All Hands

Edition #739

☀️ Good morning ☕

Arizona here we come. The win against Houston felt good, but one win in a sea of losses does nothing to change the current.

If the Jets win on Sunday, then maybe I’ll start believing…just a little bit. Returning home to face the Colts at 4-6 is an opening. Especially as the bye week will follow that game, giving the Jets time to get healthy.

The Ravens defeated the Bengals last night, which is good for the Jets. If the Jets win on Sunday that will give them the same record at 4-6.

This morning I wanted to talk about the receivers and how they matchup in a couple of league metrics, drops and contested catches.

🟢 Haason Reddick had 8 pressures and 0.5 sacks in only his second game as a Jet and Ulbrich saw the improvements from New England to Houston - "I thought he corrected some of his wrongs from the Patriots game," interim HC Jeff Ulbrich said of Reddick. "He was cutting it tight at the top of his rushes and the sack that he had [split with Quinnen Williams with 47 seconds remaining] is as good as it gets. Understanding the pressure that we're in, we're bringing internal pressure and he had to cut it tight. Just the efficiency and the timing of his feet and his hands was pretty special, so it's a game that he can build off of for sure."

⚫ The Jets are going to have to be at their best to stop Connor/Murray and this Arizona rushing attach - The Cardinals have the NFL's 7th best rushing attack with 149.7 yards per game, and ranks No. 2 in yards per carry (5.3). Connor has the 6th most rushing yards in football entering week 10.

🟢 If there is one weakness to the Jets defense right now, it’s their inability to stop the run. "They're running the game more efficiently than any team in the NFL right now and it's a problem," Jeff Ulbrich said. "We're going to have to play our best ball to slow this run game down. Those opportunities when they have to throw the ball and put it in Kyler's hands, he's a problem not only with arm and decision making, but as a quarterback, he's become so much better. He's become one of the top quarterbacks in this league, but at the same time, as we all know, when that breaks down he has this element of athleticism and speed that's unrivaled right now as far as the quarterback position is concerned. We're going to have our hands full."

⚫ Aaron Rodgers was asked about having both Garrett Wilson and Davante Adams - "It's hard to double both guys, but if you do, that's opportunities for everybody else in the middle or on the outside," Rodgers said. "We need our tight ends to step up, our young receivers to step up, we've obviously used both of our [running] backs in some of that personnel with them on the field at the same time. We'll keep mixing things up with that. Those guys [Wilson and Adams] are both dynamic players and pick your poison."

🟢 Talking of Aaron Rodgers, he feasted against the Blitz according to PFF. He was 8/12 for 100 yards and 2 touchdowns when Houston sent more than 4. We’ll need to see more of that this weekend, although as mentioned earlier this week…Arizona blitz very sparingly.

⚫ PFF ran their mid-season review and the highest graded Jet through 9 games? D. J. Reed - “Reed has been one of the more underrated defenders in the NFL his entire career, and he’s finally relished the spotlight this season. His 81.8 overall grade is the fourth-best among corners with 200 or more snaps. Reed has permitted only 16 catches on 32 targets.”

🟢 The biggest surprise in that mid-season review? “The Jets’ defensive factory has another piece ready to fix the puzzle. Sherwood, who had only played 357 snaps in his first three years, has already experienced 544 snaps in 2024. The results have been promising: his 76.9 overall grade ranks 12th among qualifying linebackers.”

⚫ Stat to know: The Jets have faced the second-most deep passing attempts (56) but have allowed only 39 explosive passing plays (8th).

🟢 Adam Schefter was talking about Ben Johnson and how he believes that he’s going to be very “selective” about where he goes. Here is the full clip.

As I was watching that Houston game it seemed to me that the ball was bouncing off hands a lot.

According to the official figures the Jets had just two drops during that game, so either they were being generous in the stats booth, or my memory is deteriorating.

I decided to take a look at dropped passes and contested catches, in the same way that I looked as missed tackles earlier this week.

Stats on their own are hard to use, but when you use them in comparison to the league you start to understand where you’re doing well and what you need to improve on.

I’ve looked at the season so far and charted how many dropped passes each team has had and what percentage of their targets were dropped, which gives a better indication of quality as some teams like the Patriots and Chargers don’t throw all that much.