Success by Rushing Direction

Edition #143

🌟 Good morning!

The weeks seem to be absolutely flying by now, we’ll be lining up against the Ravens in no time, although I don’t want to wish the summer away.

I’m going to hopefully get the BBQ out for the first time this weekend while binge-watching Stranger Things and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

2️⃣ PFF released their safety rankings and they listed Jordan Whitehead as the 2nd best box safety in football, trailing only Budda Baker of the Cardinals and one spot ahead of former Jet Jamal Adams. None of the Jets’ free safety candidates made the cut.

⛔ They also released their 6 potential breakout candidates for the AFC, and no Jets made the cut. Tua was in there, as was Gabriel Davis and two rookies in Kyle Hamilton, and Treylon Burks. Not sure how with all the young talent the Jets possess the team wasn’t represented, never mind.

🚃 NFL reporter Adam Schein had his list of bandwagons to hop on in 2022 and again, no representation for the Jets. Trevor Lawrence made it, as did Rashod Bateman but guys like Zach Wilson and Elijah Moore missed out. Oh well, never like a bandwagon with the Jets anyway.

2️⃣2️⃣ Chris Simms released his QB Rankings for 2022 and he had Zach Wilson at a respectable if unspectacular #22. One spot ahead of Justin Fields at #23, Trevor Lawrence at #24 and Jalen Hurts at #25. Remember Simms had Zach Wilson as his #1 QB in the 2021 class. Wilson came in at number #27 last season so it's a 5 place improvement.

🙌 Lane Kiffin shared an image from Our Miss with a quote from Matt Corral. We know we've got a great player in Elijah Moore, but it's always worth mentioning that we've got a great person as well.

📸 There were a couple of special guests at the Jets OTA practice yesterday as former QB Mark Sanchez and legendary center Nick Mangold stopped by to check out the young team.

Rushing Direction ↗️↖️➡️↩️⤴️⤵️

I was doing a little research into rushing direction and success rates for the Jets last year after thinking about the signing of Laken Tomlinson.

My presumption was that the Jets struggled to run behind GVR, but had plenty of success running behind Alijah Vera-Tucker. Connor McGovern has always been a better run blocker than pass protector, so I wanted to see if running between AVT and CMG benefited the Jets more than anything else.

Mike LaFleur got creative last year and we saw some end-around, some end-around reverses, some jet sweeps in both directions, and some other wrinkles.

All of these stats have been collated by PFF and I’m going to concentrate on 8 different directions across all players who carried the ball for the Jets.

LE - Rush outside the tight end playing on the left side of the line.

40 attempts, 181 yards, 4.5 yards an attempt, 1 TD, 134 yards after contact

LT - Rush outside the left tackle

26 attempts, 75 yards, 2.9 yards an attempt, 0 TD, 68 yards after contact

LG - Rush between the left tackle and the left guard

51 attempts, 200 yards, 3.9 yards an attempt, 1 TD, 165 yards after contact

ML - Rush between the left guard and center

59 attempts, 269 yards, 4.6 yards an attempt, 1 TD, 168 yards after contact

MR - Rush between the center and right guard.

52 attempts, 184 yards, 3.5 yards an attempt, 2 TD, 141 yards after contact

RG - Rush between the right guard and the right tackle

28 attempts, 83 yards, 3.0 yards an attempt, 0 TD, 54 yards after contact

RT - Rush outside the right tackle

35 attempts, 274 yards, 7.8 yards an attempt, 2 TD, 178 yards after contact

RE - Rush outside the tight end playing on the right side of the line

35 attempts, 102 yards, 2.9 yards an attempt, 0 TD, 99 yards after contact

Conclusion - As expected the Jets did a lot of running through the A gaps, with the most popular rush being between AVT and CMG. They did run between CMG and GVR/LDT a fair bit (52) but they averaged significantly less on average, 3.6 yards per attempt against 4.5 yards an attempt. With AVT moving to the right side, the hope is that the right-sided A gap can be as productive as the left-sided A-Gap.

One stat sticks out above all others and that’s the 7.8 yards an attempt when rushing outside Morgan Moses who has left for Baltimore. Strangely the 2.9 yards an attempt rushing outside George Fant is the exact same number the Jets achieved in 2020 with Mekhi Becton there, although the talent level of the RBs in 2021 was significantly higher than the 2020 Frank Gore farewell parade.

The one point to make on that 7.8 yards an attempt is the yards after contact number, which equates to 5.09 yards after contact per rushing attempt, meaning a good deal of the heavy lifting was done by the running backs. That 5.09 number was the highest number for any rushing direction and that has to be taken into consideration.

With AVT moving to the right side and Laken Tomlinson coming in, I took a look at the San Francisco numbers for the two key gaps that Tomlinson controls (when not pulling to the opposite side).

LG - Rush between the left tackle and the left guard

67 attempts, 362 yards, 5.4 yards an attempt, 1 TD, 252 yards after contact.

ML - Rush between the left guard and center

58 attempts, 207 yards, 3.6 yards an attempt, 1 TD, 150 yards after contact.

Rushing between Laken Tomlinson and Trent Williams at left tackle is always going to be a recipe for success and the number of attempts and yards per average prove that to be the case.

Of course, it’s not an exact science, but that has given me a reason for optimism…especially when you pair those linemen with the likes of Breece Hall and Michael Carter. The ground game is imperative to the success of this offensive system, and I’m pretty confident that as long as we stay healthy we’ll have a good ground game in 2022.

🙏 Colin Kaepernick worked out for the Las Vegas Raiders recently and apparently he looked very good and the door is open to the signing. Owner Mark Davis has been a vocal supporter of Kap and I for one would love to see him get another shot. It’s just a damn shame that his best years were stolen from him.

🔄 It’s not often you see players switching from defense to offense at the NFL level but the Falcons are switching Avery Williams from defensive back to running back.