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The Jets had one sack against Houston.
Is Mike Devito the Jets best Front Seven player? It certainly looked that way the last two games. He had two of the Jets best plays on defense against Houston.
Late in the third quarter, Devito snuffed out a screen to RB Arian Foster on the left side, blew up the play, allowing he and Bart Scott to chase the runner out of bounds for a loss of five.
Also late in the third quarter, Devito showed great hustle, tracking down Foster, after he gained 10 yards up the middle, and caused a fumble, recovered by Jim Leonhard.
Sione Pouha was quiet for the second game in a row with just two tackles. Generally, when he’s quiet, it’s often a telltale sign that the other team is running the football fairly well. Foster ran 22 times for 84 yards. Pouha had a nice shed-and-stop around the line early in the third quarter.
Shaun Ellis stopped Foster for a loss of one on the second possession.
As for the linebackers, they were underwhelming. The pass rush wasn’t very good. The Texans do have a pair of good tackles in Duane Brown and Eric Winston, but does it matter? The Jets couldn’t take advantage of journeyman right tackle Pork Chop Womack (who is more of a guard) the week before in Cleveland. This is a big, big problem for the Jets, no matter how much Rex downplays it.
The Jets had one sack in this game. Bryan Thomas beat RT Eric Winston for a sack on the last play of the first half.
On the Texans second possession, David Harris and Calvin Pace couldn’t get off blocks, and Foster ran right by them for a gain of seven off right tackle. Two plays later, Foster was uncovered in the right flat on a pass that he took for 15 yards. Pace had a tough decision on this play. He was between Matt Schaub, who was scrambling to the right, and Foster, and he chose to go after the quarterback, and left the runner wide open.
Pace did stop Foster on the line on the second possession.
Harris was late coming over to cover Foster on a short pass to the right flat that gained 11 yards, early in the second quarter.
Vernon Gholston had a quarterback pressure late in the first quarter. I don’t want to sound like I have an agenda against Gholston, but he got a major break on this play. For some strange reason, G Wade Smith was blocking Gholston, and just stopped in the middle of the engagement, and went to somebody else, leaving Gholston free to run towards Schaub. Bizarre.
Scott was kind of quiet, aside from the play with Devito, the only other play of note was when stopped Ward around the line early in the second quarter.
Bryan Thomas didn’t seal the edge well, and Foster ran by him on the left side for a gain of 19. This was a speed issue more than anything. He just outran him to the outside.
Early in the second quarter, the Texans ran a reverse to WR Jacoby Jones, and Pace had a chance to get him in the backfield, and failed to do so, and the Lane College-product gained 10 yards.
Also early in the second quarter, Jason Taylor stopped RB Derrick Ward for a loss of one on a run off right tackle.