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Here is Part II of “Looking at the Films” with a look at the offensive line from the Jets-Giants preseason game. How did Vlad Ducasse do?
On the second series, there was some terrific run blocking.
On third-and-two, the Shonn Greene carried for eight yards on a running play that resembled a play we saw a lot last year. Greene ran behind the Brandon Moore and Damien Woody on the right side, and also paving the hole was Matt Slauson pulling to the right. Remember how often the Jets ran this play with Alan Faneca.
Two plays later, Moore locked up defensive tackle Jay Alford on a gain of seven up the middle by Greene.
Later in that same drive, Greene ran behind D’Brickashaw Ferguson, who tied up Osi Uymenyora, for a gain of eight. Slauson and T-Rich also had key blocks on this play. T-Rich, in fact, had a devasting block on this play. It’s clearly too early to right him off.
Also on this drive, Slauson drew an illegal use of the hands penalty on Chris Canty. He was also called for holding on the same drive.
A late first quarter 14-yard touchdown run by LaDainian Tomlinson was nullified by a holding call on Rob Turner, who was starting for Nick Mangold (concussion). Turner is a tough SOB, but is undersized, so sometimes he faces unfavorable matchups, and that was the case on this reversed touchdown run. Massive defensive tackle Chris Canty was too much for him on this play, and Turner was forced into a hold.
Overall, Woody didn’t have a particularly good half of football. He was called for holding on the second possession, and then rookie Jason Pierre-Paul blew by him for a sack. For a player as raw as Pierre-Paul to torch Woody like that is surprising. The kid doesn’t even know what he’s doing yet.
Kellen Clemens had a pass blocked by defensive end Dave Tollefson in the third quarter. Wayne Hunter didn’t do a great job of blocking his arms down.
Tight ends Ben Hartsock and Jeff Cumblerland were both called for a false start penalties.
Matthew Mulligan helped his cause with a tremendous run block on Pierre-Paul. Mulligan showed a lot of brute strength on this play.
Joe McKnight’s best run was in the third quarter, and the key block on this play was thrown by John Connor. McKnight also helped with a great stiff-arm on the play.
But McKnight didn’t help the cause of the backup offensive line with his tentative running betweent the tackles. In-between tackle running isn’t his forte. He ran for just 32 yards on 13 carries.
Vlad Ducasse held up fairly well, but he had a very bad play at the end of the game. He didn’t pick up a by Alex Hall, and the defensive end blew by him and pressured O’Connell out of the pocket and the quarterback was intercepted in the end zone. The quarterback also ran over the line of scrimmage. Ducasse still needs a lot of work on stunt pickups.
