Defensive Expectations

Edition #322

Good morning! ☀️

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and are gearing up for the last weekend of NFL football this coming Sunday.

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Sorry Yankee fans, I don’t know if there is a substack for you guys.

Today I’m looking at the Jet’s defense and asking, is it reasonable to expect them to repeat or improve on their 2022 performance?

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☠️ On Friday Adam Schefter reported that the Raiders had given Carr and his agent permission to talk to specific teams who had agreed to trade compensation with Las Vegas. Then a Raiders beat reporter sent out a message about how that hadn’t happened and Carr liked that tweet. Sounds to me as though the Raiders leaked that info to Schefter to try and panic a GM into offering up a trade. In reality, they probably have no trade offers and will be forced to release him.

💲 According to the bookies, the Raiders have now overtaken the Jets as the betting favorite for Aaron Rodgers new team.

🐏 Former Jets offensive line coach John Benton is expected to interview with the LA Rams for their offensive line job. Benton is highly regarded in league circles, he was dealt a bad hand here last year with all the injuries we sustained in the unit. If he was to get hired, he would join Mike LaFleur in LA.

😉 Sauce sent multiple tweets about Jets players pitching to Aaron Rodgers and Derek Carr, but he later deleted them. Probably because someone from the PR department pointed out that it wasn't the best look for Zach to have someone clamoring for a new QB.

✖️ According to NFL insider Jeff Howe, the Jets have absolutely no intention to trade Zach Wilson this off-season: “The Jets don’t intend to trade their 2021 first-round pick because there’s hope he can develop while learning more in a backup capacity,”. I believe that the hope for Wilson is a small part of the reason the Jets may be more inclined to go with Rodgers over Carr. The hope is that Rodgers plays for 1-2 years and then hands it back to Zach who’s improved by being a backup. We’ll see how that goes.

By nearly every measuring stick available, the Jets had a dominant defense in 2022.

They were 4th in points allowed per game at 18.6, 3rd in passing yards allowed per game at 189.4, and 4th in total yards allowed per game at 311.1.

When you manage to control the ball through the air and keep the opposition out of the end-zone, that’s a good way to dominate on that side of the ball.

How likely is it that the Jets can repeat that performance in 2023?

There are almost certainly going to change. As of today, the Jets have one defensive tackle signed to the roster in Quinnen Williams, and he may hold out if he doesn’t get the contract extension that he deserves.

The Jets only have one starting linebacker signed for next year from their 2022 trio and they’ll also likely cut Carl Lawson, have to find a way to re-sign Huff, and find a starting free safety.

They’ll need to hope that DJ Reed and Sauce Gardner are as dominant in 2023 as they were in 2022, and the same goes with Quinnen too. They’ll also need to hope that the injury bug doesn’t hit, for as banged up as the offense was, the defense largely managed to stay clear.

Points win prizes, and a lack of points allowed is the prize of a defense. So how easy is it to repeat as one of the top 5 defenses in the NFL in this regard:

2022: 49’ers, Eagles, Commanders, Jets, Saints
2021: Bills, Panthers, 49’ers, Patriots, Browns
2020: Rams, Commanders, Steelers, Saints, 49’ers
2019: Patriots, 49’ers, Bills, Ravens, Steelers

Give credit to San Francisco who have had a top 5 defense in each of the last 4 seasons, outside of the 49’ers only the Steelers were able to maintain their dominant performance from one season to the next, having the 5th-ranked defense in 2019 and the 3rd ranked defense in 2020. The Bills, Patriots, Saints, and Commanders all make multiple appearances, but they’re just slightly spread apart.

This is just to say that a lot happens in the NFL from year to year, and there are certainly no guarantees. Especially when you have as many question marks as the Jets do on the defensive side of the ball.

One aspect to keep an eye on in 2023 is the opponents as well. The Jets are going to get tested considering it’s their turn to play the AFC West this year.

Here’s how all the Jets opponents for 2023 ranked in terms of offensive points per game in 2022:

Buffalo Bills - 2nd (28.4 points per game)
Miami Dolphins - 11th (23.4 points per game)
New England Patriots - 17th (21.4 points per game)
Kansas City Chiefs - 1st (29.2 points per game)
Los Angeles Chargers - 13th (23.0 points per game)
Philadelphia Eagles - 3rd (28.1 points per game)
Washington Commanders - 24th (18.9 points per game)
Houston Texans - 30th (17.0 points per game)
Atlanta Falcons - 15th (21.5 points per game)
Denver Broncos - 32nd (16.9 points per game)
Las Vegas Raiders - 12th (23.2 points per game)
Dallas Cowboys - 4th (27.5 points per game)
New York Giants - 16th (21.5 points per game)
Cleveland Browns - 18th (21.2 points per game)

Even with the likes of the Denver Broncos who won’t be anywhere as bad as that 32nd-ranked unit with Sean Payton in charge and the Houston Texans who will almost certainly be starting a rookie, the Jets had a very difficult schedule in terms of offenses.

Right now based on last year’s stats, the Jets have 5 games against top 5 offenses, in the Cowboys, Eagles, Chiefs, and Bills (twice). They only have 3 games against offenses who averaged less than 20 points per game, yet 5 games against offenses who averaged more than 25 points per game.

As I said, a lot changes in the NFL from year to year. So there is a chance that some of those offenses won’t be quite as dominant, but then again there is a chance that some of those offenses will take a jump into the elite level. On paper, the Jet’s 2023 schedule is harder than the 2022 schedule, but then again, who expected the Broncos to have the 32nd-ranked offense at this point last year? Anyone?

There are a couple of aspects of the 2022 performance that we'll need to maintain in 2023 if we want to compete for the top defense in the league. The first of which is highlighted in the graph above. No team in the NFL generated more pressure while sending only four than the Jets. That's a key component of the Robert Saleh/Jeff Ulbrich system. If you can generate that pressure while dropping 7 into coverage, you're going to have a great shot.

Lawson never quite lived up to his free agent billing after missing his first season in New York with an Achilles injury. But like with any player who is cut, you have to replace his production, and while Lawson wasn’t an elite edge last year, he was still effective off the edge. In the simplest terms you’d hope that Jermaine Johnson and Bryce Huff pick up the slack, but sometimes plans just don’t work.

They’ll need to replace his 49 pressures and 7 sacks if they do indeed cut him.If they do, it’ll be a case of can Bryce Huff maintain his pass rush productivity over a larger sample size?

Last season Huff was the #2 edge in the league in terms of pass-rush win rate at 28.0%, trailing only Joey Bosa, but that was based on 173 pass-rush snaps. To be a top-10 edge rusher in the NFL you need to have a win rate of around 20%, Jaelan Phillips from Miami had a win rate of 19.6% this year and that ranked 12th. JFM was 18th at 18.7% for reference, Lawson was 33rd at 16.7%.

The next is the cornerback play. Look at the graph above to see just how dominant sauce was in his rookie year. But don't look past DJ Reed either who was also exceptional, and that's also highlighted in the above graph

The two charts I've shared today are related. Lockdown corners force the QB to hold onto the ball for longer, which gives the pass-rush time to get home. The pass rush getting home quickly and with only 4 rushers allows more players to drop into coverage and force the QB to let go of the ball before he’s ready.

If the Jets can maintain both of these charts into 2023, then they have a great chance to repeat their defensive dominance in 2023.

Prospect Profile

I’m going to slowly start introducing this as a daily feature. Hoping to cover as many prospects as we possibly can before draft day.

Name: Ivan Pace Jr
Position: Linebacker
Class: Senior
Team: Cincinnati
Projection: 4th Round
2022 Stats: 136 tackles, 20.5 TFL, 9 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, 4 pass defenses

Strengths: Highly productive player for two programs in Miami (OH) and Cincy in 2022. Great explosion and burst, natural instinct for the position, and outstanding gap discipline. A good athlete with sideline-to-sideline speed and good instincts to sit down in zone coverage. Natural blitzer who has a knack for timing his rushes perfectly. Made the defensive calls with the Bearcats so a natural leader and high IQ player who has the trust of the coaching staff.

Weaknesses: I love pretty much everything about his game, but he is on the smaller side and while I don’t think size should deter anyone, there are natural disadvantages when it comes to defending bigger TEs and receivers, as linebackers are asked to do. Ivan measured in at 5’10 and 231lbs, the weight isn’t a concern but the height is. His length of 30 3/4 was also the 2nd smallest in Mobile (Carlton Martial, Troy).

He was named the linebacker of the week on the national team and here’s a clip that made me stand up and take notice. That’s projected first-round guard Torrence O’Cyrus being knocked back by Pace.

Pace knows that his size is an issue for a lot of people, and after being named the National Team MVP, he said “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight it’s the size of the fight in the dog”.