Bringing You Down With Me

There is an old saying (at least, according to Law & Order) that you never want to admit to anything more than the crime you are being accused of. Well the Jets' special teams coach, Mike Westhoff, apparently doesn't know that saying because not only thinks does he think he's being accused of breaking league rules, he's ready to turn snitch. For those of you who may not have seen the footage the other day, the Jets are catching a little bit of heat because one of their strength and conditioning coaches was standing just off the sidelines during a punt return and stuck his knee out, catching a Miami Dolphin player in the leg. The coach was suspended for the rest of the season (which is not much of a punishment considering strength and conditioning coaches perform 95% of their duties during the offseason). Still, the issue should have been over, but ex-Dolphin Zach Thomas pointed out that the inactive Jets near the strength coach appeared to be very organized into a human wall, which is done so that the gunners from the other team on punt coverage who are pushed out of bounds have less room to work with as they try and get downfield. It is important to note that there is nothing illegal about the human wall as long as the players are back and off the field, as these Jets were. The only issue was the coach tripping the other player.

But when speaking to a group of reporters yesterday Westhoff said that while he didn't teach his inactive players to form a human wall along the sidelines, you see it all the time and that "there is a pretty good team up north that lines up their whole defense when they do it." OK, first off, if you want to accuse the Patriots of doing the same thing you are, just be a man and accuse the Patriots of it. Don't imply or infer - come right out and say it. The Jets built their whole team aura around the fact that they are a tough team who are ready to face anyone, so don't hide behind vague statements. Secondly, this feels cheap because it is very in-fashion right now to blame the Patriots for just about anything. Because the Patriots still have the stigma of Spygate hanging over them people will believe that just about anything you say about them must be true. Plus, the Patriots are playing the best of any team in the league right now, so if you throw their name into the mix that is what people are going to start focusing on. You accuse the smart kids of cheating to get teacher to turn her attention away from you. If Westhoff said that the Bills did it no one would care.

I guess it's better to go down in a group than have to stand in the spotlight alone. What's funny about the whole thing is that the people in the league office aren't even mad about the human wall, just the Jets coach stepping onto the field and tripping a player from the other team. That is the issue here - one lone guy had a moment of temporary insanity. It really should have been a one-day story. But Westhoff is trying to rope the Patriots into something that has nothing to do with them and now the story has a sexy new angle. We're going to have to hear about this story for the rest of the year and into the winter meetings. You can almost guarantee that the competition committee will end up with some kind of new rule banning groups of more than three players standing near each other during kickoffs. It's the equivalent of being pulled over for a broken taillight and before the cop even comes to your window, yelling out, "But, officer, all the other cars were speeding too!" - suddenly we have new stoplights all over the place. And the last thing the NFL needed were any more stoplights.