Ground and Pound is schtick. It’s a slogan. It’s manna for headline writers and columnists. It’s wonderful for fans who draw on banners and call into radio stations, perfect for a coach like Rex Ryan who believes in the brevity of message every bit as strongly as an English professor.
But that’s all it is. “Ground and Pound,” taken together, capitalizing the G, capitalizing the P, is a jingle, a catchphrase, a mantra, and completely useless on Sunday afternoons in the NFL.
Taken apart? Broken down as angry verbs?
They explain how the Jets can return a trace of normalcy to the AFC East race this Sunday. They offer a blueprint for beating the Buffalo Bills, even in Ralph Wilson Stadium, even on a day when the Bills will be wearing all-white and honoring the star-crossed Scott Norwood.
“It’s more a mindset than anything else,” Mark Sanchez said of Ground and Pound.
“It’s the way we’ve been successful against that team in the past, and the way we will have to play to be successful on Sunday,” Sanchez said of grounding and pounding, of grinding and driving and slashing and taking four- and five- and six-yard bites out of the Buffalo defense.
The four times these teams have met in Ryan’s time as head coach, the Jets have looked like a combination of the Csonka/Kiick/Morris Dolphins and any of Woody Hayes’ five most ground-hugging teams at Ohio State.
Working backwards from last year’s season finale, the Jets have gained 276, 273, 249 and 318 yards in those four games. That’s an average of 279 yards a game, or exactly 100 yards more than the leading rushing team in 2011, the Eagles, average per game. And to hammer the point home more: The only one of those four games the Jets lost was the first one, the 318-yard game, when Mark Sanchez sprinkled five interceptions (and punter Steve Weatherford another) in the mix.
OK. Now the Bills have been a lot better team this year than they were either of the past two seasons, and through seven weeks they’re allowing only a 120 yards a game. Still, that’s 20th in the NFL, which means they haven’t quite gone from a pasta sieve to a great wall in the space of a year.
And it’s always more than a little windy at The Ralph …
“As an offensive line, we have no preference whether we throw the ball up and down the field or run the ball up and down the field, as long as we’re moving the ball up and down the field,” Jets center Nick Mangold said.
“But the fact is that we’ve had success moving the ball against this team in the past, and from a confidence standpoint, it’s a good thing to have in your mind when you’re figuring out how you can win the game.”
That’s where it’s helpful to rely on scheme and not schtick. If Ryan has a glaring fault as a head coach, it’s falling in love with things to quickly and too impetuously. He admitted yesterday that he started the year completely (and wrongly) enamored with the idea of three-wide sets, of slinging the ball around because it seemed his personnel dictated they at least try to play wide open.
But he has also, at times, grown too besotted with the notion of Ground and Pound, as opposed to the practice of grounding and pounding. It works easily into the vision he has for his team, and the cameras captured him shouting “Ground and Pound!” relentlessly after the playoff win in San Diego two years ago, and from that point it became a question of virility as much as victory. And that’s a mistake.
It was a mistake when he stubbornly employed it three weeks ago in New England, against a Patriots team that all but begs teams to throw against them every week (have a gander at what the Giants do there on Sunday). Keeping the ball in the air would have made the most sense that week.
Keeping it on the ground is what will deliver them this week. No slogans. No mantras. Tough, hard, slobberknocking football gets it done in the wilds of Buffalo. The Jets know they can succeed that way. No banners. No schtick. Just play.