The Quincy Factor

Edition #512

Good morning

You may start to see TJW hit your inboxes a little later in the day sometimes. Especially next Tuesday considering the time of the game. With two little ones around the first few hours at the Wyatt-Hupton household can be pretty hectic.

The vast majority of readers are based in NY, so it’ll still be with you in the morning considering the time difference. But for those readers in the UK, Germany, Japan and Australia, it may be a few hours later sometimes…and I promise it’s only sometimes because I’m up late watching those New York Rangers win again!

Bryce Huff was asked about his extension yesterday after Joe Douglas confirmed the Jets were working on it “It feels good just knowing that [the team is] considering it. But when it comes to me personally, I’m just focusing on winning right now, and I’ll let that take care of itself when it comes time.” - Spoken like the kind of guy you want to extend.

The Giants special teams coordinator had a little cry about the legality of the formation used to distract Graham Gano on his 4th quarter-field goal miss. I’d concentrate more on the head coach not knowing if his kicker was nursing an injury.

Jeff Ulbruch was asked about defending Herbert and accounting for his athleticism, the Jets have had a lot of practice defending athletic QBs this year: “You definitely have to account for him because when he doesn’t have that initial read and the check down is taken away, he is gone, he is running. So from that standpoint, it is the same as Josh (Allen), he is the same as Jalen (Hurts), he is the same as all these athletic quarterbacks we have faced. If you don’t have a second-level guy monitoring him to some capacity, where it is spy, where it is zone, principles, whatever it is, you better have a guy that has eyes on him.”

Ulbrich also reserved some special praise for punter Thomas Morestead: “Goodness gracious, he is the best punter I have ever been around in my life, not just played with but played against. He is as good as it gets.” - A defensive coordinator loves a punter who can consistently pin teams inside the 10 or 5-yard lines. As Ulbrich said, the Jets’ belief is that there isn’t an offence in football that can go 95 yards on them.

Jets injury report looked like this:

Want to see a graph that perfectly highlights how good the Jets cornerback room is…this is the percentage of separation prevented. If you’re on the right-hand side…you’re good.

Yesterday Quincy Williams was named the AFC Defensive Player of the Month for October, which is fine recognition for a player who’s taken a giant leap forward this year, to the point where we have to start asking if he’s one of the best off-ball linebackers in the NFL.

A 3rd-round pick out of Murray State by Jacksonville in 2019, the Jaguars gave up on Quincy after just two years, despite him being named a starter as a rookie. A number of injuries derailed his progress and Urban Meyer decided to cut him free. Urban Meyer made a lot of mistakes as Jacksonville’s head coach, this was a big one.

The next day the Jets claimed him off waivers and while his talent was obvious from the start, his game has evolved over the last two years, before taking off into the stratosphere this year. In March, Joe Douglas signed Quincy to a 3-year $18 million contract extension, that was before his breakout season. If those discussions were starting now like they are with Bryce Huff…Quincy’s representation would be asking for a lot more.

We’re only through seven games at the moment, but it’s important to look at the development of the defence, there have been a lot of improvements across the board but Quincy’s leap has probably been the most noticeable.

Jets Red Zone Defence 2023: 36.36% (3rd)
Jets Red Zone Defence 2022: 47.83% (3rd)