New York Jets Have Pieces to Successful Chan Gailey Offense

No matter what direction you look, the New York Jets made all the right moves at almost every position this offseason.

Key word: almost.

They started off right by identifying the man they wanted as the offensive coordinator, Chan Gailey. With years of experience coaching NFL offenses with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills, and with even more experience at the college level, Gailey has built quite a résumé with his implementation of the spread offense and the pistol formation.

Player	Ht	Wt	Exp
Eric Decker	6'3"	214	5
Brandon Marshall	6'4"	230	9
Jeremy Kerley	5'9"	188	5
DeVier Posey	6'1"	210	3
Devin Smith	6'0"	196	R

The Jets continued on the right path by acquiring one piece after another to help Gailey execute a spread offense, with Brandon Marshall, Devin Smith and DeVier Posey all joining Eric Decker and Jeremy Kerley at wide receiver in the Jets offense. 

They didn't stop short of adding a quarterback, trading for Ryan Fitzpatrick from the Houston Texans, but you could debate whether or not they officially addressed the position. Even if Fitzpatrick doesn't end up being the official answer at quarterback, the trade was still the right move if only as an insurance policy to young quarterback Geno Smith.

The Jets feature a deep stable of running backs that includes several between-the-tackles hammers in Chris Ivory, Zac Stacy, Stevan Ridley and Bilal Powell, none of whom make a particularly threatening third-down scatback option.

Powell played mostly on passing downs in 2014, serving 187 of his 242 snaps in the passing game (132 as a receiver, 55 as a blocker). His role in blitz protection was bigger than that of any other Jets running back, but the juice was not worth the squeeze with regard to his role as a receiver (11 receptions on 132 pass routes). 

There's also the question of whether they've truly filled their needs on the offensive line. The guard spot remains a question mark, with Willie Colon, Brian Winters, Oday Aboushi and Jarvis Harrison all set to compete for one spot while James Carpenter slides in at the other spot. There's also the issue of whether left tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, center Nick Mangold and right tackle Breno Giacomini can resume a high level of play after a down year.

So, it appears the Jets have done all they could to help Gailey at the wide receiver spots, and they are hoping for improvements elsewhere.

Formation	Snaps	NFL rank
4 WR	586	1
3 WR	1,669	5
Shotgun	1,643	3
2 RB	616	24
2 TE	341	32

Gailey has made chicken salad out of chicken innards on offense in the past, but in this analogy, we can consider the wide receivers an extra heaping of mayo to help mask the flavor. The running backs are good enough to get the job done, but something is missing; the lack of an option on passing downs is concerning since the Jets will be spending so much time throwing the ball.

The role of a true "receiving back" may also be diminished due to the sheer number of receivers and spread sets we'll see from the Jets; with four receivers running routes, how often will the Jets really need to call on the services of a running back to catch passes? 

If only that were the biggest concern facing the Jets offense.

There's the small issue of the quarterback position, which will need to be leaps and bounds better than it was in 2014, regardless of who is calling the signals behind center. That being said, the Jets have stockpiled a depth chart of passers who have experience operating in spread offenses and out of the shotgun formation; once upon a time, Geno Smith's experience in that style of offense was perceived as a weakness.

At West Virginia, Smith "[ran] a spread offense almost exclusively from the shotgun," according to NFL.com, and needed "work on his footwork coming from under center" coming out of college. Smith will still need to do some work from under center and will still need to learn how to read defenses and improve his footwork, but in the meantime, those issues will be masked by Gailey, who has become a master of spotlighting the strengths and window-dressing the weaknesses of his passers.

In that sense, the Jets have addressed the quarterback position without addressing it, through the decision on the offensive coordinator, and according to head coach Todd Bowles, they didn't even intend for it to be that way.

"What appealed to me was when he was at Pittsburgh, he was able to run the football," Bowles said. "When he was at Georgia Tech, he was able to run the football and obviously the passing game he had speaks for itself, so that makes him a balanced coordinator, which was more what I was looking for."

A little balance could go a long way in making life easier for whoever ends up being the quarterback, but so will the other pieces the Jets have acquired. 

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained via team news release.