Tackling Perception

Edition #191

Good morning!

Today we’re taking a look at the practice report for yesterday, a big decision against the Dolphins and should we be concerned about the free safety position?

It was a bounce-back day for Zach Wilson today. He had a number if impressive throws and although Saleh would not confirm if Zach was where they want him at this point in camp, it’s clear that today was one of his better practices.

• There were a couple of injury notes from today. Michael Carter missed the session today with an ankle injury, Saleh confirmed it’s nothing serious and it was only precautionary. Vinny Curry is currently dealing with a hamstring injury, but again this is minor and he is expected back at the end of the week.

• Denzel Mims continued his strong summer with a 60-yard touchdown grab against double coverage, apparently, he worked the middle well and then burst upfield for plenty of yards after the catch. Mims continues to stack good sessions securing his spot on the roster.

• Although the offensive line did give up a couple of sacks (Lawson was in on the action again as was Zuniga) they put some good blocks on the board that sprang Breece Hall (who continues to look the business) for some sizeable gains. Becton in particular had a good practice, although he did give up the sack to Zuniga.

• Saleh confirmed that Kai Nacua has moved from safety to linebacker, this coaching staff loves a position change between those roles. I didn’t expect Nacua to make the roster as a safety and I certainly don’t expect him to make it as a linebacker…but stranger things have happened.

• Robert Saleh said the Jets call LB Jamien Sherwood the “Florham Park strangler”…I’m not sure what to make of that, apparently it’s because he has really long arms.

• George Fant returned to left tackle in team drills for the first time yesterday, that represented the first time the offensive line had all played together in team drills this off-season. By all accounts, George looked like he hadn’t missed a beat.

• One player we haven’t really mentioned is Elijah Moore. He’s making plays left, right and center but because we expect that from him it often doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. He made an outstanding one-handed grab yesterday showing he’s already in mid-season form.

• Jacob Martin met with the media yesterday and explained why he doesn’t like the tag of a situational pass rusher: “I can do anything that I’m asked to do. I’ve played all over the place. … I don’t like that term. I’m a football player. I’m the total package, for sure.”

• Garrett Wilson was back returning some punts yesterday, it’ll be interesting to see if he gets any work there ahead of Braxton Berrios this season. I imagine it’ll be Brax with Garrett as the backup.

QUOTE - "Yeah, there's Sauce, but with Sauce and I think in the whole DB room we have a really deep group," Hall said after practice on Tuesday. "We're making everybody better by doing a good job pushing everyone else. Between us [Hall and Gardner], there's nothing but love. We're pushing each other, and it's the same with D.J. He's a good dude, too.

"At end of the day I can only control what I can control. I can't worry about or analyze what happens. I can only be the best version of me ... stay diligent, be where I want to be and push others to be the best as well." - Bryce Hall on the CB competition.

Tackle it now

The Jets defense didn’t mirror the design in 2021. As we’ve said multiple times over the off-season, the Saleh/Ulbrich system relies heavily on pressure generation from the front four, the Jets didn’t do enough in that regard and it was mostly due to Carl Lawson missing the season.

With the upgrades we’ve made across the defense the expectation is that we’ll be vastly improved in 2022, one area where we do need to see improvement is in the tackling department.

My perception of last season was a poor tackling outfit. In my mind we missed countless tackles, including multiple whiffs on the same play. I wanted to see if I could outline the data here and quantify how poor the Jets were in this regard. I couldn’t find a quick and easy way to do this, so I dove into some spreadsheets.

Overall the Jets missed 133 tackles last season, their team average missed tackle rate was 9.9%.

First of all I wanted to look at how that stacks up against our opponents in the AFC East, after all we’ll be facing those teams a combined 6 times this season.

Buffalo Bills: 120 missed tackles, 12.1% missed tackle rate
Miami Dolphins: 153 missed tackles, 13.5% missed tackle rate
New England Patriots: 107 missed tackles, 8.8% missed tackle rate

As you can see the results were a little unexpected. Only the Patriots were a better tackling team than the Jets last season in the regular season, the Dolphins 13.5% number is very high and Buffalo’s shocked me at 12%, Jerry Hughes and his 33.3% missed tackle rate doesn’t help that.

Moving outside the division I thought I’d take a look at how we matched up against our 2022 opponents in relation to missed tackles:

Baltimore Ravens: 141 missed tackles, 12.4% missed tackle rate
Cleveland Browns: 137 missed tackles, 12.0% missed tackle rate
Cincinnatti Bengals: 151 missed tackles, 10.7% missed tackle rate
Pittsburgh Steelers: 133 missed tackles, 15.5% missed tackle rate
Green Bay Packers: 93 missed tackles, 9.6% missed tackle rate
Denver Broncos: 119 missed tackles, 12.1% missed tackle rate
Chicago Bears: 133 missed tackles, 14.1% missed tackle rate
Minnesota Vikings: 118 missed tackles, 11.2% missed tackle rate
Jacksonville Jaguars: 145 missed tackles, 15.6% missed tackle rate
Seattle Seahawks: 139 missed tackles, 12.1% missed tackle rate

I went into this with the perception that the Jets were a poor tackling team, but the stats actually show that the Jets were one of the better teams in the league when it came to tackling. Only the Green Bay Packers have a lower missed tackle rate than the Jets and that’s only 0.3% better.

C.J Mosley led the team with 17 missed tackles, but because of the sheer quanity of the tackles he actually made, his missed tackle % was only 9.2% which is a decent number for linebacker.

Sheldon Rankins was actually the biggest offender with his 7 missed tackles equating to a missed tackle rate of 20.6%. Brandin Echols 14.1% missed tackle rate on 10 whiffs wasn’t ideal, but then he won’t be playing the same number of snaps this year.

Finally I wanted to look at the players who we added this season through free agency:

Jordan Whitehead: 15 missed tackles, 16.1% missed tackle rate
Jacob Martin: 6 missed tackles, 28.6% missed tackle rate
D.J Reed: 9 missed tackles, 10.2% missed tackle rate
Solomon Thomas: 5 missed tackles, 15.6% missed tackle rate

I never get too caught up in terms of edge players and their tackling statistics, because they can be deceptive based on assignments. D.J Reed is an obvious upgrade over Echols.

SNAPSHOT: Zach Wilson loading up at practice yesterday.

Denver Broncos wide receiver Tim Patrick tore his ACL during practice yesterday and will miss the 2022 season. Patrick had 53 catches for 734 yards and 5 touchdowns last year and got a bumper pay rise as a result.

The Miami Dolphins have been found guilty of tampering in relation to Tom Brady and Sean Payton. As a result they have been stripped of their 2023 first-round pick, 2024 third-round selection and owner Stephen Ross has been fined $1.5 million and suspended through October 17th.

The Arizona Cardinals have signed D.J Humphries to a 3-year extension, the left tackle was set to be a free agent after this year and almost certainly would have had a number of suitors. The extension is worth $66.8 million total with $34 million guaranteed and $21 million earned in the first year, according to the NFL Network.

Formula 1 driver and 7-time champion Lewis Hamilton is joining the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group, which is set to officially take over the Denver Broncos franchise later this month.