Seize The Day

Edition #204

Good Morning.

Gameday! The Jets take on the Atlanta Falcons tonight in the 2nd game of the pre-season, but how much run will the starters get?

Historically the second pre-season game is there game where the starters work to half-time, but coach Saleh has confirmed that he may rest them all together.

This weekend we saw Matt Corral suffer a foot injury that will likely rule him out for the season and last night Kayvon Thibodeaux limped off the field with a knee injury, although early signs point to him being OK.

College football teams don’t have pre-seasons and with the introduction of joint practices, I’m not sure how relevant pre-season games are now. I understand that injuries can happen at any point, but you can limit the risk to some extent.

• The Jet’s defense dominated the joint practice with the Atlanta Falcons making Marcus Mariota uncomfortable throughout. Carl Lawson and Jermaine Johnson looked impressive and the Jets secondary forced a four-and-out in the red zone.

• As expected, there were plenty of scuffles during the sessions…mostly between the Jets defense and the Falcons offense, Bradlee Anae was seen throwing more than one haymaker. The teams were given a talking to in an effort to calm things down.

• Tony Adams did see some first-team reps against the Falcons and according to multiple reports he held his own. That safety position is an interesting battle, I wrote about that recently for Jets X-Factor.

• Sauce Gardner picked off his college teammate Desmond Ridder in 11-on-11 drills and then made sure the QB knew it by celebrating with the fans. Sauce has continued to have a strong camp.

• Not to forget about the offense, Breece Hall had a 75-yard touchdown run and Elijah Moore had a 50-yard completion with plenty of YAC and more movement than John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

• Reports suggest that Flacco completed 18-25 passes with 0 picks and a touchdown against the Falcons. That’s a really solid day and Flacco continues to stack good performances in relief of Zach Wilson.

• Talking of Wilson, he was at the session and although he was seen walking slowly with his knee support, he wasn’t limping. His rehab has started but so has the countdown to Baltimore.

Sheldon Day

The season may be on the horizon and the next cutdown of the roster is just over 24 hours away, but Joe Douglas is still working to improve the roster in any way he can.

Field Yates @FieldYates

The Jets tried out veteran DT Sheldon Day, recently cut by the Browns. The Commanders tried out veteran DT Malcolm Brown, recently cut by the Jaguars.

Quinnen Williams has one spot guaranteed, John Franklin-Myers and Micheal Clemons will rotate in at defensive tackle at points, however, the post opposite Williams is wide open. Sheldon Rankins has been largely anonymous in camp reports, Solomon Thomas is well-liked by the coaching staff but was one of the worst run-stuffers last year. Tanzel Smart had an excellent first game against the Eagles and the Jets still have Jonathan Marshall and Nathan Shephard.

Gang Green hosted former Notre Dame standout and 4th-round pick of the Jaguars in 2016, Sheldon Day.

Sheldon never really got on the field for the Jaguars playing 126 snaps over the first year and a half before being released in November 2017. Coach Saleh was with Jacksonville when Day was drafted by the team in 2016 and then Day followed Saleh to San Francisco after being cut.

Day’s first year in San Francisco was also his most productive, used in the defensive line rotation predominantly as a pass rusher, Day racked up a career-high 18 pressures which included 2 sacks. A year later he had just 6 pressures and 1 sack, although he did have a career-high 8 defensive stops.

He left San Francisco in 2020 to sign with the Colts but injuries derailed his season and he was cut in November having played just 62 total snaps. Last year he found a home in Cleveland and enjoyed one of the most productive seasons of his career with 11 pressures and 2 sacks.

Day is in some ways very similar to the defensive lineman the Jets currently have on the roster, he has some real ability as a pass-rusher but doesn’t offer a huge amount against the run. His highest grade against the run was 69.5 and that came back in 2017. He was graded at 59.1 last season and 46.5 the season before.

There is coaching familiarity with Day, but I’m not sure that he improves the team. If I were Joe Douglas, I’d be keeping my eyes out for anything who can clog up the middle on early downs to prevent the Jets from being dominated on the ground.

5 Things

As mentioned at the top, the Jets will face off against the Atlanta Falcons this evening in their second pre-season game. Here are five things I’ll be keeping an eye on.

1. How much do the starters play?

Robert Saleh has gone backward and forwards on whether to play his starters tonight but I have a feeling we’ll see them for a series or two. If we do then Carl Lawson will be in his first actual game action for over a year and it’ll be key to see how he responds. Who starts at free safety? Is Joyner the man or will we maybe see someone like Adams given a shot to run with Whitehead?

2. Covering Kyle Pitts

The Jet’s defense largely dominated the Atlanta Falcon’s offense this weekend, but Kyle Pitts did cause us issues. He had multiple grabs in 7-on-7 and only DJ Reed seemed capable of covering him. How with the Jets try and deal with Pitts in a game situation? Will they bracket him? Will they use Sauce on him to try and match up the length, will the Falcons be able to get Pitts isolated on a linebacker or slot corner? A lot of options, but this will be a nice litmus test for the Jets.

3. Mike White

I think White would be the first to admit that the game against the Eagles didn’t go to plan. White was given a chance to really stake a claim to a roster spot last week with an early entrance in to the game, but he managed to complete just 50% of his passes for 98 yards. He did have a couple of balls dropped but he also was inaccurate on more than one throw. Just like one good game doesn’t mean you’re a hall of famer, one bad game doesn’t mean you’re trash.

4. Starting Defense

It’s pre-season and there’s a chance they don’t even play tonight, but I want to see a bounceback performance by the defense. The Eagles starting offense moved the ball with ease against the Jet’s starting defense (although there were some players missing). The Falcons aren’t the Eagles and they shouldn’t be able to move the ball with the same amount of ease, the Jet’s defense shut them down for large periods of the joint practice but can they do the same tonight?

5. Injuries

You’re really going to get bored with me talking about injuries, but it’s the single most important aspect of the evening. No injuries. Even if the starters sit, you don’t want anyone to get injured, I’m thinking about guys like Jermaine Johnson, Micheal Clemons, Bryce Hall, Jason Pinnock etc. If your backups get injured then your depth entering the season is weak, and we all know that through an NFL season some of your starters are going to get banged up. Everyone talks about the stars getting injured, and that would be the worst-case scenario…but I’m also concerned about everyone else.

Today I’m going to call this the quote section.

Jason Pinnock - "Mentality," Pinnock said of the biggest difference between safety and cornerback. "It's the mental aspect of the game. You have to know interior, you have to know run gaps, you have to know tight ends, running backs, that's the biggest thing. Corner for me, in my personal experience, I was a lockdown corner so I would just follow guys and take them out of the game. That was my role. Now having to learn all the other pieces, that's always going to be the biggest transition."

Chris Streveler - “I knew the situation when I signed, I know with Zach, Mike and Joe, the [quarterback] room is pretty solidified. But for me, it’s an opportunity to be in an NFL organization. You don’t get those opportunities often.’’ 

“The young guys that are playing in the fourth quarter know you’re not only playing for this team, you’re putting good film out there for 31 other teams, too,’’ Streveler said. “This is my fourth team in nine months, so that can be a very tiring process. But a day like Friday night where you get to go out there and play football is like the most fun thing you can ever think of.