Can push-ups fix penalty issues facing the Jets?

Head coach Todd Bowles has brought back push-ups for penalties in New York Jets practices. Will it finally fix these issues players have with reckless penalties?

It looks like an old habit has been brought back to the current state of the New York Jets. Earlier this week during organized team activities, head coach Todd Bowles brought back a discipline-creating culture to his players.

In an article written by Darryl Slater of NJ.com, he confirmed that penalty push-ups are indeed back. This was a practice established by former head coach Rex Ryan that whenever a player committed a penalty in practice, the entire team had to do push-ups with the exception of the player who caused it.

Talk about an effective way to limit careless penalties, eh? Hopefully, starting such a culture this early on during OTAs should help fix the massive problem the Jets have with reckless penalties. It’s no secret that last season and even the season before that, the Jets got hit with a plethora of penalties from almost everywhere.

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Whether it was an offsides penalties from an offensive lineman or a holding call on a member of the defensive secondary, the Jets gave up a lot of free yards and first downs to opposing teams. Penalties can not only extend plays for opposing teams but most often than not leads to losing, especially in close games.

Penalties are never a good thing if they’re constantly a problem and if Bowles is serious about rebuilding the Jets the right way, this is a good start to fixing this issue once and for all. Until players understand why they have to dramatically cut down on reckless penalties, they’ll always be on the outside looking in.

In the grand scheme of things, committing penalties on such a consistent basis comes back to one thing and only one thing which is a lack of discipline. Bowles has a strict demeanor about him but at the end of the day, if his players are committing too many penalties, that all comes back to him. This is the start of a good thing and hopefully becomes a habit from here on out for the rest of the year until everyone is on the same page to fix all these penalty issues for the Jets.