Jet Sweeping Away the Patriots

Please help me in welcoming a new writer to ArrowheadOne: John Dillman, formerly known to you as Heilios. ~Laddie Morse

Jet Sweeping Away the Patriots

By John Dillman aka Heilios

Not so long ago I was one of you. Sitting back — no agonizing — just waiting for the next article to be posted to ArrowheadOne. Now, I am going to try to ease some of your pains by giving you something to look forward to. I want to give you something you never thought you wanted: the jet sweep. The jet sweep is an all around play that can run sideline to sideline. I would like to attempt to create an article that accomplishes what I think the jet sweep stands for. An all encompassing thought from start to finish. Please keep in mind I am not a writer and be gentle with your comments. I would really appreciate any feedback you guys might have. Here we go.

With the start of the season creeping towards us at what seems to be a snail’s pace we find ourselves looking forward to the season opener. Well, that and playing Madden. LOTS OF MADDEN. The schedule is out and we begin our 2017 gauntlet with a primetime night game in Foxborough. A season opener against the defending champs can be a daunting task let alone a season opener primetime game. The Patriots feature a high octane offense with a stifling defense. They can easily crush an opponent into submission with a relentless passing attack. It seems every year the Pats walk out to their parking lot and find two or three homeless people and insert them as wide receivers. I guess you can afford that luxury when you have Tom Brady slinging the ball for you. However, I believe that this can be the first of many wins in a glorious season.

Brady is a ridiculously talented quarterback who can make any throw he is asked to. As we have seen before he is able to be put off his game. Simply apply an obscene amount of pressure and watch the madness unfold. This can be a difficult task to accomplish. Everything on defense has to mesh perfectly for this plan to work. I believe there may be a better way to beat the best. Enter the jet sweep!

How many of you questioned Reid’s sanity when bubble screen after bubble screen was called throughout the season? How many of you beat your head against the wall when Reid went through his jet sweep phase??? It would seem as if every other play would be a screen or a sweep. Now hear me out before you rip my head off. I believe these same plays that you lamented can be our saviors during this first game. The Pats run a hybrid 4-3 front that pulls the corners to the interior and leaves the safety 5-10 yards off the back. This is a great defense that is very tough on intermediate to deep passes. Short range passing and running plays will tend to get you more yards over time. A sweep play can take full advantage of the weakness of this defense. Having a player like Hill who can achieve full speed in 3-4 steps doesn’t hurt either.

We all know that Tyreek Hill can pretty much out run anyone on the field on any given day. Setting him in motion from the right and running a sweep play left would put the Pats defense on its heels and have them playing catch up. I believe our defense can make the stops necessary to slow their offense. We might as well face it, completely shutting down their offense isn’t going to happen. You may say “But we’ve done it before” and you’d be right. To expect our guys to do it again is asking a bit much.

So let’s beat them at their own game. Let’s run the jet sweeps, the bubble screens, the ridiculous trick plays. Let’s run the ball down their damn throats. Let’s win this thing!

Long live the bubble screen and jet sweep, and as always GO CHIEFS!