Just give me Moore
Elijah looks to have turned the corner and promises more to come.
🗽Good morning Jets fans. It’s Tuesday which means we’re officially onto week 10 of the NFL season. Later this week we’ll get into our Buffalo preview, but today it’s all about Elijah Moore, as I take a close look at the Jets rookie receiver. After all the disagreements around the QB position, it’s nice to talk about something that most Jets fans agree on.
College Ball 🎓
🏈 St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida is an NFL factory. They can claim responsibility for the starts of many a good football career, including those of Geno Atkins, Michael Irvin, Joey & Nick Bosa, Giovanni Bernard, LaMarcus Joyner, Asante Samuel Jr, and Phillip Dorsett. So when Elijah Moore decided to flip his commitment from Georgia to Ole Miss in December 2017, the Rebels knew they had a good one.
Moore played as a true freshman catching 36 balls for 398 yards and 2 touchdowns. His chance came by and large due to an injury sustained by D.K Metcalf which ruled the now Seahawks receiver out for the season. His 11 receptions against South Caroline broke the Ole Miss record for a freshman.
But Moore was moved all over the field in college. He took snaps from the back-field he was used on Jet Sweeps, and his wide snaps increased every year, from 2 in 2018, 37 in 2019 and then 108 in 2020.
🏈 In 2019 he led the Rebels with 67 catches for 850 yards and 6 touchdowns, but 2019 also represented a big teaching moment for Moore who’s immature act cost his team the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State.
With Ole Miss down 21-14 with just 5 seconds to go in the game, Moore did this:
A last gasp TD in a bowl game against Mississippi State, it doesn’t get much better than that for an Ole Miss wide receiver. The momentum had shifted, Ole Miss were in the driving seat, kick the extra point, send the game to OT and go get that win.
Unfortunately, that routine 20-yard extra point attempt turned into a 35-yard extra point attempt because Moore decided to do this:
For anyone who watches college football, you’ll know that extra points aren’t a given for some of these college kickers, so very few were surprised when this happened, leading to Ole Miss losing the game:
The fallout from this? Outside of the fact that Moore gave headline creators the perfect ammunition for “Ole Miss pisses away Egg Bowl”. Coach Matt Luke was fired and Ole Miss lost several key commitments to their recruiting class. Fortunately for Moore, he seemed to learn from this episode and went on to be highly regarded during his Junior Year where he caught 86 passes for 1193 yards and 8 touchdowns in just 8 games.
🏈 The fall-out from the 2019 Egg Bowl actually led to the hiring of Lane Kiffin, who brought offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby to Oxford. Kiffin got a good education on offensive football under Jon Gruden in Tampa Bay and his pass-heavy offensive system came from working with Norm Chow. We could go on about Kiffin but this isn’t an Ole Miss newsletter, needless to say Kiffin helped Moore realize his potential in 2020.
Part of that was quenching Moore’s thirst for knowledge. Kiffin allowed Moore to attend other positional groups meetings. Moore started attending the quarterback meetings, the running back meetings, as well as the wide receiver ones. He also spent considerable time with Lane Kiffin and during his pro-day zoom he gave the reasoning, “The more you know, the faster you can play.”
Interestingly Kiffin often spoken of Moore as a slot receiver, and often commented that he believed that was his ideal position at the next level. But, at the same time, it was under Kiffin that Moore started to spend more time outside:
“I love learning positions,” Moore said. “I'm going to learn to embrace wherever you put me. I'm very open. I love to be coached. I'm going to work extremely hard. If I'm not good at it now, I'll be great at it later.
“I feel like whatever team I get drafted to, I'm going to be the hardest worker on the team right away. I'm still growing as a person, so I don't want to look at anybody else and be like them or something like that. I want to be my own player. I want to be myself and just stand out in that way.”1
So instead of remembering him for his poorly times and immature touchdown celebration, Ole Miss fans got to remember him more for things like this:
The Pros ✨
🏈Coming into the 2021 NFL draft, most considered Elijah Moore a first-round talent, including Daniel Jeremiah, who’s a draft analyst that I really respect. He had Moore as the 26th best prospect in the draft and theorized that running him from the slot was the way forward:
We heard about his catching ability, his route-running, his ability to make things happen when he had the ball in his hands.
So when Moore fell to the 2nd round, the Jets were thrilled to snap him up. This was a player who had caught 86 of his 101 targets his final year, his 18 missed tackles forced were good for the 6th best in the nation, his 11 contested catches were good for 5th best.
He excelled at every depth, he had 31 catches between 1-9 yards, 22 catches between 10-19 and 11 catches of 20+ yards. He had just 2 drops on those 101 targets.
His workout numbers showed just how good he was in terms of his quickness. He tested in the 93rd percentile in the three-cone and 40-yard dash and the 96th percentile in the shuttle run.
His college coach Lane Kiffin was effusive in his praise of Moore before the season, talking to the NYDN, he said:
“He’s just really unbelievable, with a really unique, special mindset about being great, which rarely happens nowadays. Every single thing in his life is about being great,” Kiffin said. “Should be a very easy transition because of his approach to the game and his pro mentality.”
🏈 He dominated spring and summer workouts with beat writers drooling at his natural ability. Yet 5 weeks into the season he had 9 catches for 79 receiving yards and 0 receiving TD’s.
Like with most weapons, working out how best to utilize them is the first big hurdle. There was certainly an element of the Jets not knowing how to get the ball into Moore’s hands to start the season.
It’s not that his positioning has changed, he hasn’t run from the slot more, he’s still spending around 75% of his time out wide, which is exactly the same usage as the first 3 weeks of the season. His targets have remained relatively steady, receiving 18 over the first three weeks and 20 over the last three weeks.
The difference I can see is in the depth of his targets. During the first three weeks of the season, 28% of his targets were 20+ yards down the field and 28% of his targets were between 10-19 yards. Over the last three weeks, the 20+ yard targets have decreased to 15%, while the 10-19 yard targets have increased to 40%.
As a result, his catch percentage has increased from 44% through the first three weeks to 70% over the course of the last three weeks. Wide receiver is a confidence position, it’s also a rhythm position, and Moore has found that rhythm over the last 2 weeks in particular catching 13 passes on 14 targets.
Part of this is that Mike White isn’t as competent or confident throwing the ball down the field, and part of this is that Mike White and Mike LaFleur have realized that getting the ball into his hands in the middle of the field is a good idea.
Moore had just 21 yards after the catch over the first three weeks of the season. Over the last three weeks, that number has jumped to 60.
If we keep to this strategy and continue to get the ball into his hand’s good things are going to happen. Elijah Moore coming across the field is a very difficult player to pick up and defend against, and that’s been something the jets have exploited recently.
Confidence has never been an issue with Moore and I’m sure his slow start didn’t deter his self-belief. Before the draft Moore commented:
“I don't know why I don't get picked first overall because I'm going to work hard, harder than anybody else,” he said. “You can't tell me there are that many people better than me. I feel like I'm the best offensive player in the whole draft. People have their doubts and they're going to say things, but it's just all going to come to the light.”
Let’s hope it continues to come to light over the 2nd half of the season.
News & Notes
With Braden Mann set to return, the Jets decided to release veteran punter Thomas Morestead. The 35-year-old punter did a fine job playing after Mann got injured on the opening Sunday of the weekend, but going with the 23-year-old obviously makes sense.
Robert Saleh said he hopes all QBs will practice on Wednesday and if Zach is fully healthy he’d start against Buffalo. However he said they are not going to rush him and reading between the lines it looks as though Mike White may get the start on Sunday. A starting QB will be named Wednesday.
After giving up 54, 31 and 45 points in recent weeks, Saleh said he will not be taking on a bigger role with the defense, reaffirming his faith in defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich.
That will do it for today folks. As always I really appreciate you taking the time to read and if you like it just a little, then I appreciate any shares and subscribes.
https://eu.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/pro/browns/2021/04/14/elijah-moore-broke-out-under-lane-kiffin-brother-browns-assistant/7179475002/