Offensive Red Zone Woes

Edition #497

Good morning!

How will the Jets continue to improve in 2023? How do they go from being competitive to beating teams like the Chiefs and the Eagles? A lot of small details add up to a big improvement, but one big improvement will lead to a monumental leap.

We’re going to focus on the red-zone offence today, an area of real struggle for the Jets through the first five weeks of the season.

If you need something to keep you occupied through the middle of the week, the NHL returned last night, and while I’m a Rangers fan, I wanted to share Isles Fix, which is an outstanding substack publication dedicated to the New York Islanders. So if you’re an Islanders fan, give that a look. The NBA season is just around the corner as well, and Jonathan Macri has the best Knicks content going over at Knicks Film School, I’ve been a subscriber over there for a long time and it’s worth every single penny…or cent.

Breece Hall has been named the FedEx Ground Player of the Week. I imagine it won’t be the last time he’s nominated for this award this year.

He was also asked about his performance against Denver and his response was to say he probably should have had 3 touchdowns. Love that.

Jets kicker Greg Zuerlein has been named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week.

Nick Bawden is currently dealing with a calf injury, Justin Hardee is dealing with a hamstring injury as is Echols, and D.J Reed has still not cleared concussion protocol.

The Jets have officially placed AVT on injured reserve and signed Irvin Charles to the active roster. In terms of the practice squad, they’ve signed OL Dennis Kelly and DL Elerson Smith while they released DL Jalyn Holmes to make room.

Mecole Hardman was asked about his playing time and he said he just wants to play, whether that’s here or elsewhere. He has confirmed that he has not requested a trade. Although he said he would welcome it if it worked out for both sides. I’d say it’s locked on that Hardman will be moved before the October 31st deadline.

Saleh was asked about it and it sure sounded like a trade will be on the cards. He also said the focus needs to be on Gipson earning a role, which is understandable.

Kirk Cousins was asked about a potential trade, not to the Jets but in general: “You know I am just very focused on the Bears and going 1-0 this week, and anything else is not worth my time or energy or attention.”

"Kind of like in our game, there were times in the red zone where maybe they weren't as aggressive as they could've been. We in our game had a couple where we ran the ball, ran the ball. One of the toughest plays in football is third and goal from the 7 to the 10. There's just not a lot of great plays in that situation ... those are tough situations." - Aaron Rodgers on the Pat McAfee show.

“You know just small details. Things happen a lot faster in there, obviously. There were some opportunities that we had. Just being a little bit more precise. It felt like the run game kind of stalled. We were gashing them in the run game, and then we got to the end. Credit to them. When we got into the red zone, they were able to stand up to defend the run and force third and goal from outside the six-yard line, which is a difficult down the distance. We had some opportunities, we just couldn’t connect, but there’s things that we can do better for sure. I’m not going to talk about what I saw and what we could do better, but there’s definitely things that (Nathaniel) Hackett and the staff identified this morning and something that we will apply for the entire week.” - Robert Saleh on the red zone woes.

Heading into this week’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, only the Pittsburgh Steelers have a lower conversion rate of red-zone trips into touchdowns.