the rest of the scoring for gang green as they failed to put up any more points. Chandler Catanzaro missed a 55 yard field goal in the second quarter, which added insult to injury for him because he has not been impressive throughout training camp. If that weren’t bad enough the running game hasn’t been that great either, Romar Morris the rookie out of UNC (North Carolina) had only 12 carries for 20 yards and averaged 1.7 yards per gain. However, the passing game was a different story as Robby Anderson caught 3 catches for 71 yards and second year wide out Charone Peake who earlier this week said that these young group of wide receivers including himself have the potential of being 1000 yard receivers, well he certainly got off to a good start as he caught the only TD of the game. While second year quarterback Christian Hackenberg got most of the reps today showed signs of progression and (no he did not hit any cameramen or reporters). He went 18 for 25 with 127 yards, no he did not lead any scoring drives through eight possessions but he was more decisive and more accurate and he wasn’t overwhelmed comparing to last year.
The real story of this game was the defense performed exceptionally well as they got to the quarterback 8 times and came up with an interception. We really didn’t get to see much of the safety duos of Jamal Adams and Marcus Maye together but in all retrospect if they can perform this well without most of their key starters imagine what they would look like with them. A lot of reporters and fans don’t seem to realize that this is a young and an aggressive team that is looking to get after the ball. I know it’s only the first preseason game and I’m sure fans don’t want to get too excited because although we saw a lot of positive things there was also a lot of negatives. But this was a good indication that this team is going to play hard and be very competitive.