Coach Thurman Believes Jets Have Potential to Have Best Secondary He Ever Coached

Dennis Thurman has coached a lot of great players and a lot of fantastic defensive backfields in his career, and he believes the current Jets secondary has the potential to be the best of them all.

“It could be the deepest we’ve had, even in Baltimore, from top to bottom,” the Jets’ secondary coach told me. “We had some good players in Baltimore, but not the depth we have here. It could be the best secondary I’ve ever had, top to bottom. That’s saying a lot.”

For the record, Thurman considers the 2006 Baltimore Ravens the standard by which all of his secondary units are measured. That was an awesome defense that included S Ed Reed, S Dawan Landry, CB Chris McAlister and CB Samari Rolle as the starters in the secondary (combined interceptions: 19), with Corey Ivy as the top backup. The Ravens finished sixth in pass defense and No. 1 in total defense.

The Jets have five holdovers from a secondary that ranked No. 1 in pass defense, including two starters – CB Darrelle Revis and S Jim Leonhard. The top backups are S Eric Smith, CB/S Dwight Lowery and S James Ihedigbo. Throw in CB Antonio Cromartie, S Brodney Pool and a No. 1 pick (CB Kyle Wilson), and you can see why Thurman is excited. He loves his depth so much that he’s talking about using an eight-DB package for specific situations.

Crazy? Well, they might be vulnerable against the run with that many “smalls” on the field, but Smith and Ihedigbo have the versatility to line up as linebackers in a sub package. That would give opposing offenses a lot to think about. They also have so many clever blitz packages, often overloading one side with a cluster of DBs, that offenses struggle to identify the personnel.

So how do the Jets and the ’06 Ravens stack up? Reed is an all-timer, for sure, but Revis also has that kind of ability. To me, the key is Cromartie. If he can revert to the 2007 version, the guy who made 10 interceptions, the Jets will have two elite corners. There a lot of teams without one elite corner, let alone two. If Cromartie can be that guy, the Jets might make Thurman’s prediction come true.