Updated Monday, Sept. 14 @ 9:50 a.m. ET

Rex Ryan hasn't encountered much difficulty implementing the aggressive, penetrating brand of defense he favors, nor did he lack for impressive results - the 18 sacks the Jets accumulated in the preseason led the league.

The heat should only increase in Week Two, when DE Shaun Ellis, who led the team with eight sacks in 2008, comes back from serving a one-game suspension for a marijuana arrest. Ellis' return should help the Jets improve upon the two sacks they recorded in the season opener. Plus, DE Mike DeVito, who has been hampered by a bum hamstring, should be closer to full speed. But the biggest question that has been facing the front seven is how it will overcome the loss of OLB Calvin Pace in the next three weeks as he serves his suspension for violating the league's performance-enhancing drug policy.

An answer has been found, although not the one it was necessarily expecting. OLB Vernon Gholston, a purported sack artist who was the draft's No. 6 selection in 2008, hasn't seized his opportunity to atone for his disastrous rookie campaign. He has continued to look confused in a scheme which, by most accounts, is more simple than the defense former head coach Eric Mangini ran.

Gholston will remain the starter for now in hopes that the light will come on with more experience, but it's the training camp and preseason work of little-known LBs Marques Murrell and Jamaal Westerman that has calmed the fears stemming from Pace's suspension. Murrell, entering his third season, is a fine athlete and has many believing that it will only be a matter of time before he overtakes Gholston. Westerman, an undrafted rookie, is slotted for a backup ILB role, but could be used in numerous alignments as a pass-rush specialist. He recorded a sack in each of the team's last two preseason games and got one in Week One.

One of the big differences between the blitzing schemes of Ryan and Mangini is that Ryan has no qualms about sending his ILBs into the backfield. Starting ILB David Harris has been especially active with expanded duties, which goes to show why fellow ILB and former Ravens stalwart Bart Scott went so far as to tell PFW that the versatile Harris is better equipped to handle a greater array of responsibilities than Ray Lewis.

PFW's annual Kickoff Issue is on sale at PFWstore.com and at newsstands and bookstores across the country. Also, be sure to buy copies of the Pro Football Weekly/Yahoo! Sports 2009 NFL preview magazine, as well as the Pro Football Weekly/Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football Guide 2009, both of which are now available at bookstores, newsstands and retail outlets where magazines are sold. Or order your copies online at PFWStore.com.