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On Sunday, in their loss to the Los Angeles Rams, the Jets were without star defensive tackle Quinnen Williams.
Would they have been better off with him playing? Of course, but one could argue, that his absence didn’t have a huge impact on the game.
Rams running back Kyren Williams ran 23 times for 122 yards.
In the previous three games Quinnen Williams finished each contest with one tackle, so how much of a difference would he have made in stopping Kyren Williams?
The Jets’ run defense basically hasn’t been good since Robert Saleh installed their current scheme in 2021, and Williams has been on the team that entire stretch.
While he has a lot of talent, one issue for the Jets, is they have too many undersized defensive linemen who get engulfed by opposing offensive linemen.
This is why the Jets should have been careful with his contract because he’s a little undersized and has been pedestrian against the run. Why pay him more than Tennessee’s Jeffrey Simmons, who is great against the run? They did. They made Quinnen Williams the second highest-paid DT in the NFL at $24 million per, only behind Aaron Donald at the time.
We suggested paying him in the low 20’s, which is still great money. Run defense is damn important at DT. Teams pay dominating edge rushers who get you a lot of sacks, and who are pedestrian against the run. That happens a lot. But that caveat doesn’t apply to DT. You need to be stout up the middle against the run.
And this gets me to the point of this article.
The last few years the Jets have had a defensive evaluation problem, a serious one.
Their current defense is a disaster, and a lot of it has to do with bad evaluations.
Under the prior regime, I often wondered – “What film are you watching?”
I’m serious.
This is about players they brought back from last year’s team, and guys they continue to roll with who are hurting them this season, but they keep rolling with them over and over and over again.
What do they say about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?
And some of the players they are promoting for the Pro Bowl on Twitter, are you kidding me?
Look, I understand that in the world of player personnel, there are a lot of hits and misses, but some teams move on when it’s clear it’s not working, but other teams just keep rolling with the players, and tell the media how well they are playing.
Early in the season, the Seahawks were struggling against the run, so their new coach, Mike Macdonald, and the long-time GM John Schneider, moved on from two starting linebackers, got two new ones, and the run defense improved.
So my point is simple. The new GM and coach need to throw out all the rose-colored glasses in the building, and go by the film – religiously, and make all decisions based on the film, not propaganda.
People are so obsessed with the quarterback position, and acting like everything begins and ends there, but man do the Jets have issues on defense, and a lot of it is self-inflicted because the former GM and coach fell in love with people and refused to move on from them. You can’t be sentimental in the NFL player personnel business.
As scouts have said for years – “The film don’t lie.”
The new GM and coach need to go strictly by the film, ignore the hype, and not be worried about hurting people’s feelings.
Enough already.
December 25, 2024
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