Christmas Stat Pack: Jaguars
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Good morning!
I hope you all had a great Christmas and managed to get some downtime. I’m suitably stuffed from yesterday having indulged far too much, unfortunately, the Jets sent us into the holidays with a sour taste in our mouths, and unfortunately, we’re going to have to re-live that today as part of the stat pack.
But, on the positive side, a lot of results went the Jets way this weekend meaning we've still got a shot at the playoffs. Win both remaining games and our chance is good, now which doctor do we need to pay off to clear Mike White?
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Jets Wide Receiver coach Miles Austin has been suspended for violating the league’s gambling policy. There is no indication that he bet on NFL games, but he did bet on other sports which is against the NFL's personnel gambling policy. The suspension is indefinite and will be for a minimum of one year unless overturned, Miles is appealing the decision.
We’re going to jump straight into the QB and I don’t think you need me to tell you it wasn’t great. Taking a look at Zach’s passing graph below, you can see he struggled to push anything past 10 yards. The conditions were tough, but we need to remember that Zach’s arm strength was one of his biggest attributes coming out of BYU.
Unfortunately, a 50% completion for under 100 yards isn’t going to cut it and although Coach Saleh didn’t call it a benching, it was a benching. Zach completed just 25% of passes when under pressure, including that interception with the 2nd quarter expiring. Wilson was blitzed on 33.3% of his dropbacks and his time to throw was again on the wrong side of 3 seconds at 3.09.
I don’t think we need to spend too much time on the QB position. Streveller came in and gave the offense a jolt, but his completion to Uzomah which should have been a walk-in touchdown had it now been underthrown showed his limitations. Streveller is a good gadget man but his arm talent is below average.
Running Backs
There were two problems with the running game. One was related to the blocking by the linemen which was largely non-existent, the other was MLF abandoning the run game too early and putting a lot of pressure on the QB to move the football. Like Detroit, Jacksonville stacked the box and did everything they could to take the run game away.
In those conditions the Jets running backs combined for just 10 attempts, that’s just unacceptable game planning. Part of that is on MLF and part of that is on Zach, if you can’t move the ball through the air, why would Jacksonville take defenders out of the box? Streveler totaled 15 yards after contact, the other four players on this list combined for just 10 yards after contact with a combined 3 missed tackles forced. Really it’s not very good at all.
Offensive Line
It was another tough day at the office for the Jet’s offensive line and despite the resources, we have plowed into it, that will be an area of focus for improvement this off-season.
The one lineman you won’t see on this stat sheet is Duane Brown and that’s because the Jets left tackle allowed 0 pressures. Connor McGovern continues to struggle with 5 pressures allowed and 2 sacks, CMG has been largely good for the Jets but he’s having a very difficult end to the season, which is bad timing for him considering he’s entering free agency.
Nate Herbig also seems to be struggling at the moment, he allowed 4 pressures and his right-sided teammate George Fant also allowed 4 pressures. Laken only allowed the one pressure, but it was a sack. His first year with the team continues to be a big disappointment after he signed a marquee contract in the off-season.
I still don’t understand why the Jets refuse to leave extra blockers in to help their struggling offensive line. The running backs combined for just 9 pass-blocking snaps between them and the TE’s were left in on only 3 pass-blocking snaps. These are the details I don’t understand with the MLF system.
Wide Receiver
When you only score three points as an offense, nobody is going to stand out in the receiving core. Ball placement is a huge issue for Zach and that’s reflected in the conversion rate of targets into receptions. Obviously, some of this is on Streveler as well and as mentioned earlier, he’s a very limited passer.
Garrett caught just 50% of his targets and Davis was even worse at 28.6%, he also had a drop in there as well. The Jets as a unit were 0-5 on contested catches.
There isn’t a lot to say about the Jets receivers, the system still severely under-utilizes Uzomah who should have had a walk-in touchdown, I just don’t understand giving Uzomah a $24 million contract over three years if you’re not going to use him. This was the ideal game to get both TE’s heavily involved in the passing game and Uzomah had one target.
Pass Rush
When Quinnen took Lawrence down on Jacksonville’s first drive and Lawson beat his man on the same play, I thought we were going to see a bloodbath in the trenches in the Jet’s favor, but that never materialized. One player who is absent on the chart below is Bryce Huff, who was in for just 5 pass-rush snaps…which is nonsensical considering statistically he’s been one of the most productive pass-rushers in football this year.
It was good to see Jermaine Johnson get a couple of pressures yesterday and he made a couple of excellent plays in the run game as well. 11 players generated pressure in the game on Thursday night, but only one sack was registered. A lot of that has to do with Trevor Lawrence who moves around in the pocket well, but again I’m very surprised to see Clemons out snap Huff by double - I appreciate they probably wanted someone in against the run considering Lawrence’s mobility, but having Huff’s speed would have been helpful.
Coverage
PFF didn’t credit DJ Reed with a PBU as I imagine they think he didn’t touch the ball, it looked to me as though he did and for me, a pass-break-up should be any play where the corner has impacted the receiver’s ability to make the catch.
Carter had the toughest assignment with Kirk and that showed with him allowing 83.3% of passes to be completed. Sauce had another shut-down game where he allowed a single catch for 23 yards. Lawrence played pretty safe on Thursday, so there wasn’t a huge amount of opportunity for the Jet’s defensive backs, and while they bent they didn’t break.
I still firmly believe that we need a new free safety this off-season to complete the secondary makeover.
Christmas Stat Pack: Jaguars
Though it’s his second year as a HC, Saleh is basically a rookie. Last year, no one had any high expectations, so there was no pressure. The Jets this year started doing the unexpected, winning. Now Saleh has the pressure on him. He has shown some nicks in his armor.
Problem one is LeFleur, was he hired because he had a great offensive mind or because his brother is Saleh’s best friend or a combination of both.
LeFleur has also been ripped as of late because of his play calling.
Ironically just like Zach, he was hidden by the fact that Breece Hall was an exceptional talent. Hall goes down, both Zach and Lefleur get exposed.
It doesn’t help that the Jets offensive line has been hammered by key injuries all season, but LeFleur’s job is to find ways to adapt to bad situations.
Lately, it’s been disastrous, is it all Zach or is LeFleur part of the problem. This team rarely runs a running back screen. If I see another Berrios in motion screen that the league has figured out, I’ll scream. Where is the 3 step drop and pass to offset 8 in the box, is it being called or is it that Zach can’t process it. The Jets definitely need a veteran offensive coach to assist LeFleur or to replace him. If Saleh doesn’t agree than Douglas better act because Woody for all his faults reads and reacts to everything out there. He might want a change which wouldn’t bode well for either Douglas or Saleh.
As far as Saleh goes, why does every HC who the Jets hire who was a DC lack the most rudimentary knowledge of clock management. Saleh hired a clock coach, where was he at the end of the Lion game, in the mens room.
Saleh’s comments concerning Wilson Lately are very confusing. One example, after Thursday night’s fiasco, “ I see progress in Zach”, enough said.
Hey coach your job is to win games, it’s not to hold a players hand during rough times especially when the player isn’t performing. Where’s the progress.
As far as Zach’s concerned, I wouldn’t let him be active for the rest of the year. If White can’t play in Seattle than it’s Flacco and Strevler time. Saleh says Zach has confidence issues, why make them worse by putting him into a must win situation. His body language resonates defeat. It almost looked like the whole team took Zach’s persona thursday.
The season started with high hopes and improvement from Zach and lower expectations for the rest of the team and the opposite happened.
I strongly believe the Jets need a gray beard in the Offensive room. The had Gregg Knapp (RIP) then replaced GN with Matt Cavanaugh. MC retired song the Senior Offensive Coach position is vacant...
HIRE FRANK REICH NOW!!! Pl ease, before someone else does. He’s brilliant, experienced, from NY, played for the Jets, and he’s exactly what we need to mentor Zach. Calabrese & MLF are not getting the best out of Zach.
Happy Holiday to you all.
Go Jets