Jets’ Disappointing Defense Flying Under The Radar
When looking at the Jets (1-3) worldview, the imperativeness of Sunday’s must-win encounter in Denver can’t be overstated. With a home tilt against the electric Eagles up next, it wouldn’t be a disaster if Gang Green entered their bye week at 2-4. A 1-5 mark? Well, then we’d be back to talking about all the ugly permutations this season was supposed to avoid, including the dreaded “T” word.
Much of the disappointment to date can be traced to New York’s wretched offense, specifically how Zach Wilson, who was forced into action when starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers was felled by a torn Achilles on his fourth snap of the season, has stunk up the joint outside of a brilliant 17:40 stretch in last Sunday night’s 23-20 loss to Kansas City. That interlude wasn’t enough to lift Wilson out of the cellar among NFL QBs with 80 plays in rbsdm.com’s measurement of expected points added per play.
Flyng under the radar, however, has been the performance of the Jets’ defense, which was expected to model, if not exceed, last season’s top-five unit. Instead, New York ranks 14th in points and 23rd in yards allowed per game. They’re also 23rd in EPA per play, per rbsdm.com.
The 1985 Super Bowl champion Bears? Hardly. They’re closer to, though not quite as bad as, the 2023 Bears.
Digging deeper, their first halves have put the team in holes all season. The Jets and the Giants are the only two teams in the league who have yet to take an offensive snap with a lead. Sure, the offense’s pathetic possessions haven’t put the defense in the best situations. But if a defense is truly elite, it wouldn’t be surrendering a 28th-place EPA per play and a 26th-place average of 15.3 points allowed in first halves.
It's also true that New York has faced some of the NFL’s better offenses in its first four games. But then how can you excuse the defense for surrendering 216 first-half yards of total offense to New England and its own beleaguered QB Mac Jones? Had their kicker not missed a pair of long but makeable field goals, the Patriots would have been up 16-3 at the break, and we’d have then been looking at the Jets D a whole lot differently.
It's quite common for teams that are up by multiple scores to take their feet off the gas, so New York’s second half numbers are more in line with where experts expected them to be. Buffalo and K.C. got too cute with the football, with turnovers allowing the Jets to get back into games when they were on the verge of being routed. Still, let’s not forget that the Chiefs were able to run out the final 7:24 to hold on last Sunday, albeit with the help of one questionable flag that negated a Michael Carter interception.
The bottom line is that while the Jets defense can be very good, they’re not on par with the dominant groups they wish to be compared with.
Remember all the talk about the waves of Jets defensive linemen that would be getting after opposing quarterbacks this season? While the team’s pressure rate has been above average, according to pro-football-reference.com, only three teams have registered fewer sacks. It’s one of the reasons why New York can’t off the field on third downs, allowing opponents to convert on 46.8% of those situations, the fifth-worst rate in the league.
Where has Carl Lawson been all season? Is he healthy? If not, don’t dress him and play rookie first-round pick Will McDonald IV more. The Jets are paying Lawson $9 million this season, including bonuses that are stretched into void years for salary cap purposes, yet aren’t even getting a return akin to the lower cap number. In 28 pass rush snaps, he was credited with one hurry by ProFootballFocus.com, which gives him the sixth-lowest pressure percentage among the 48 edge rushers in the league with at least 25 pass rush snaps.
The one defensive area Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh likes to hang his hat on is limiting his opponents’ explosive plays. I’ve always thought of this defense as one that bends but doesn’t break, patiently looking for opportunities to win third downs. Even here, though, this team has underperformed, allowing 17 runs that gained greater than 10 yards and eight pass plays that went for at least 20 yards, per ESPN. The 25 big plays allowed put them tied for 20th-most in the league.
The Jets defense hasn’t been a dumpster fire on every front. Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich made it a point at Thursday’s press conference to single out linebacker Quincy Williams’ efforts this season—PFF has graded Williams as the NFL’s third-best linebacker (minimum 200 snaps) through four weeks. Williams’ brother Quinnen is ranked fourth among interior defensive linemen, though his 0.5 sack production would at first glance seem underwhelming. Similarly, edge rusher Bryce Huff hasn’t taken any QBs down but has been a pressure machine, bested only by Dallas star Micah Parsons in pash rush pressure percentage (60 pass rush snaps minimum).
And all three of New York’s cornerbacks place in the top 30 in PFF’s coverage grades, even if they’re individual rankings have dropped a bit from last season. Caution: If D.J. Reed isn’t released from the concussion protocol by Sunday, that would be a huge loss for the Jets.
Because the Broncos defense might be considered a mess, but they’re putting up 25 points per game, a number the Jets last reached last November 27, 11 games ago. When the Jets beat them last season in Week 7—a Pyrrhic victory in that they lost one of their top offensive weapons (Breece Hall) and offensive linemen (Alijah Vera-Tucker) to season-ending injuries—Denver starting quarterback Russell Wilson was out with a pulled hamstring, so New York’s defense was able to feast on the inaccuracy of backup Brett Rypien.
It was one of five wins in Gang Green’s 7-10 campaign that were abetted by the presence of opponents’ backup QBs. Maybe now folks will understand why I have been hammering home in these posts the high-risk probability of variance the Jets’ defense would be subjected to this season.
And so far the variance hammer has been hitting hard. In order for the Jets to stay relevant this season, their defense must step up to the urgency of Sunday’s moment.
Prediction: Jets 22 Broncos 16
Photo by: Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports