The New York Jets are home in East Rutherford, New Jersey today to take on the Los Angeles Rams in Week 16 of the Jets’ 2024 campaign.

The game will be played in the coldest weather the Jets have seen in years. This will be an unseasonably frigid day to play football. The game will be played under bright and sunny skies throughout the game. Winds will be moderate and variable at 10 – 15 mph out of the north northwest throughout the game. It will be very cold in East Rutherford. Temperatures will hover in the low 20s throughout the game. The wind chill factor will be brutal, hovering around 10 degrees. There will be a less than 5% chance of precipitation throughout the game.

This is going to be difficult weather for fans and players alike. For fans, it’s time to break out the hats, gloves, and layers of fleece and down. It won’t be easy staying warm. For the players the conditions will make the kicking game and the passing game more difficult. Recent winters have been mild in New Jersey, but Sunday will be very cold and very uncomfortable. This will be frostbite weather. If you’re going to the game, bring plenty of cold weather gear and stay warm out there.

BREAKING: Derek Carr terminates his contract with the Saints and signs a $165 million deal with the Cowboys…

The stadium lights blazed down as Derek Carr sat at the edge of the Saints’ practice field, his mind racing. For months, rumors had swirled about his dissatisfaction with the team’s direction, but today, the speculation would finally come to an end. The ink on the $165 million contract with the Dallas Cowboys was still fresh, marking the most significant move of his career.

Hours earlier, Carr had met with the Saints’ management. “We’ve given you everything we could, Derek,” the GM pleaded. “Stay with us.” But Carr had already made up his mind. He longed for a team with the infrastructure and ambition to chase another Super Bowl ring—and the Cowboys offered just that.

As the news broke, social media erupted. Saints fans were heartbroken, while Cowboys fans buzzed with excitement, welcoming Carr as the missing piece of their championship puzzle.

By the evening, Carr donned his new Cowboys jersey for the first time, standing under the bright lights of AT&T Stadium. “This is a fresh start,” he told reporters. “I’m here to bring a championship back to Dallas.”

The pressure was immense, but Derek Carr thrived on it. With $165 million and the hopes of an entire fan base riding on his shoulders, he knew this was more than a career move—it was a legacy-defining moment.

Dallas Cowboys scouting report: Breaking down the Buccaneers defensive scheme

Todd Bowles is going to present quite the challenge tonight.

The Cowboys have been hitting their stride lately, thanks in part to some above-average play from their offense. But they’ve faced some of the league’s worst defenses over the past four weeks, which has helped. That won’t be the case this Sunday night when they go up against the Buccaneers.

Head coach Todd Bowles calls the defense for Tampa Bay, and he’s established himself as one of the better defensive minds in the game. In fact, Bowles may be the most underrated defensive coach in the NFL. To this day, he stands alone as the only coach whose defense has beaten Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl.

Bowles was the defensive coordinator for the Buccaneers when they faced Kansas City in the Super Bowl during the 2020 season. While much of the focus was on Tom Brady leading Tampa Bay to a ring in his first year with the team, it was Bowles’ defense that held Mahomes and the Chiefs offense to just nine points. The Chiefs didn’t score a single touchdown, and Mahomes threw two picks.

Two years later, Bowles was promoted to head coach after Bruce Arians retired. Bowles, who had been a head coach before with the Jets, chose to retain defensive play-calling duties. That’s proven to be a wise decision, as Tampa Bay has remained one of the top defensive teams in the league.

So what does a Bowles defense look like? Well, he primarily hails from the Bill Parcells school of defense. In fact, Bowles coached defensive backs for the Cowboys under Parcells, overlapping for two years with Mike Zimmer. The two veteran coaches don’t have much in common schematically, though.

Bowles predicates his defense on physicality, first and foremost. He prefers big, physical defensive linemen that can clog up running lanes on their way to the quarterback. He also relies heavily on press man coverage and closing off the middle of the field in coverage, though Bowles has shifted somewhat towards more two deep safety shells as league trends have gone that way.

Looking at the Buccaneers personnel, they have the guys to run the scheme perfectly too. Vita Vea is the big name upfront, in many ways; at 347 pounds, he’s one of the largest players in the league. Greg Gaines, at 312 pounds, also adds heft on run downs. Calijah Kancey and Logan Hall, both around 285 pounds, man the B gaps for Bowles.

Cornerbacks Jamel Dean an Zyon McCollum are both 6’2” and weight right around 200 pounds. Last year, Dean ranked among the top 20 corners in passer rating allowed in man coverage. Meanwhile, safety Antoine Winfield Jr. has blossomed into a star. He earned his first All Pro nod last year and inked an extension before this season that made him the highest paid defensive back in the league.

Bowles is also a big fan of blitzing. This is where he and Zimmer share some philosophy. Much of Bowles’ scheme is built around creating negative plays early to bring up third and long, and then digging into a deep bag of third down blitz calls to wreak havoc on the offense. Bowles is blitzing on 34.9% of all dropbacks right now, fifth-most in the league, but his third down blitz rate is a sky-high 43.3%. In case you were wondering, that’s the highest in the league; Dallas isn’t too far behind, with a 38.3% third down blitz rate.

Whereas Zimmer almost exclusively uses his signature double mug look to trick offensive lines, Bowles has a wider variety of pre-snap looks for his blitz packages. Case in point: six different linebackers and defensive backs for the Buccaneers have 25+ blitz plays on the year, with three of them having 75+ such plays.

Philosophically speaking, Bowles primarily blitzes with the intent to create pressure up the middle. The idea is to force quarterbacks outside the pocket and make them throw on the run, which is usually not a great idea for offenses. He’s changed this approach up when facing players like Mahomes or Josh Allen, but that approach would seem to be a nightmare for someone like Cooper Rush.

Having said that, the Buccaneers have been inconsistent in the pass rush this year. They’re only 15th in pressure rate and are tied at 24th in sacks. A big part of this is that quarterbacks have adopted quick passing games when facing Tampa Bay this year. Opposing quarterbacks are averaging 2.55 seconds per throw, fastest in the league, against the Buccaneers. They’re also giving up the most average yards of separation at the catch, a byproduct of the quick passing game.

Rush has been a very quick trigger all year, with his 2.54 seconds to throw second behind only Tua Tagovailoa. If the Cowboys have any hope in this game, it’s here: Rush needs to be quick and decisive, and CeeDee Lamb and the rest of this skill group needs to create after the catch. It won’t be easy against such a defense, but there is room for success.