The widespread presumption in the wake of Sunday’s tripping incident by Jets strength coach Sal Alosi is that Alosi acted alone, a rogue rah-rah guy who had a little too much Rex Ryan and/or Red Bull before the game.
But look at the video and/or the still image. Alosi appears to be the first man in phalanx of six sweat-suited soldiers who were lined up like soccer players bracing for a kick.
If Alosi truly opted to throw his knee into the path of Dolphins gunner Nolan Carroll on his own, it possibly didn’t happen because Alosi caught a wild hair but because Alosi and others had been coached by someone to provide an impediment to the gunner. And that makes whoever decided to put Alosi and others in that way partially responsible for Alosi’s apparent decision to be more active than passive in impeding Carroll’s progress.
For now, we’re not saying whether anyone is or should be responsible beyond Alosi. But we think that the league should look into whether the Jets routinely deploy the Alosi alignment.
And when Alosi meets with the media today at 2:30 p.m. ET, he fairly should be grilled about why it was that he and five other identically-clad employees were standing foot to foot during an opponents’ punt.
We doubt that it was a coincidence.