A rough day in Pass Protection for AVT

Plenty of people asked for it, so here it is. Breaking down the struggles of AVT in pass protection against the Bills.

Good morning Jets fans. A lot of you asked for this after yesterday’s GVR breakdown, so I thought I’d go back to the well and have a look at AVT. If you’re of a squeamish disposition, this post may not be for you. But remember the key word in all of this, context. AVT is a rookie, he’s a rookie that’s playing at a high standard in the run game and he’s a rookie who was facing the best defensive unit in football.

For the sake of this article, I eliminated all of the run plays, and I also only featured a couple of the positive pass plays. PFF gave AVT a 27.2 grade, and while I think that’s harsh considering they only attributed 2 hits and 4 total pressures to him, I can understand him propping up the offensive line rankings after watching the film.

First play of the game

I love switching on the tape and on the very first offensive play, you see your rookie lineman do this. I mean he absolutely pancakes this man onto the turf. On the second play, he pulls and picks up his block, and on the third, he picks up the rusher with ease. The first series may not have been successful for the Jets, but the pass protection was as good as it gets from AVT.

The second series isn’t quite as successful. Here is the first pressure and first hit attributed to AVT. The Bills cause confusion with rushing three passers, AVT locks onto his man but he gets pushed back (with the held of the second defender) and White is hit a fraction after he lets go of the ball. This was a tough assignment for AVT and it wasn’t the last time the Bills caused confusion with rushing the A gaps. A positive here is Michael Carter picking the blitz up really nicely.

There were a couple of instances in the first quarter where AVT was a little late to come over and help Fant, but I woukdn’t attribute those pressures to him as he wasn’t the primary blocker.

Overall I’d say outside of that one play, AVT held up really well in pass protection in the first quarter. There were a handful of really good pass Pro reps where the defenders didn’t gain an inch.

At the end of the first quarter, AVT had one pressure and one QB hit, but overall he held up well.

2nd Quarter

Here White really needs to be getting it out a touch quicker. From the time the ball is snapped to the time it leaves his hand, he’s held it for 3.6 seconds. Which is a long time for an NFL QB. He needed to wait for Moore to get open but PFF likely has this as a pressure and hit against AVT. Personally, it’s touch and go for me and I’d verge towards this being a coverage pressure and not an AVT pressure, you be your own judge but we’ll record it.

Here’s another pressure in the 2nd quarter. It’s not easy to get across the line as a big man and AVT moves well, but here he doesn’t quite get enough depth and the lack of an angle makes it hard to re-route the rusher. It’s a good play by Jerry Hughes but that will absolutely have been marked as a pressure against AVT.

I’m marking the next one as a positive play. Technically Mike White has pressure here and technically its from AVTs man, but he does such a great job blocking two players and allowing Mike the time to throw and complete a positive play for the Jets. Great recognition and a good play all around.

Here is the one that you've likely seen the most of and while some people have pointed the finger at McGovern, this is the same mixup we saw earlier this season where McGovern explained his slide right protection and that he was responsible for the right A gap, so between him and GVR, and AVT is responsible for a left A gap. AVT is left blocking nobody and you can tell by McGovern’s reaction that it’s likely AVT got it wrong. Considering McGovern calls the protection, that makes it almost certain this is an error by the rookie.

As funny as this one is with AVT pushing McGovern to the ground, this pressure and hit is also on him. McGovern could have got over to help quicker, but the rookie is beaten outright and once again White is hit.

5 pressures and 4 QB hits in the first half, which is more than PFF attributed to him for the entire game. If you take the pressure and hit off him for the play where White held the ball for too long then you bring that down. It wasn’t a pretty half for AVT in terms of pass protection.

3rd Quarter

For the majority of the 3rd quarter, AVT held up well and had some wins in one on one matchups. But with just under 4 minutes to go he was soundly beaten by Efe Obada, fortunately, White gets the ball out quickly to avoid the sack, but this is certainly a pressure and QB hit on AVT

I’m going to let you decide on the next one but the Jets have three interior linemen the Bills bring three interior rushers and two of them get home. It’s not a great look on anyone but AVT gets drawn in and doesn’t kick back out to pick up the stunt. I’m not going to give him anything on this because it’s a complete line failure but you could understand it someone did give him the pressure and hit there.

6 pressures and 5 QB hits at the end of three and if you wanted to include that last one, which I’m not… it would be 7 pressures and 6 QB hits.

4th Quarter

Thankfully there was nothing to report in the 4th quarter. AVT held up really well and made a nice comeback. 0 pressures to report. Which means by my count that's 6 pressures and 5 QB hits. Not a great day at the office in terms of pass protection for the rookie, but he’s young and he was facing a superb defense.