For Jets To Seriously Contend For A Second Super Bowl, They Must First Do Better At Avoiding Third Downs
Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh sounded quite pleased with his club’s 27-0 rout at Carolina in Saturday’s preseason contest. Not that these exhibitions will have any effect on how New York fares when the real games begin next month, but they did dominate on both sides of the ball and, most importantly, seemed to get out of town afterwards in one piece, with only one injury reported (third-string tight end Jeremy Ruckert).
Knowing how Saleh thinks, he was probably most giddy about how his team “won on third downs.” The Jets’ defense held on 8-of-11 Carolina third downs while the offense converted on 7-of-15 such situations (while also getting close enough on two others to be able to successfully go for it on the ensuing fourth downs).
Again, it would be inappropriate to take anything away from preseason stats, but for this purpose, I just want to focus on one number—the 15 third downs Jets QBs faced. Over the course of a 17-game season, that would extrapolate to 255, which is even more than last season’s third-highest total.
Diving deeper, New York faced a third down on 15-of-24 series of downs, or 62.5%. That’s ridiculously high.
I get it—the field was littered with backups and guys destined for the waiver wire. I would ordinarily give it no weight. But make no mistake, this is how Saleh wants the Jets to play, and it is dangerous, especially in a conference that features some of the most prolific attacks in NFL history.
What do those other teams have in common, besides four of them appearing within the first seven games on the Jets’ slate this season? They don’t let their offense get to third down that often. They win on first and second downs, so the do-or-die third-down situations aren’t as prevalent.
According to Warren Sharp, of the nine best teams at avoiding third downs last season, eight made the playoffs. Seven of the final eight in the 2022 NFL tournament are on this list, including both Super Bowl participants. The Jets, by the way, finished last.
The larger problem, from my view, was that it seemed like it was by design. The Jets ran the ball so often (until they fell behind) on early downs—and then weren’t very good at it, ranking 28th in the leaguer in success rate on first-down rushing plays in one-score games last season, according to rbsdm.com. The surest way of getting to third down is to get stuffed on a first-down run, which happened nearly 70% of the time.
You don’t need an advanced degree in football to understand why—rushing success is directly related to a team’s offensive line quality. That’s why backs are having a hard time getting paid—the Chiefs plugged in a seventh-round rookie from Rutgers (Isiah Pacheco) and didn’t miss a beat en route to a second title in the Patrick Mahomes era.
Then there was the debacle that was the Jets line last season. Battered and inept, especially after guard Alijah Vera-Tucker tore his triceps in Denver in Week 7 and was lost for the season, the only other lineman to which ProFootballFpcus.com gave at least an average run blocking grade was center Connor McGovern.
As every Jets beat writer has noted, the one thing (well, other than an injury to starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers) that can derail the Jets’ dreams of glory this season is, of course, the offensive line. They’re particularly weak on the edges, including at tight end. Ordinarily, this would scream for an offense to rely on quick short passes as opposed to handoffs into the line.
It remains to be seen how new Offensive Coordinator Nathaniel Hackett will mix things up when Rodgers is calling signals as opposed to the Zach Wilson/Tim Boyle poo-poo platter that we are likely to see for the rest of the preseason, but I have been anguishing over Saleh’s conservative principles for two seasons now, and I just don’t foresee a change in philosophy coming out of the gate for 2023. He seems wedded to the 49ers handbook of relying more heavily on a running game and defense. Keep the game close until the fourth quarter. Never mind that the Packers, with Rodgers playing a good chunk of last season with a broken right thumb, and the 49ers ranked second and fourth, respectively, in avoiding third downs.
Meanwhile, teams with true Super Bowl aspirations are lighting it up through the air from the opening possession. When they do run, the threat comes more from having a QB with the ability to take off—like Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts or Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson—as opposed to handoffs.
To get through the AFC, the Jets will have to overtake a half dozen teams who don’t wait for third downs to unleash their star QB. The Bengals, Chiefs, Bills, and Chargers passed on over 60% of early downs (excluding two-minute drills and garbage time), per rbsdm.com. The Jets were about 50/50—and then posted the league’s second-worst expected points added per play on their rushes.
To be taken just as seriously, the Jets will first have to learn how to better avoid third downs.