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Two things Jets need to work on, and a misleading stat . . .
One of the most important jobs of a defensive ends is to set the edge, and not make sure runners don’t get outside and take the corner.
Before he left the game with an injury, Pittsburgh Steelers tailback James Connor had two nice runs where he got to the outside and gained 15 yards (first quarter) and 12 yards (second quarter). On both plays, Jets end Jordan Jenkins was taken out of the play, allowing Connor to take the corner.
Setting the edge is of enormous import while playing good run defense. Bill Belichick is obsessed with it. He wants everything funneled inside.
You can’t allow plays like these two Connor runs . . .
A big focus for Sam Darnold entering this pivotal off-season between his second and third seasons is his tendency to lock on his first read, a problem for a lot of young quarterbacks.
While Darnold didn’t throw any picks against the Steelers, a ballhawking defense, he easily could have had two, on a couple of post-patterns over the deep middle, one to Vyncint Smith and the other to Jamison Crowder. The pass to Smith should have been picked off by CB Joe Haden, who dropped it. The throw to Crowder was in to triple-coverage.
These are plays where it looked like Darnold was going to these first reads come heck or high water, but you can’t always do that. The throw to Crowder made even less sense than the toss to Smith, because Crowder is a 5-8 receiver, and you are throwing it into an area with a lot of cover guys, and he’s not going to win a jump ball due to his size. At least with Smith, you are throwing to a guy who is 6-3, so maybe you have a chance of him climbing the latter and high pointing the ball over the defensive backs.
Adam Gase and QB coach Dowell Loggains have a lot of work to do with Darnold this off-season on going through progressions and not locking on his first read. He is too often married to his first read.
If they can improve Darnold in this area, he can become an true elite NFL QB, because he certainly has the arm talent, as you saw on that perfect pass he threw to Robby Anderson for a first-quarter touchdown. Passes don’t get much better than that . . .
Sometimes stats can be misleading. You look at Le’Veon Bell’s rushing total numbers against Pittsburgh and you see 2.9 yards per carry, which isn’t very good. But let’s not forget one rush went for a loss of 11 in the second quarter. Bell attempted to run off left tackle, but DE Cam Heyward pushed tight end Daniel Brown back into the runner, so he tried to reverse field and go right and linebacker Bud Dupree stopped him for a loss of 11. This was a terrible blocking mismatch for the Jets because Heyward is like 70 pounds heavier than Brown.
So if you take this run out, on his other 24 carries, Bell rushed for 83 yards, and that is a 3.5 yard average, which is pretty good. I know you can’t really take a play away, but I thought Bell actually rushed very well, and the Jets’ offensive line did a nice job run blocking, against a very good front. However, a lot of people are pointing to 2.9 yards-per-carry and thinking otherwise, so I thought taking that play out of the stats for a second, would add better context to how the Jets truly ran the ball in this game.
And they did a very nice job in this department.
December 23, 2019
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