After Chan Gailey’s offense struggled to find rhythm in losses to the Bills and the Texans, the Jets offensive coordinator simplified the attack. And the Green & White have responded, averaging 30 points a game during their three-game win streak.
“I think that we felt like we had maybe gone a little bit too far in some areas and we needed to scale back and get back to what we kind of where we started, sort of back to basics with things,” Gailey told the media today. “I was trying to create too many things, rather than let’s do what we do best and try to out-execute people.”
But Gailey didn’t make the call on Ryan Fitzpatrick’s 69-yard scoring pass to Brandon Marshall in the 30-8 victory over the Titans. While Gailey was looking down at his call sheet late in the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] quarter, Fitzpatrick hurried to the line and took a snap from center Nick Mangold. He quickly threw to Marshall and it was a dash to pay dirt.
“You can’t practice that stuff. You talk about it from time to time, but it just doesn’t happen,” Gailey said. “And all of the sudden it did and they knew what to do. I think it took three veteran guys: the center, the quarterback and the receiver to make it happen.”
Against the Titans, Chris Ivory produced his third 100-yard rushing effort of the season. Ivory, who has 25 receptions, is 86 yards shy of his first 1,000-yard campaign on the ground.
“He plays extremely hard every week. He’s become a pass threat for us, which is great,” Gailey said. “And he’s run the ball extremely, extremely hard. So he’s given us what we need in our offense right now. He is somebody they can’t say, ‘OK, we just have to defend the pass. That’s the best thing right now is they know he’ll go out and run 100 on them in a heartbeat and that’s good.”