Jets Young Linebackers To Tackle Load Of A Challenge In Titans Henry
Flying under the radar thanks to the abomination that is their offense, the Jets defensive holes haven’t been put in a position to be exposed in big spots. In all three of New York’s defeats to open the season, every second-half Jets possession occurred when they were down by multiple scores.
The statistics may indicate that Gang Green’s D has performed admirably in the face of adverse situations, ranking 10th in the NFL in yards allowed per game and 14th in points per game, but their opponents have pretty much taken the air out of the football for good chunks of each contest. In first halves, the Jets have surrendered an average of 209 yards and 15 points per game. Double those numbers and we’d instead be talking about a bottom five unit in the league.
The game this Sunday presents a rather unique challenge when Tennessee and its Mack Truck of a running back Derrick Henry invade MetLife Stadium. The Titans could be down their top two wide receivers in A.J. Brown and Julio Jones, but Henry and the play-action passing game from quarterback Ryan Tannehill will give New York fits.
Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich will likely ditch their base nickel defense in favor of keeping a third linebacker on the field to load up for Henry, but there will still be two major concerns despite the scheme adjustment:
A) The Jets linebacking depth chart, after C.J. Mosley, is awful, and
B) It won’t matter if they keep missing tackles.
Last season, Henry led all backs with 75 missed tackles forced and placed second with an average of 3.94 yards after contact per rushing attempt, according to ProFootballFocus.com. PFF also keeps track of a run defense stat based on the ratio of missed tackles to tackles: Among the 50 least efficient tacklers in the league with at least 30 run snaps this season, five of them work in the Jets front seven.
New York’s leading missed tackler with four who isn’t even included in that company is safety Marcus Maye, who will be out for the next three-to-four weeks with an ankle injury. Though he’s always been less effective playing more in the box than deep, it’s not like the Jets can plug the next man up and get better results, even if Ashtyn Davis can get back on the field following the foot surgery that ended his rookie 2020 season prematurely.
Maye can be added to the lengthy list of the Jets projected defensive starters who are sidelined, which includes edge rusher Carl Lawson, safety Lamarcus Joyner, and, a player who will be sorely missed on Sunday, linebacker Jarrad Davis (Blake Cashman is another linebacker on injured reserve, but he always is).
Davis, who isn’t expected to return for at least another month, had his ups and downs Lions in the tackling department during his four seasons in Detroit, but it was presumed that he’d find a better fit in the Jets’ defensive schemes. His size and explosiveness to the ball is exactly what is needed to contain and wrap up Henry.
Among the Jets remaining linebackers, only Mosley has received an average grade in tackling, with PFF trashing the work of Quincy Williams and rookies Jamien Sherwood and Hamsah Nasirildeen.
You can’t say that comes as a shock, given that both Sherwood and Nasirildeen were used as safeties in college. They were regarded as sure tacklers then, but the NFL is a whole different ballgame even when you’re not learning a new position closer to the trenches.
With the Jets front four more active in getting upfield than in past years, sometimes too much so that they put themselves out of the play on cutback runs, it is incumbent upon the linebackers to have the ability to not only shed blocks, but keep backs from getting to the next level.
Henry is a master at taking advantage of defensive overaggressiveness, and even if he does get stuffed for a stretch, the Titans will keep feeding their beast until he wears the defense down.
With the league so cautious about injuries, live tackling in practices has been severely dialed back from earlier days. Young teams like the Jets are instead going to have to learn on the fly.
As we’ve seen with rookie quarterback in Zach Wilson, learning is often accompanied by pains.
Prediction: Titans 22 Jets 13