Saleh’s Defensive Adjustments Have Helped Jets Come Back From The Brink
Get Rid Of That "Garbage" Turf
Robert Saleh has taken a good number of hits from the media, including from analysts way more knowledgeable on the subject than me, in his two-plus seasons as the Jets’ head coach. Much of it was deserved, as evidenced by his 11-23 record entering the 2023 season. However, there’s no denying that Saleh and his staff has been excelling in one area during New York’s first six games of this campaign—making defensive adjustments on the fly.
And in no game has Saleh faced a more Herculean challenge in that aspect than in New York’s shocking 20-14 victory over the previously unbeaten Eagles on Sunday at a raucous MetLife Stadium. The Jets (3-3) entered the contest decimated at cornerback, with top-flight starters Sauce Gardner and D.J. Reed both out with concussions and No. 1 backup Brandin Echols on the shelf with a hamstring injury. During the second half, slot corner Michael Carter II exited with a hamstring injury as well, leaving the Jets with just three healthy CBs, two of whom were called up from the practice squad for this game. If you asked me earlier in the day who Tae Hayes was, I would have given you a blank stare. On many of Sunday’s defensive reps, the Jets had him matched up with beastly Eagles receiver A.J. Brown.
Yet the Jets’ makeshift defense pitched a shutout against the high-flying Eagles and their elusive quarterback Jalen Hurts after falling behind, 14-3, in the second quarter. Safety Tony Adams’ interception, New York’s third of the day, and return to the 8-yard line just after the two-minute warning set up running back Breece Hall’s game-winning touchdown. Per ESPN, it marked the seventh time in the Saleh regime that the Jets have come back to win from a deficit of at least ten points, tied with Minnesota for the most such wins in the NFL during that span. Oh, and it also was the first time in franchise history the Jets have ever beaten the Eagles after 12 defeats.
After the game, Saleh may have gone overboard in assessing how his club’s defense “embarrassed” the gauntlet of elite quarterbacks the schedule put forth over the first six games, which included the top three finishers in the 2022 NFL MVP voting (Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Hurts, and Buffalo’s Josh Allen). Still, the Jets, saddled with substandard QB2 Zach Wilson after Aaron Rodgers was felled by a torn Achilles on his fourth snap of the season, had no business winning two of those three games, or even being tied in the fourth quarter against the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs.
The Jets have been down by a cumulative 88-45 margin going into intermissions this season, surrendering an average of over 200 yards in total offense in first halves. Then after Saleh and Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich concocted new tweaks to utilize, the defense has come out of the tunnel with a whole different attitude, saving some of those potentially ugly days.
Here are some relevant Jets defensive stats by half:
1st half 2nd half
Points allowed 88 31
Yards allowed 1,259 852
Turnovers forced 6 7
Sacks 4 9
3rd down conversions 60.5% 32.6%
EPA per play allowed rank * 30th 2nd
*--per rbsdm.com
In the last three weeks, much of the adjustments centered around how to limit the damage being done by the opposing quarterbacks’ legs. Hurts was particularly irritating, using his size and speed to evade pass rushers and then either hitting receivers breaking open late or taking off on scrambles.
With the equivalent of junior varsity corners and a pass rush that seemed like it was chasing a ghost, Saleh and Ulbrich had to find ways to confuse the relatively young Hurts. They showed different looks in pressures, focusing more on rush lane discipline, and in coverage, mixing in more straight zones than when they could simply rely on the exquisite one-on-one skills of Gardner and Reed. When the opposing QB has an average of 3.4 seconds to throw, the second highest of any QB in Week 6 per NFL Next Gen Stats, the communication on the back end has to be on point.
The Jets really turned up the screws in Sunday’s fourth quarter, with an early interception by cornerback Bryce Hall on a ball batted up by edge rusher Jermaine Johnson and Bryce Huff’s crucial third-down sack of Hurts with nine minutes remaining that forced Philadelphia into a Jake Elliott field goal attempt, which he pushed wide right. The pick by Adams, an undrafted free agent in his second pro season, was a perfectly timed baiting.
On Philly’s last gasp possession after they let Hall score to save time, the Jets’ defense sealed the deal with a pair of pass breakups by safety Jerome Whithead sandwiched around a terrific tackle in bounds by rising star linebacker Quincy Williams.
It was the best win of Saleh’s head coaching career, a testament to his work as a defensive guru. You probably heard his heartwarming backstory, including the impact of nearly losing his brother in the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy. It pushed him to follow his dream, which became a reality when Jets General Manager Joe Douglas plucked him from the 49ers Defensive Coordinator gig in 2021. A personable guy with the media, Saleh comes across as the ultimate optimist no matter the situation, which can be off-putting to a certain group of Jets fans who are used to gloom-and-doom.
For those like me, we have to admit that even if Rodgers hadn’t gone down, a 3-3 record at this juncture was always going to be acceptable. Sure, the New England loss stings, but the euphoria from walking out of the stadium following the Buffalo and Philadelphia victories has exceeded anything we felt since perhaps 2015.
And though Saleh still has work to do on his clock management skills, among other things, he should be duly credited for keeping this team afloat when the season was in dire straits.
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The Jets have a competitive team now. So is it too much to ask for them to play on a surface that doesn’t twist their best players into knots?
Thanks to my friend Stu’s generosity, I had the good fortune of walking on the MetLife Stadium turf, which was newly installed prior to the season by the way, following Sunday’s game. We both felt it a tad slippery, which necessitated a certain type of cleat to be worn by players. The “grass blades” seemed low, to the point where we could understand how some players might get a cleat stuck in it after a hard plant.
Despite its newness, the turf has not received stellar reviews. Jets wide receiver Garrett Wilson was the most recent complainant, calling it “garbage” after his right leg appeared to buckle while running a second quarter route on Sunday. He returned to the game shortly thereafter, but limped back to the bench during the fourth quarter, though Saleh said he could have finished the game.
Was the turf also responsible for Rodgers’ injury? That’s probably impossible to prove, as it would be when it comes to the long list of other Jets’ maladies this season. Alijah Vera-Tucker, Gang Green’s best offensive lineman, tore his Achilles on the Denver natural grass in Week 5.
Still, the NFL is a multi-billion dollar operation. They basically print money. Crying about “the cost” of maintaining grass fields draws no sympathy. Woody Johnson is investing hundreds of millions of dollars on Jets players—why isn’t he splurging a tiny fraction of that amount to protect them so they can stay on the field?