Jets’ Defense Has Gone From Bend-But-Don’t Break To Broken
Since Mike White doesn’t play defense, his unfortunate injury after just two Jets possessions had little to do with Gang Green’s 45-30 loss in Indianapolis on Thursday night, tacking on yet another noncompetitive effort in a season rife with them.
Don’t be fooled by the final score, as the Jets’ 14-3 advantage in the fourth quarter was the proverbial lipstick on a pig. Remember that 54-13 debacle in New England way back 15 days ago, the one Head Coach Robert Saleh swore would never be repeated? By the third quarter Thursday night, the tweets were pouring in from Jets fans about how this game was worse.
White, who in his first NFL start subbing in for injured rookie Zach Wilson quarterbacked the Jets (2-6) to an improbable 34-31 victory over the Bengals last Sunday to earn cult status, banged his forearm on a Colts defender during the touchdown drive in the first quarter that tied the contest at 7-7. Josh Johnson took over for the remainder of the night and fared well (27-for-41 for 317 yards with 3 touchdowns and an interception), but it might as well have been Peyton Manning under center for all the good it would have done thanks to a Jets defense that surrendered touchdowns on all four Colts’ first-half drives before coming up with a fourth-down stop inches from the goal line on the opening possession of the third quarter.
No worries. The Colts got it back after a Jets three-and-out and needed just four plays to make it 35-10. On their next offensive snap, Indianapolis punctuated the embarrassment when running back Jonathan Taylor galloped 78 yards untouched into the end zone.
The ease with which Indianapolis marched down the field all night was absolutely stunning. The size of the holes the Colts’ offensive line blew open were what you’d see on Saturdays when a team like Ohio State dominates a Rutgers, not in the NFL.
The Colts racked up 551 yards of total offense, 260 of them on the ground. According to ESPN, Indianapolis averaged about 7 yards per rush before contact, the most ever in a game since it started tracking such data in 2009. When it mattered, the Jets pass rush generated one pressure on Colts quarterback Carson Wentz, who used his mobility and ballhandling to carve the Jets secondary to the tune of 272 yards passing with three touchdowns.
Whatever happened to that vaunted Jets defensive line? Saleh and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich rotate in around eight guys for the four slots, many of whom are ProFootballFopcus.com darlings, yet it looked like only Quinnen Williams showed up for a prime time game. John Franklin-Myers, who registered three sacks in the season’s first four games to earn a lucrative 4-year contract extension, has been mostly invisible since.
Allegedly, the Jets defensive scheme encourages the linemen to aggressively seek penetration at the line of scrimmage, even if sometimes they put themselves out of position. Opposing screen passes have been torturous all season for that reason. The theory is that when one of the lineman does get home, they can alter games with big plays.
Except where have those been? They have a middling 18 sacks after Franklin-Myers brought down Wentz for no gain in garbage time and they are 31st in the league with a mere 5 takeaways in 8 games.
This isn’t to pin all the blame on the d-line. Linebackers C.J. Mosley and Jarrad Davis looked awfully slow on the Colts home turf and the safeties were beaten over the top on several occasions. You might think that the Jets can’t sink any lower (they’re now last in the league in both points and yards allowed per game) but with Saleh reporting after the game that Marcus Maye could be lost for the season with an Achilles injury, things can absolutely get worse.
Earlier in the season, the Jets wore a prototypical “bend-but-don’t break” identity. They are now broken.