The New York Jets have a pretty high-powered offense, that’s for sure, but in the NFL most will attest that the teams with the best defenses win Super Bowls. You have to be able to score points but keeping the opponent off the board as much as possible is the name of the game.

New York Jets head coach, Rex Ryan, has a strong defensive background that’s been well documented. He can be loud but he’s been able to back up a lot of his “trash talking” because he knows his x’s and o’s. Doug Plank was the Jets assistant DB coach in 2009, and he was able to explain what the Jets defense can do to the better NFL quarterbacks.

“The challenge had been there with Ryan in 2009,” Plank said, talking about the coach’s first year as a head coach in the NFL. “Ryan shows a multitude of fronts that look like one thing, but end up altogether different.”

This has managed to fool even Tom Brady at times. We talked about how having strong d-backs like Darrelle Revis and Antonio Cromartie means they can do a lot of disguising and they can send blitzes from a lot of different areas. In short Plank talked about being able to game-plan against 10 players because Revis will shut down the opposing team’s best receiver.

Now on offense Ryan has to get some credit for approving the infusion of Brad Smith who ran a few wildcat packages to perfection when he was with the team and he wasn’t the only one who had some pre-set packages.

“The Jets ran packages for Smith and even Sanchez to a lesser degree,” Plank added.

Sometimes a quarterback with great leadership abilities but not superstar talent can get the job done.

“Jim McMahon was electric to all of the players around him. The guys have the ability to affect players around them. McMahon was willing to go over to the d-line and head butt them. He was a great crazy guy. He would do anything for his teammates and they responded,” Plank said referring to the Bears Super Bowl victory in 1986.

Sanchez seems to have many of those qualities and even though he doesn’t have the strongest arm or the best accuracy he continues to win games and he’s already been to the AFC Championship game twice! But now he has to get to the Super Bowl, that’s the expectation for this season.

The Jets know how to maximize their talent on both sides of the ball. They have some stars, that’s true, but for every Santonio Holmes, there’s a Jim Leonhard, the safety of the Jets who isn’t all that well known out of football circles.

If this team stays healthy they will be a playoff team and one of the big threats to represent the AFC in this year’s Super Bowl.