Olu Fashanu Time

Edition #705

Good morning! ☕

I hope you all enjoyed a stress-free weekend with the Jets already handling business in week three. I was at the Norwich game on Saturday and we ended up winning comfortably (4-1) so all around it’s been a great few days of sporting action. If the Mets can hold on to that final wildcard spot, then even better. Big series in Atlanta coming up and Mets Fix will have you covered.

We had some good news on Morgan Moses, the players are now enjoying a mini-bye where they’ll have a few extra days to rest up before hosting the Denver Broncos. Then…it’s off to London to take on Sam Darnold and the 3-0 Minnesota Vikings. Fun!

🟢 According to Ian Rapoport, Morgan Moses has been diagnosed with an MCL sprain and bone bruise and is only expected to miss 2-4 weeks. The Jets dodged a big bullet here and that’s great news for this ever-improving offensive line. Moses is a very tough competitor and competed with a torn pec last year, so if I’m betting man I’d probably now rule him out for that game in London. But it’s likely that he’ll return for the home game against the Buffalo Bills. Olu Fashanu will take his place at RT against the Denver Broncos next weekend.

⚪ Aaron Rodgers has been talking about the Jets ability to build drives: "Well, I would have loved to score on a first possession, but I felt like, I don't think we had a three-and-out all night. Sounds about right, so we were efficient offensively, good on third down, spread the ball around a lot, ran the ball pretty well, pass protected pretty well. I moved out of the spot a few times, halfway decent, so a lot of good things to build on from this game."

🟢 A lot has been made of a moment on the sideline where Rodgers and Saleh met and it appeared as though Rodgers wasn’t happy, but it’s actually all about a hug…so we can all get on with our lives - "No, there was nothing awkward at all. He's not a big hugger usually, so I didn't know he was going for the hug. He likes to do the two-hand chest push, as well. But he talks a lot about two-score leads, so I just kind of gave him a push and said, 'two-score lead.' That's what happened."

⚪ Tyler Conklin had a breakout game for the Jets as he recorded a career-high 93-yard game against New England, I don’t think that’ll be the last time he plays a big role in a Jets win this season - "A couple of those situations were scramble drills," Conk said. "I was just trying to do my best to get open for him. All I had to do was catch the ball. He made it pretty easy on me."

🟢 The Jets upped the tempo to start the game against New England and that was a deliberate decision based on New England coming off a long OT game - "We kind of jumped the ball early," HC Robert Saleh said postgame. "[The Patriots] went into overtime and ran 72 plays last week, so we were trying to go a little bit quicker pace the first couple of drives, especially that first drive. I feel like we were able to accomplish that. Just trying to lean on them as much as we could."

⚪ The Jets now have 9 offensive touchdowns through three weeks. It took them until week 11 last season to score 9 offensive touchdowns which says everything you need to know about both last years team and this years team.

🟢 If you’re counting, Haason Reddick’s fines are now past the $8 million mark. What a life when you can turn down over $8 million for playing a game.

We’re going to take a look at a few of the stats from Thursday night’s game. Just a quick tour of things we tend to look at here at TJW.

• 16 pressures & 2 sacks allowed. Tyron Smith credited with allowing 6 pressures and 2 sacks. Breece Hall and Morgan Moses both with 3 each, John Simpson with 2, Joe Tippmann 1, Braelon Allen 1 and Alijah Vera-Tucker with 0.

• 0 drops and 2-4 on contested catches with Mike Williams and Garrett Wilson with the two successful contested catches.

• 148 yards after the catch which was led by Allen Lazard (39) and Tyler Conklin (35). Lazard’s 13.0 yards after the catch per reception was by far the best number.

• As expected, Garrett Wilson spent considerable time in the slot. 47.5% of all his snaps came from the slot.

• Sauce Gardner bounced back in a big way allowing just 9 yards into his coverage. D.J. Reed went one better and allowed just a single yard into his coverage. MC2 gave up the most and even that was only 48 yards.

• 3 pass breakups recorded, one each for MC2, Reed and Tony Adams.

• A drastic improvement in tackling with only 7 missed tackles recorded. Tony Adams was the only Jet who was credited with more than 1 missed tackle (2).

• Both Williams brothers had a run stop percentage above 20%. To put that into context, nobody in the NFL has a run stop percentage above 20% for the season (based on a minimum of 30 run defense snaps).

At some point this season we were going to get an injury on that offensive line. Few teams enjoy 100% health in the trenches.

Considering what we’ve witnessed over the last few years, I feared the worst when Morgan Moses got rolled up on.

Maybe the Jets luck is changing, as Morgan Moses avoided a season-ending injury and should return in 2-4 weeks, which gives the Jets an opportunity to see what rookie Olu Fashanu has to offer.

There were plenty of draft debates back in April about who the Jets should take. Brock Bowers or an offensive tackle? Most here agreed that while Bowers was an outstanding prospect, the need for the Jets rested on the offensive line.

Not only because an injury was almost certainly going to hit at some point, but because the Jets have a pair of tackles on one-year deals. Tyron Smith and Morgan Moses will hit free agency after the 2024 season, and the Jets will have a decision to make. Re-sign one of them? Re-sign none of them? Re-sign both of them?

It’s far too early to even consider what the Jets will do, but I’m thankful that the Jets get to turn to a talent like Olu Fashanu next Sunday, with the greatest respect to Carter Warren and Max Mitchell.

It’s a tiny sample size, but Fashanu had a fine start to his Jets career on Thursday. Thanks to Michael Nania for cutting this one, but here he is throwing a key block for the Breece Hall touchdown, before he came in to sub for Morgan Moses.

That wasn’t the only positive run play he had, he was graded as a 78.1 and he was constantly getting to his spots, pinning, sealing and making lanes. A lot of guys come in the league with their run blocking ahead of their pass protection, and it looks as though Fashanu is there.

He didn’t make any errors in the pass-game, he allowed 0 sacks and 0 pressures across his 6 pass-blocking snaps, but that is the smallest of small sample sizes. In the pre-season he allowed 2 pressures on 30 pass blocking snaps, again it’s far too small a sample size to really read anything into it.

We have to remember that Fashanu was a premier pass-protector in college, across three years and 689 pass-blocking snaps, he didn’t allow a single sack. In fact, he only allowed 17 total pressures. But, the Big 10 is a world away from the NFL.

But this week he’s going to get a great test when he faces off against Jonathan Cooper who’s already up to 11 pressures and 3 sacks in 3 games, and when he’s not facing Cooper he’ll be facing Nik Bonitto. The Broncos defence feasted against Tampa Bay yesterday and racked up 7 sacks against Baker Mayfield. So the Jets have to be prepared and Fashanu will absolutely get tested early.

We’re another week down so it’s time to take a quick peek at the standings in the AFC East. First a quick look at the AFC in general. Justin Fields and the Pittsburgh Steelers moved to 3-0. The Texans dropped one to fall to 2-1, as did the Chargers. Our next opponent the Denver Broncos got their first win of the season against Tampa.

In the AFC East the Bills play the Jaguars tonight and of course the Jets beat the Patriots. The Dolphins were absolutely destroyed by the Seahawks (24-3) despite Geno Smith throwing multiple interceptions. Skyler Thompson had just 107 passing yards and Tim Boyle was called on to throw 79 yards, and the Dolphins were limited to just 3.7 yards per play. The Dolphins were just 1/12 on third down and 0/3 on 4th down.

If the Jaguars can do the Jets a favour tonight and beat the Bills, then I think we’d all appreciate it.