Defense ready to reclaim top spot

It was a beautifully thrown ball – the perfect sort of spiral the Jets coaching staff loves to see from Mark Sanchez.

His target, wide receiver Jeremy Kerley, caught the ball and broke toward the outside, just as the final seconds of the two-minute warning drill ticked by.

But there – on the goal line – was Darrelle Revis.

At 5-11, the Jets cornerback might not seem imposing. But with one motion, he absorbed Kerley’s momentum and stuffed the wide receiver dead in his tracks. Having thwarted what appeared to be an easy touchdown, Revis pumped his fist and emphatically chest-bumped members of his secondary.

The defense had won that round. And according to Revis, the unit plans to win many more during the regular season.

“We don’t want any team to score on us,” the cornerback said after Tuesday’s first minicamp practice. “So we have pride when we’re playing redzone defense.”

Though the Jets have had a Top 5 defense in each of Rex Ryan’s three seasons, Revis is convinced the unit can return to its 2009 form, when they were ranked best in the league.

“We’ve just got to improve and I think that’s how we approached this offseason,” said Revis, who stressed fundamentals, like communicating and running to the ball. “We can. We really can. And this year is an exciting year to get back and compete. I think a lot of guys on defense felt that we failed as a defense a little bit, in terms of accomplishing what we wanted to accomplish last year. So this year, we’re excited. We’ve got a lot of guys back and we’re just ready to play ball.”

Just four teams finished ahead of the Jets (312.1 yards per game) last season – Pittsburgh, Houston, Baltimore and San Francisco. But to several Jets defensive players, that was a failure.

“We wanted to be No. 1,” said Revis. “…Any time we step on the field, it’s just stop opponents as much as we can.”

Outside linebacker Aaron Maybin said “we definitely fell far short of where we saw ourselves,” but he thinks the defense finally has the tools to reclaim the top spot in the NFL. Maybin highlighted the fact that he and defensive linemen Muhammad Wilkerson and Kenrick Ellis will have an entire offseason to “entrench ourselves in the Jets schemes” this year. Plus, the Jets bolstered their defense by acquiring safeties Yeremiah Bell and LaRon Landry (if healthy) and draft picks Quinton Coples, Demario Davis, Antonio Allen and Josh Bush.

“Right now, I feel like we’re putting the pieces together,” said Maybin. “It’s early, but we’re starting to play off of each other a lot better. We’re starting to play as a team and that’s encouraging so early in the offseason. …I think you’re going to see a lot of growth from all of us that are called upon.”

Linebacker Calvin Pace said this offseason has been similar to Ryan's first year as head coach. “We’re kind of getting back to square one, as if it’s the first day Rex is here,” said Pace, who also noted Tony Sparano’s faster practice tempo has helped the defense as well. “We just re-installed the defense from the ground up and we’re getting some good work.”

The linebacker also is excited about the defense using a four-man front in practice more frequently now.

“If you’re running a three-man rush it’s essentially a 2-on-1 for everybody and it’s hard to get back,” Pace said. “And I think it’s going to help the secondary a lot. You put Muhammad and Quinton on the inside, myself and Maybin on the outside, hopefully someone can disrupt the quarterback. It’s going to help everybody a lot.”