Jets Playing Out String In A Season Where Only The Special Teams Have Been Special

Dec 08, 2023

If you think an NFL Head Coach has a short shelf life, try being an assistant. There are only a handful of such staff who have kept their gigs longer than Jets Special Teams Coordinator Brant Boyer, who was plucked from Indianapolis back in 2016.

That was three Jets head coaches ago, and if you believe in justice, he should be working for HC #4 next season.

Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich has been the Jets assistant receiving the most love from the media these days, and his unit has had quite a few moments against quality competition that should be toasted. But has the D really lived up to its potential this season? Ninth in the league in yards allowed and 13^th in points? With the offense an absolute mess, you can’t blame them for this five-game losing streak, but they haven’t been elite either.

Some media members are hyping Ulbrich as a potential head coaching candidate this offseason, yet Boyer has never been mentioned, even as a future prospect. I get that outside of Baltimore’s John Harbaugh, few special teams coaches succeed when promoted to that level (and Joe Judge’s Giants stint did the position no favors) and Boyer lacks experience in other departments. Still, could he have been worse than Robert Saleh?

So, as New York (4-8) continues its slog toward the end of another disastrous season with a match against Houston on what is expected to be a dreary Sunday at MetLife Stadium, let’s take a pause from this team’s daily coach/quarterback dysfunction and appreciate what Boyer and the Jets special teams have achieved in such trying circumstances.

Working with a team that has scored the fewest touchdowns in the NFL this season (13, with just 10 provided by the offense), converts the fewest third downs by a country mile (23.1%, or 11% worse than 31^st-ranked Tennessee), yet boasts a defense that ranks a respectable 12^th in average time per drive allowed, per pro-football-reference.com, Boyer’s special teams play can have an outsized impact on results, both good and bad.

Fortunately, Boyer’s units have performed exceptionally well this season, as they have for most of his tenure. Depending on whose measurements you trust, the Jets special teams rank somewhere in the top six of the league in defense-adjusted value over average and expected points added per play. Only ProFootballFocus.com, whose grading systems have come under fire recently, have the Jets as low as tenth.

Obviously, this season hasn’t been perfect—the Chargers got a boost from an 87-yard punt return touchdown after the Jets’ opening possession. Still, considering how often Thomas Morstead has had to bail the Jets out of terrible field position (his 71 punts amazingly aren’t the league-high; Giants punter Jamie Gillan has booted one more), I’d say that his 13^th-place 42.4 net punting yards isn’t too shabby, especially since he’d be in third if you removed that one outlier during the period where special teams ace Justin Hardee was on injured reserve.

When Morstead pinned the Falcons at their own 1-yard line last Sunday to set up a safety on the second subsequent snap, many in the drenched MetLife crowd thought that might be the only way the Jets would score that day. Morstead also placed three balls inside the five-yard line and another that was downed on the 13-yard line during the Jets’ 13-10 overtime victory over the Giants to earn NFL Special Teams Player of Week 8 honors.

The game-tying and winning points in that contest were provided by field goals from kicker Greg Zuerlein, who is having a fantastic season despite the northeastern elements. Dallas’ Brandon Aubrey and Kansas City’s Harrison Butker have 100% conversion rates on both field goals and extra points, but Zuerlein and Atlanta’s Younghoe Koo are next in line in the NFL kicking race with just one of each attempt type missed.

Zuerlein has accounted for an NFL-high 46% of New York’s points this season; only Koo and Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell are over 40% for their squads. Zuerlein is 11-for-12 on field goals longer than 40 yards, with his sole miss a 52-yarder that hit the right upright against the Chiefs in Week 4. Only six other kickers have more makes from those distances this season.

“Greg The Leg” may not have been afforded as many kickoff opportunities as others in the league due to his club’s inability to move the ball on offense, but when he has been called upon, the TV broadcast might as well have stayed in commercial. 37 of his 41 kickoffs went for touchbacks and another was deemed dead via a fair catch—only three other kickers have had a lower percentage returned.

Given that Morstead (37) and Zuerlein (turns 36 in three weeks) are two of the top 25 oldest players in the league (Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is the second oldest behind Seattle tackle Jason Peters while Jets tackle Duane Brown is seventh), I’m not sure how much Boyer’s coaching has impacted their performances. However, he did draw up two successful fake punts, one of which arose from a Morstead pass to cornerback Brandin Echols that went for 18 yards in an otherwise forgettable day in Buffalo on November 19. Safety Ashtyn Davis also took a direct snap for four yards during the Jets’ Week 2 drubbing in Dallas. Boyer is now 6-for-6 on fake punts since he took over.

Of course, Boyer’s play of the year came in the opener, when undrafted rookie Xavier Gipson went 65 yards to the house on a punt return in overtime to give New York a stunning 22-16 victory. Boyer credited the unit for “blocking it exactly the way we taught them how to block it”, specifically mentioning cornerback Bryce Hall for his sprint all the way down the field from the opposite numbers to make a key block. Gipson’s speed did the rest.

Too bad the Jets season didn’t end there.

Prediction: Texans 22 Jets 9