Garrett Wilson - Slotting In?

Edition #670

Good morning!

Welcome to game week. After months and month of talk, we finally get to see the players on the field again, and while the game doesn’t matter to most, there are a number of players fighting for their spot, and if you follow the team closely (and I presume you do considering you’re signed up to daily Jets emails) there is plenty to be keeping an eye on.

There was another positive practice for the Jets offence over the weekend, and the balance of the wins is something we should all be excited about. The Jets offence started better and then the defence dominated for a while, now the offence are back on top.

Robert Saleh has been speaking about Aaron Rodgers, who’s been more fiery than usual at camp: "I've heard stories of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady -- not to compare them -- but it's the same thing," coach Robert Saleh said of Rodgers' sometimes fiery mentality. "The expectation and the standard is high. As a quarterback, he's trying to operate at a certain level of efficiency, which means people around him need to be efficient at the same level. When he's not feeling that as a group's leader and voice, he voices his opinion."

Garrett Wilson has been talking about Charvarius Ward, the 49ers cornerback who acted as though he’d never heard of Wilson in an interview earlier this off-season: "I saw it. That's cool," Wilson said. "They're right, frankly. It's all good. I haven't done anything yet. I'm excited to have the opportunity to do it on them, get it rolling, right? That's just how it is. Any opponent we play, that's the mindset."

Unfortunately the snapping issues continued for Joe Tippmann over the weekend. The Jets centre has the yips and has been chewed out by both coaches and Aaron Rodgers but the issues persist. I still think that the Jets should be getting a specialist in and I’m sure Nick Mangold would be more than willing to try to rectify this. Whatever they’re doing at the minute isn’t working, so they need to try something else.

Jeff Ulbrich has been talking about how to take the Jets from a good defense to an historic one - "To be a great defense, elite defense, historic defense, you have to take the ball away," Ulbrich said, stressing interceptions. "Ultimately that changes games, it wins games and wins championships. The ability to take the ball off people is a huge emphasis from the very beginning of OTAs, minicamps, the whole thing. That's obviously the guys catching the ball, the DBs executing on the back end and a big part of that is our rush affecting quarterbacks as well. It all goes hand in hand."

With Tyron Smith taking a rest day, Olu Fashanu got the start at left tackle in the green/white scrimmage at the weekend, and he’s already noticed a big difference between the calibre of pass-rusher he’ll be facing at the NFL level - "There is a very big difference between the college and pros," Fashanu said. "I would say in the Big Ten you are going against pass rushers that are one dimensional, so it is a lot easier to scout them. Then here, with our D-line, all the edge rushers have both speed and power and are really good with their hands, so it is really challenging."

Talking of the scrimmage, the offence had some really good drives but the 1st team was unable to punch it into the EZ. A couple of execution issues with a Davis fumble and errant snap caused them to stall. The one TD came from the second team offence and Jason Brownlee, who’s really starting to come along after a quiet start to camp. "The corner hit me with a jab, but the safety got too much depth," Brownlee said of the score. "I was wide open going down the sideline, so I just threw my hand up and just hoping he gave me a chance to make a play on the ball." Saleh added: "Brownlee is starting to come along. I'd say he got off to a little bit of a slow start in camp and he's starting to pick up. It looks like he's getting his legs under him where we are starting to see the speed we saw a year ago."

Washington rookie Jayden Daniels will play against the Jets in the first pre-season game on Saturday, the #2 overall pick will be taking his first snaps as an NFL player. I’m not expecting many of the first-team defence to start if any, but he’ll get a test this week as the Jets/Commanders hold a joint practice.

With the HOF festivities this weekend, the NY Times ran a piece outlining the next coach/player from each team who they project will make the hall. No real surprise that for the Jets it’s Aaron Rodgers - “He won’t make the Hall of Fame for the four snaps he’s played as a Jet, but he will for the 230 games he played for the Packers, and maybe for the snaps he has yet to play for the Jets. After Winston Hill, Joe Klecko, Curtis Martin, Kevin Mawae and Darrelle Revis were inducted recently, Jets players have not had much Hall of Fame traction. Mark Gastineau and Nick Mangold are possibilities.”

The Jets brought in 5x Pro Bowl wide receiver Jarvis Landry for a try-out this weekend. Landry has nearly 8,000 receiving yards to his name and 38 touchdowns and while the 31-year-old is not the player he once was, he’s an interesting name to keep an eye on. Landry was most recently with the Saints in 2022 after spending much of his career with the division rival Miami Dolphins.

Rich Cimini had a good stat on Garrett Wilson that he shared yesterday and it got me thinking about how the Jets were going to operate their receivers this year.

In 2022, 29 of Wilson’s 83 receptions were from the slot (35%), then last year, 40 of his 95 receptions were from the slot (42%), there’s a chance that the number will climb even higher this season with Aaron Rodgers calling the shots.

Cimini rightfully pointed out that there’s a blueprint for all of this and he goes by the name of Davante Adams. Adams was one of the most productive slot receivers in the NFL while he was in Green Bay. When he first arrived in Wisconsin he spent just 7.3% of his time in the slot, by the time he left he was at 33.3%.

It’s not always about the time you spend in the slot, it’s about how productive you are. In 2021, Adams caught 7 of his 11 touchdowns from the slot, Aaron Rodgers also won the MVP that year and Nathaniel Hackett was the offensive coordinator.

Interestingly, Garrett spent one year at Ohio State as the dominant slot receiver, that was in 2020 with 73.3% of his snaps coming in the slot, the next year that fell to just 17.1% and he had his most productive year with 1,058 yards and 12 touchdowns.

That’s college and this is the NFL, if you can get Garrett a better matchup inside and if Rodgers is more comfortable throwing over that area, then you have an obligation to find those opportunities. Garrett will win on the outside, but I can see a world where we have a similar situation to the Adams productive line in 2021.

Last year the slot was dominated by Randall Cob (118 snaps) and Xavier Gipson (223 snaps) and Garrett Wilson (222).

Interestingly in Mike Williams most productive scoring season (10 scores in 2018) he spent over 30% of his total snaps in the slot. In college, Corley spent 91.5% of his snaps in the slot, so how the Jets utilise all their weapons and in which situations is going to be one of the more interesting aspects of the team this season.

Being unpredictable is a huge advantage in the NFL, especially as most teams don’t have their corners travel with the oppositions top receiver.