The Job of a Jet Is to Go All Out So Returners Aren’t Able To
With less than three minutes left in a game that the Jets led at the time by 3 points, Steve Weatherford hit a less-than-majestic, end-over-end punt that traveled only 29 yards from scrimmage last Sunday at Pittsburgh.
As the Steelers scattered from the punt, hoping it might roll into the end zone, Marquice Cole, one of the two often-jostled members of the Jets’ punt-coverage unit who are known as fliers, caught the ball at the Pittsburgh 3, ending the play.
Weatherford’s punt merely resulted in one change of possession. That Weatherford and Cole did exactly what they were supposed to do on the play, however, was far from an accident. Cole said last week they had been working together for months.
“Football guys know football plays,”
said Cole, a 27-year-old cornerback from Northwestern who is in his second N.F.L. season.
“It might not be an 80-yard touchdown pass, but plays like that help guys make teams.”
The Jets are Cole’s fourth N.F.L. team. He spent two seasons with Oakland, Tennessee and New Orleans without playing in a game before he signed with the Jets in February 2009. He understands that he needs to be good at special teams before he can play defense.
That is why he hooked up with Weatherford during off-season workouts on pinning opponents deep. As Cole said after practice Wednesday, “You’ve just got to try to make plays and thrive on those situations.”
That downed punt led to a play that helped the Jets win the game. The Steelers lined up in a shotgun formation on first down. Mewelde Moore took a handoff and was flung to the snowy turf in the end zone by Jets linebacker Jason Taylor.
“I’ll take an assist, though,”
Weatherford said, smiling.
The resulting safety pushed the Jets’ lead to 22-17. The Jets got the ball and melted 30 seconds off the clock before punting again. Weatherford lofted a 52-yard punt that was downed at the Pittsburgh 8 by Emanuel Cook, who was playing in only his second N.F.L. game.
Because of Taylor’s safety, the Steelers had no option but to try to score a touchdown. Playing safety for the first time, Cole knocked a pass away from Pittsburgh tight end Matt Spaeth in the end zone on the last play of the game.
“People who know him know it doesn’t faze him,”
Mike Pettine, the Jets’ defensive coordinator, said of Cole’s ability to adjust to any situation. “He’s kind of an even-keeled guy: If I’ve got to play, I’ve got to play.”
Fliers do grunt work. They line up like wide receivers and run downfield in lanes, fighting off two opponents, to keep the returners in the center of the field.
“If they get any kind of a crease, they’ll take it to the house,”
Drew Coleman, a Jets cornerback who has also been a flier, said of punt returners.
Injuries created an opportunity for Cole to play defense. But he earned a roster spot by doing unglamorous things like running down a practice field in the spring at the Jets’ complex and catching Weatherford’s punts inside the 5.
“That’s a tough job, man,”
said Jerricho Cotchery, a wide receiver who used to be a flier on the punt-coverage team. “If you haven’t experienced the flier position, some people call it gunner, you don’t understand. That’s another world.
“You have to have a tough mind-set to be able to get it done out there, and ’Quice has done a great job out there downing punts inside the 5-, the 10-yard line, getting down there and making tackles. He’s been doing a great job at it, and I know that’s Steve Weatherford’s money man. He talks a lot about him.”
Punt-coverage teams seem to be receiving a lot of attention lately. Sal Alosi, the Jets’ strength coach, was suspended and fined by the team Dec. 13 after tripping Nolan Carroll, a Miami Dolphins flier, when he sprinted near the Jets’ sideline the previous day.
The Giants allowed a 65-yard punt return by DeSean Jackson on the final play last Sunday that lifted the Philadelphia Eagles to a 38-31 victory. A day later, Chicago’s Devin Hester returned a punt for a touchdown, setting an N.F.L. career record with 14 returns for touchdowns.
On Sunday in Chicago, the Jets (10-4) face the Bears and Hester, who leads the N.F.L. with a 16.4-yard punt-return average and 3 punt returns for touchdowns. Jets Coach Rex Ryan said he will ask Weatherford to kick the ball away from Hester.
It is not that simple. Chicago is not called the Windy City for nothing. Weatherford said footballs that sailed too far above the turf — specifically, punts — had a tendency to veer off course at Soldier Field.
“We’ll make every effort we can to constrict the field in every manner and make it as tough as possible for him,”
Mike Westhoff, the Jets’ special-teams coach, said of kicking to Hester. “But if he does have the ball in his hands, then you have to make the play.”
So Cole, Weatherford’s locker-room neighbor, could come in handy again Sunday.
“He’s incredibly talented, incredibly fast and reads the ball well,”
Weatherford said of Cole.
Coleman does not sound like he would like to be a flier against Hester, saying, “You almost have to directionally kick to guys like him, because if you just kind of kick it and hope for the best, that’s when you get gashed.”
Cole is trying to stay humble. Weatherford’s next-to-last punt last Sunday was so good, Cole said, that surely the ball would have hit the snowy turf inside the Pittsburgh 5 and stopped had Cole not been there to catch it.
“I’d much rather have him catch the ball that way,” Weatherford said.
Cole did not play in the Jets’ victories last month over Cleveland, Houston and Cincinnati because of a hamstring injury. But the downed punt and the deflected pass ended up on Ryan’s weekly “Play Like a Jet”
video. And Cole still is a Jet, which is what really matters to him.
