Friday, April 3, 2009

A "Lesser Degree"

I got a great comment from "Eli" regarding my statement in the previous post that the Cutler signing affected Ratliff to a "lesser degree." Eli feels that what I said makes no sense, and from a certain standpoint I understand what he means.

So to clarify, the reason I wrote what I did is that while Clemens and Ratliff are, theoretically, going to have a "competition" the reality is that it is more of Clemens's job to lose. Clemens has more experience (albeit not much more on the field) and has better on-the-field chemistry and relationships with the current receiving corps.

While Ratliff looked great during that one game last pre-season, even some of the other Jets players have said to me privately that you can't go on that because he was playing against twos and threes (back-ups) not ones and most of them aren't sold on Ratliff as the starter.

The spotlight is going to continue to focus more harshly on Clemens at this point simply because of his longer history with the team and the original assumption that he was drafted to be the heir apparent to Chad Pennington.

That said, for all we know right now, Erik Ainge (or one of the in-coming rookies) could be the starter. Things might look a little clearer after the first mini-camp, which is being held in a couple of weeks.

But, with Rex Ryan at the helm, and given the free agency moves they've made, this is a team whose defense is going to win their games for them.

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