State of the roster: Defensive Line

Usually, I would leave these posts until the off-season, but it feels like we should probably touch on it now.

🏈 Good morning Jets fans. Has the stench of that performance rubbed off yet? We’re now almost 48 hours removed from the Jet’s loss to the Bills and my perspective hasn’t shifted much. We’re young, we have the most rookie snaps in the NFL, I get it, but to not be competitive is unacceptable.

The defense is running at a historically bad rate. We’ve allowed 175 points in our last four games, the 2nd most points allowed in a 4 game stretch since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger. We’ve given up 1,890 yards in the last four games, the worst mark in our history. We’re the first team to allow at least 45 points 3 times in a 4-game span since the 1966 Giants. This defense is awful. So let’s take a look at what’s needed.

Over the next week or two, we’re going to be taking a look at the state of the roster. Today we’re focusing on the defensive lineman.

Context

Context is always important. We have an extremely young defensive unit, that can’t be denied. We’re experienced our fair share of injuries, arguably our two best defenders in Marcus Maye and Carl Lawson have either been out for the entire season (Lawson) or have been banged up for most of it (Maye). We lost LaMarcus Joyner before the season and that hurt us. But…we are not the only team in the NFL that loses players to injury. Other teams find a way to still stay competitive with multiple injuries, whether it’s the scheme, the coaching, or the personnel, there is something horrifically wrong with this defensive unit, and having a defensive head coach, it doesn’t look good.

Defensive Tackles

Folorunso Fatukasi, Jonathan Marshall, Sheldon Rankins, Nathan Shepherd, Quinnen Williams, Tanzel Smart (PS)

Expiring contracts: Nathan Shephard, Folorunso Fatukasi

There was a time when the Jets would hang their hat on their ability to play the run tough. 2021 is certainly not a year for your defensive tackles to splice up their mixtapes. The Jets are giving up 133.9 yards on the ground per game this year, and RB’s are getting 4-5 yards past the line of scrimmage before they get any contact. It’s been tough viewing.

It’s not all on the defensive line, stopping the run is a complete team effort. It takes buy-in from every single player on that field and we’re certainly not getting that from this unit at the moment. But saying that, Sheldon Rankins and Nathan Shephard are ranked as two of the worst run defenders in the league. Fatukasi is ranked as the best-run defender on the interior, but even he has dropped from his historical highs to as low as #35 this year. That’s a huge issue but its likely being caused by the personnel around him as much as by his own play.

The Jets are allowing 4.7 yards per push, which is the 2nd worst mark in the league, and had the Jets not been easy to pass on, I’d expect that to be even worse and they’ve also allowed 19 rushing touchdowns through 9 games, surprise surprise, that’s the worst mark in the league.

Williams, Rankins, and Fatukasi are giving us some pass-rush from the interior and we saw that yesterday with Williams getting to Allen, but the benefits on that side don’t make up for the deficiencies in defending the run. Fatukasi is likely to be brought back in 2022, but Nathan Shephard has largely been a passenger this year.

I decided to take a look at pass rush win % for our defensive tackles. Just to get an idea of where they sit in comparison to the league. Consider that the elite players have a win rate of 15%+. Look at people like Aaron Donald (22.8%), Jonathan Allen (20.1%), and J.J Watt (18.3%) and you get a good idea.

Quinnen Williams just about hits the top 25 at 12.5%. Rankins is next at around the 33rd best DT in terms of pass-rush win% with 11.8%. Fatukasi is just outside the top 50 at 9.9% and Nathan Shepherd is sitting outside the top 75 with a win rate of 8.1%.

I’d be interested to see Jonathan Marshall get some run in the 2nd half of the season, but I wouldn’t have huge hopes for him at this point in his career. He was a developmental prospect who really only had one good year as a senior, but at this point, we have very little to lose. Shephard is one of the worst-rated defensive linemen in the league, the alternative is Jonathan Marshall also becomes one of the worst-rated defensive linemen in the league. One’s an expiring contract, one’s a rookie, I know which one I’d rather roll with.

Defensive Ends

John Franklin-Myers, Shaq Lawson, Tim Ward, Vinny Curry, Bryce Huff, Carl Lawson, Kyle Phillips, Ronald Blair (PS), Jabari Zuniga (PS), Hamilcar Rashed Jr. (PS)

Expiring Contracts: Kyle Phillips, Tim Ward, Vinny Curry, Ronald Blair, Hamilcar

This unit is the one that I feel for the most. When we planned the 2021 season, we did so with Carl Lawson as the main focal point. We saw it with Saleh in San Francisco, the defense starts with the pass-rush from your defensive ends. Not only did we lose Lawson for the season before week one, we also lost Vinny Curry too. Now we’ve lost Bryce Huff to IR, Kyle Phillips to IR, and Jon Franklin-Myers is going through a rough patch. We’ve just had some horrible luck all around, both in terms of our starters and the backups.

I don’t think you can put too much blame anywhere here. Joe Douglas provided good depth, we spent good money on the position and we know Saleh’s system works when he has the personnel. It’s just really unfortunate what’s happened with the defensive ends as a unit. We rotate our defensive ends too much considering the drop in quality for the reserves.

It’s hard to move away from the narrative that JFM has been largely invisible since signing his contract because he largely has. 3 of his 4 sacks came before the contract extension. He looked to be getting back to early season form against Indianapolis with a sack and 3 hurries, but outside of one play where Allen managed to escape his grasp, I can’t remember his name being called yesterday.

Getting JFM back to early season form will go a long way to getting this defense back on track.

Like with the defensive tackles, I’m going to look at the defensive ends in terms of win rate. So for context, the top guys in the league here are your Myles Garrett’s at 27.4% and Maxx Crosby at 27%. To be in the top 10 you need to be around Trey Hendrickson at 20.5%.

Bryce Huff leads the Jets at 17.9%, which is around the 22nd best mark in the league. JFM is just inside the top 50 at 14.3% and then everyone else sits outside the top 100 when you consider the minimum snap requirements.

Obviously, the defensive ends aren’t just there to rush the passer, they’re also there to defend the run and the Jets do have two players in the top 50 in terms of defending the run (JFM #24, Lawson #38). The Jets are 18th in terms of sacks, so right in the middle of the pack, but that number is drastically skewed by an outlier of 7 sacks against Tennessee.

Opposing QB’s have consistently had time to scan, plant and deliver without much hassle, when you’re not getting pressure in this defense, it leaves you wide open to exploitation.

Looking ahead to 2022, you’re going to be looking at JFM, Huff, Lawson and possibly Vinny Curry if they decide he’s got anything left in the tank. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another veteran added into the mix if the team decides to move away from Curry.

Shaq Lawson is contracted to the Jets for $9 million in 2022, but I'd be amazed if we brought him back at that number, especially considering he’s put up just 0.5 sacks so far.

Final Thoughts

I think at this point it’s far to be concerned but with the lack of adjustment more than the personnel. We can’t help that the person this defense is largely built around (Lawson) was lost for the year, we can’t help that the guy that came in and kept it ticking (Huff) is on IR, we can’t help that. But right now we do not have the personnel to run the same system that Saleh ran in San Francisco and wants to run here.

Obviously, a coach can’t change his complete system, but you can run different looks, you can move away from the vanilla pass-rush, you can mix up your coverages a little more. As a coach in the NFL you can’t just have plan A and that’s it, you can’t. You have to have the ability to adapt and evolve to your personnel, if you don’t then you’re going to get beat and get beat badly. The Jets are getting torn apart right now. This is more a defensive thought than a defensive line thought, but it all plays into the same problem.

The defensive line should be a strength of the Jets. Coming into the season we thought it would be, injuries have hurt that, but we still have plenty of talent on that line. The system we’re running isn’t helping anyone and it’s putting a strain on a linebacking unit that is shorthanded, inexperienced, and just not playing well if you think of Davis. Something has to give.

PFF Rankings

Some people absolutely despise PFF. I can understand why, for those who watch every single snap the final grades can be puzzling. Some of it is understandable, they have a method for grading which isn’t how we would watch a game, but sometimes it’s absolutely mind-boggling.

So later this week I’m going to be sitting down to watch the All-22 film to study one Jets offensive lineman. I’ll watch that lineman and that lineman alone, and then I’ll document the performance in a newsletter to see how close my own personal evaluation comes to that of PFF.

Top 5 offensive players

Tevin Coleman - 78.6

Michael Carter - 77.6

Corey Davis - 69.3

Connor McGovern - 67.5

Greg Van Roten - 67.2

Top 5 defensive players

JFM - 71.6

Ashtyn Davis - 70.4

Nathan Shepherd - 68.5

Shaq Lawson - 66.1

C. J Mosley - 62.3

📰 News & Notes 📝

• Echols is out 3-5 weeks with a quad injury. Javelin Guidry is likely to take his place, but it’ll be interesting to keep track of.

• Becton is still weeks away. Needs to work his way back to football shape.

• Saleh said that he’ll be in a better position to name a starting QB on Wednesday once he gets all the information on Wilson.

• The Jets have activated Jason Pinnock off IR. With the Jets rookie get some run now Echols is out for 3-5 weeks?

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