The Stat Pack: Bengals

Edition #230

💥 Good morning.

It’s always tough coming off a loss, especially a loss where the team looked completely outmatched in nearly every facet of the game. Tuesday seems to be the real down day before you switch your attention to the next game on Wednesday.

Today we’re going to go through all the stats from Sunday’s game, some really good ones for the Jets and some really bad ones. I’ve also added a few different stats this week that I hope you’ll find interesting.

As always if you have any questions about stats that weren’t included, drop them in the comment section and I’ll do my best to find out for you.

Before we get into the newsletter I just wanted to give a little nod to the Jets UK Podcast, we recorded on Monday and the recap episode is now available to listen to. In it, we go through all the key moments from the Bengals game and why the coaching staff is starting to worry us. Head to this LINK to see where you can download the podcast.

Before we get into all that, we’re going to start with some rookie performances from week three.

✈️ First we have some good news on Quincy Williams whose X-rays came back negative, it's very unusual for a player to leave the field in an air cast and not have a fracture. Instead, it is expected he'll miss some time with a sprain, but he will play again this year.

Offensive Line - Cole Strange switched from center to LG and allowed 4 pressures and a sack for the Patriots. Tyler Linderbaum allowed 0 pressures for Baltimore. Dylan Parham allowed 4 pressures while playing center for the Raiders. Ikem Ekwonu gave up 2 pressure for Carolina but it was his best game so far.

Wide Receiver - Jahan Dotson was targeted 7 times, but caught just 2 passes for 10 yards. Alec Pierce was targeted 5 times and caught 3 passes for 61 yards. Treylon Burks caught 1 pass on 2 targets for 13 yards. Chris Olave had 9 receptions on 12 targets for 147 yards.

Defensive Line - George Karlaftis had one pressure for the Chiefs. Jordan Davis had 4 pressures from NT for the Eagles. Travis Jones had 1 pressure and 0 tackles for Baltimore. Travon Walker had 3 pressures for Jacksonville and Aidan Hutchinson had 2 pressures for Detroit.

Secondary - Kaiir Elam allowed just 2 catches for 10 yards for the Bills. Kyle Hamilton allowed just 10 yards and was the highest-graded defender for the Ravens. Roger McCreary allowed 6 receptions for 46 yards against the Raiders. Kyler Gordan gave up 4 catches on 6 targets for 93 yards.

Let’s jump straight into the stats, starting with the offensive line. If you are of a sensitive disposition, I advise you to look away now.

Quarterback

I haven’t really touched on the QB through the first two weeks but I know I had a few comments about it last week and the week before so I’ve decided to put some bits and pieces in.

First of all, I wanted to touch on Joe Flacco’s performance at different levels of the field. As you can see, he threw up an absolute goose egg when 20+ yards down the field. When you look at the breakdown below, in the vast majority of areas Joe was rated as either average or below average.

Let’s now take a look at some key stats around Joe Flacco, hopefully, the last time we have to look at Joe Flacco’s stats from Sunday.

52 attempts, 28 completions, 53.8% completion, 0 TD, 2 INT, 6 turnover worthy plays.

Offensive line

A lot was made of the offensive line heading into the season and two things have gone against the Jets so far this year. We have experienced three injuries to starting offensive tackles, Mekhi Becton went down for the year, Duane Brown is out until week 5 at the earliest and it’s clear that George Fant is playing hurt. Fant had to leave the game yesterday which led to Connor McDermott coming into the game and with the greatest respect to Connor, he hasn’t been a very good player for the Jets, yet Joe Douglas and the powers that be seem to believe in his ability for reasons known only to them.

Before we get to the pressure rates, here is a new stat for this week’s edition and it’s courtesy of NFL Next Gen Stats. Three of the four defensive linemen for the Bengals were closer to the QB at the time of the throw than the league average and Hendrickson was significantly beneath that 4.53 number. Only Sam Hubbard who spent the majority of his time against Max Mitchell was above the mean at 4.79.

Now let’s get into the pressure numbers from the game.

George Fant - 2 sack, 4 pressures, 89.7 PB efficiency, 1 penalty, run grade = 52.3
Connor McDermott - 1 sack, 5 pressures, 88.9 PB efficiency, run grade = 71.1
Laken Tomlinson - 0 sacks, 3 pressures, 97.3 PB efficiency, run grade = 42.1
CMG - 1 sack, 2 pressures, 97.3 PB efficiency, run grade = 65.5
Alijah Vera-Tucker - 1 sack, 5 pressures, 94.6 PB efficiency, run grade = 70.4
Max Mitchell - 0 sack, 2 pressures, 98.2 PB efficiency, run grade = 72.1

Let’s just say the obvious, there is no way in this universe that Fant was healthy enough to start this season, a sub-90 pass-blocking efficiency is beyond awful. On the other side of the equation, Max Mitchell has had the best day of his young career and he has improved every week so far, culminating in an excellent game against Sam Hubbard and the Bengals.

Receivers

I saw two issues on Sunday that limited the receivers through no fault of their own. The first was Joe Flacco who missed wide-open receivers on more than one occasion, he also forced the ball into bad situations instead of taking what was given. The other is the play selection/design for players like Elijah Moore. Moore is at his best over the middle of the field where he can use his YAC and route-running to gain separation, but the Jets sent him down the sideline on more than one occasion which works against his skill-set, it was a strange strategy that backfired.

First of all we’re going to look at the average separation for the receivers, I would largely ignore Tyler Conklin’s number because a lot of this came towards the end of the game with the Bengals dropping and giving the Jets all the underneath throws they wanted, that in turn left Conklin all alone. The real one here is the 3.83 for Wilson, which was well above league average. I also wouldn’t put much stock into the 1.79 for Moore considering the route concepts he was asked to run.

Now we’ve had a look at that, let’s take a look at the receiving stats.

Garrett Wilson - 7 targets, 6 receptions, 60 yards, 2-2 on contested catches
Tyler Conklin - 8 targets, 8 receptions, 84 yards, 1-1 on contested catches
Micheal Carter - 2 targets, 1 reception, 7 yards, 0-0 on contested catches
Elijah Moore - 9 targets, 4 receptions, 49 yards, 0-2 on contested catches
Corey Davis - 4 targets, 2 receptions, 27 yards, 0-1 on contested catches
C.J Uzomah - 1 target, 1 reception, 5 yards, 1-1 on contested catches
Breece Hall - 11 targets, 6 receptions, 53 yards, 2 drops, 0-1 on contested catches
Braxton Berrios - 1 target, 0 receptions (INT on target)

I find some of these stats to be confusing, they have Corey without a contested catch, but I would consider his catch in traffic contested, they also didn’t attribute a drop to Wilson, and while Bates got in front of him, the ball hit his hands so it should be a drop. I also don’t remember the 2nd drop on Breece, but I haven’t watched the tape back yet.

Running Game

There are some worrying signs with the run game with the Jets offensive line failing to find a consistent push, we also spent a lot of time running right at DJ Reader while he was still in the game, considering he’s one of the best nose tackles in football, I didn’t really understand that strategy. Even when Reader was lost to the Bengals, we still failed to run the ball effectively. We then got so far behind we had to throw, the Jets are on track to exceed the most passing attempts in a single season, that’s not something that was planned.

Breece Hall - 8 attempts, 39 yards, 4.9 average, 21 yards after contact, 1 missed tackle forced
Michael Carter - 11 attempts, 39 yards, 3.5 average, 26 yards after contact, 3 missed tackles forced.
Braxton Berrios - 1 attempt, -2 yards, -2 average, 1 yard after contact.

You won’t be too surprised to hear that running to the right side of the line reaped the bigger benefits for the Jets, while anything to the left of McGovern was tough sledding. The hope is that with the Jets able to open up the playbook with a few RPO’s now Zach is expected back, we may see some progress with the ground game.

Defense

Pass Rush

Considering the Bengals have struggled all season against the rush, the expectation was that the Jets would make life uncomfortable for Joe Burrow, which never really materialized. The Jets managed to get some initial pressure, but they only converted two of those into sacks and overall it was a very disappointing performance. Joe Burrow also did a fantastic job getting the ball out of his hands, he had admitted that he was holding the ball too long and he rectified that on Sunday.

As you can see from the below, three of the Jet’s four linemen were under the league average in terms of how close they got to Joe Burrow when he passed the football, but again, unless you turn this into sacks as Hendrickson did, it’s not much use. It does show that both Williams and lawson were getting some movement though.

One thing that’s worth noting is that the quickest sack for the Jets was Quinnen Williams at 3.9 seconds whereas Trey Hendrickson’s fastest sack was 2.7 seconds. That tells you everything you need to know.

Let’s look at the pressure numbers and the win rate for the Jet’s pass-rushers.

PRP: A formula that combines sacks, hits, and hurries relative to how many times they rush the passer

Carl Lawson - 4 pressures, 7.1 PRP, 14.3% win percentage, 58.3 pass-rush grade
Quinnen Williams - 4 pressures, 1 sack, 9.3 PRP, 18.5% win, 77.8 pass-rush grade
Sheldon Rankins - 2 pressures, 2 sacks, 9.1 PRP, 13.6% win, 68.0 pass-rush grade
JFM - 0 pressures, 0.0 PRP, 10.0% win rate, 65.6 pass-rush grade
Jacob Martin - 2 pressures, 6.3 PRP, 18.8% pass-rush grade
Nathan Shephard - 0 pressures, 0.0 PRP, 8.3% win rate, 62.7 pass-rush grade
Solomon Thomas - 1 pressure, 4.2 PRP, 8.3% win rate, 54.2 pass-rush grade
Micheal Clemons - 0 pressures, 0.0 PRP, 10.0% win rate, 62.8 pass-rush grade
Jermaine Johnson - 0 pressures, 0.0 PRP, 0% win rate, 54.0 pass rush grade.

Obviously, PFF counted a sack each for Rankins and Williams, but the Jets only recorded 2 sacks on the day. There are some troubling numbers here including JFM and his 10% win rate and Jermaine Johnson may have made a couple of plays in the run-game but he was a non-factor in the pass-rush. I’m not counting on Bryce Huff to save our season, but he absolutely has to be given a go, nobody is getting it done for the Jets as things stand.

Run Defense

Lost among the disappointment yesterday was a bounce-back game for the Jet’s run defense. A week after getting dominated by the Browns, the Jets managed to keep Joe Mixon to just 2.0 yards a carry, and limited the Bengals to 2.4 yards a carry on average (68 total rushing yards). Some of that is based on how easy it was to move the ball through the air. Remember in the preview post we mentioned how Dallas used cover-2 to stifle the Bengals, well after the Jets coaching staff watched that tape they decided to run cover-2 just once… which is worrying.

Anyway let’s take a look at the run defense grades for the Jets:

Jermaine Johnson - 87.7
Micheal Clemons - 76.5
Kwon Alexander - 76.4
Quincy Williams - 73.4
Marcell Harris - 72.2
Sheldon Rankins 72.0
JFM - 69.2
D.J Reed - 68.0
Sauce Gardner - 66.6
C.J Mosley - 66.6
LaMarcus Joyner - 64.6
Jordan Whitehead - 63.8
Micheal Carter II - 62.0
Nathan Shepherd - 60.4
Jacob Martin - 60.1
Will Parks - 60.0
Solomon Thomas - 51.2
Quinnen Williams - 48.8
Carl Lawson - 44.6

It’s great to see two rookies leading the way at the top, although I doubt anyone thought Johnson would be making waves as a run defender before making plays in the passing game. Kwon continues to be a great addition and it’s good to see the corners continue their strong play against the run. It’s concerning to see two defensive tackles right at the bottom of this list, but fair play to Sheldon Rankins who’s improved considerably on last season in terms of his run defense.

Coverage

The Bengals threw for 275 yards and completed 50% of all their third down, but in general, I thought our corners played very well. Burrow is an outstanding QB and he has a number of weapons at his disposal and the offense really hurt the defense on Sunday by losing the turnover battle 4-1.

Sauce Gardner - 4 targets, 2 receptions, 51 yards allowed, 7 YAC, 2 PBU, 0 TD
DJ Reed - 5 targets, 2 receptions, 26 yards, 12 YAC, 0 TD
LaMarcus Joyner - 4 targets, 3 receptions, 17 yards, 2 YAC, 1 TD
Jordan Whitehead - 1 target, 0 receptions, 1 PBU 0 TD
Michael Carter II - 5 targets, 5 receptions, 94 yards, 0 PBU, 1 TD
Quincy Williams - 10 targets, 9 receptions, 61 yards, 22 YAC, 1 TD
C.J Mosley - 4 targets, 1 reception, 22 yards, 8 YAC, 1 PBU, 0 TD
Kwon Alexander - 1 target, 1 reception, 4 yards, 2 YAC, 0 TD
Brandin Echols - 0 targets, 0 receptions (2 snaps)

Sauce basically gave up that one play to Higgins which was a good catch with tight coverage, he also had Joyner’s help over the top which arrived a touch late. Chase was only targeted once with Sauce covering him and the Jets CB had a PBU on the play.

Michael Carter II got credited with the Boyd TD, but I would personally share that TD with Whitehead who tried to come in and make a statement play, only for him to bounce off without wrapping up the ball carrier.

The Jets outside corners are doing their jobs, but the rest of the coverage unit needs to step up. It would help if the pass-rush could get home, it’s a complementary defense when the two are working in tandem.

Special Teams

In terms of special teams, it was a clean day for the Jets. Greg Zuerlein made all four kicks including two from 50+ yards and Braden Mann punted well. His average punt went 48.7 yards and his hangtime continues to climb (4.67 yesterday). Mann only had 3 punts because Joe Flacco couldn’t keep hold of the football, but he played a good game and the coverage unit did their job. Justin Hardee Sr is having a very good bounce-back year after a difficult first year in New York.

New York Jets - Through Three Weeks

Just to finish off this article I wanted to share a few team statistics and where the Jets rank through three weeks of the season.

The first thing I wanted to do was look at the Jet’s DVOA through three weeks of the season. For those of you who aren’t familiar with DVOA, it’s an algorithm that “measures a team's efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent”. It’s a highly respected measuring stick that is used across the NFL.

Team overall DVOA - 29th
Team offense DVOA - 18th
Team defense DVOA - 32nd
Team Special Teams DVOA - 6th
Run Blocking DVOA - 14th
Pass Blocking DVOA - 25th

I also want to include one more for DVOA, which is first down offense. We are 31st in the NFL on first downs, meaning we rarely set our offense up on the right foot.

Here are some statistics that I found quite interesting to look at. The big one for me is the inability to get off the field on 3rd down. The Jets are the 2nd worst team in the league allowing over 50% of third downs to be completed.

Sacks allowed: 9 (25th)
Average pocket time for QB: 1.6 seconds (16th)
Drops: 9 (32nd)
RPOs ran: 1 (31st)
Play action Yards: 67 (20th)
Rushing first downs: 10 (32nd)
Rushing yards after contact: 52 (29th)
Yards after the catch: 443 (5th)
Sacks Generated: 5 (27th)
Pressure % Generated: 13.3% (27th)
Blitz %: 9.5% (28th)
Rushing yards per attempt allowed: 3.7 (6th)
3rd down conversions allowed: 51.3% (31st)