When Pettine was the Jets’ defensive coordinator in 2009 and ’10, he said he’d often go into games with 50 or 55 calls in his game plan. But the current CBA signed in 2011 has restricted offseason practice time and contributed to rosters skewing heavily to young players on their rookie contracts who don’t know defensive schemes as well as older veterans.

So Pettine says he’s planning to go into games this season with only 25 to 30 calls that can be taught and rehearsed thoroughly throughout the week.

“I know I’ve done it in the past where you kind of get that security blanket where, ‘You know I have 50 calls and everything’s covered,’” Pettine said, “but it’s 50 calls that you might not necessarily be as dialed in as you should be if you pick the best 25.”

That alone doesn’t mean Pettine’s defense won’t be complex. The whole idea behind the Rex Ryan-Pettine scheme is to confuse quarterbacks with unfamiliar looks and send unexpected blitz combinations. That means complexity, because players can line up anywhere and everywhere, and they have to know what they’re doing in each spot.

But there has to be a certain amount of complexity for Pettine to be who he is. Cornerback Tramon Williams said he learned in his one season with Pettine in Cleveland (2015) that one of the new coordinator’s strengths is his ability to manipulate pass protections in the chess game with the offense.

“We show ’em what we want to show ’em,” Williams said, “then we get them to check to what we want them to check, and then we send a blitz from somewhere else, where they think it’s not coming. He knows that.”

Pete Dougherty  wrote: