The Stat Pack: Chicago Bears

Edition #273

Good morning!

Putting together a stat pack is much more enjoyable when the Jets win. Crawling over a game where you scored 3 points is painful, doing the same for a game in which you scored 30 points is a different matter altogether.

We’re going to jump straight into the details of the game here, and if there is anything you’d like me to focus on this week then please drop it in the comments. It’s surprisingly hard to come up with new ideas every day, even in season.

Quarterback

I was looking forward to checking in on the QB stats after watching Mike White go to work yesterday. It was one of the better QB performances in Jets history, obviously, you need to add the context of the Bears, but the old saying that you can only beat what’s put in front of you rings true right now.

Part of what makes Mike White so hard to defend is his efficiency across the board. He only took one deep shot but it was the strike to Elijah Moore where he slid away from pressure. Between 10-20 yards he completed 4/5 passes for two touchdowns and then he worked the underneath routes perfectly. When you complete 78.6% of your passes, your passing chart is going to look pretty impressive.

His turnover-worthy play percentage was just 3.3% and that was the pass he tried to force into Garrett Wilson. We always hear that he throws a catchable ball and that was the case yesterday, even in driving rain the Jets receivers didn’t drop a single pass. His official time to throw was 2.38 seconds which was tied for the 2nd quickest release in the NFL this week alongside Tom Brady, Trevor Lawrence was top at 2.35 seconds.

Mike White was pressured twice yesterday and he completed 100% of his passes for 70 yards and 1 TD. He was the only QB in the NFL to complete 100% of his passes under pressure, but he was also the only full-time QB to be pressured only twice. That’s what happens when you get rid of the ball quickly though. One other noticeable stat I saw was that White completed 80% of his passes off play-action for 152 yards and a touchdown, working off PA is key in this offense.

Running Back

I was surprised to see James Robinson inactive yesterday, but like with the QB decision, Saleh’s decision was justified by the performance of Zonovan Knight, and also the work of Ty Johnson who saw a lot of work once Michael Carter suffered an ankle injury.

Let’s take a quick look at their statistical breakdown:

Zonovan Knight - 14 Rushes, 69 yards, 4.9 yards per attempt, 40 YAC, 6 MTF
Michael Carter - 6 rushes, 21 yards, 3.5 yards per attempt, 14 YAC, 0 MTF
Ty Johnson - 5 rushes, 62 yards, 12.4 yards per attempt, 50 YAC, 4 MTF
Braxton Berrios - 2 rushes, 9 yards, 4.5 yards per attempt, 3 YAC, 0 MTF
Garrett Wilson - 1 rush, -1 yards
Elijah Moore - 1 rush, -4 yards

Carter started well on the first drive, but it was Knight and Johnson who became the standouts after Carter’s injury. Knight showed his one-cut style of running and his 40 yards after contact and 6 missed tackles forced are a testament to his running style. I thought the Jets blocked extremely well in the run game and that goes beyond the offensive line. It was great to have Corey Davis back and for my money, the tight ends had their best blocking day of the season. Hopefully, more of the same to come.

Offensive Line

The Jets chose consistency to start the game with Cedric Ogbuehi starting over Max Mitchell at right tackle, but that lasted just 9 snaps. Max Mitchell came back into the lineup following Cedric’s injury and he picked up where he left off before his own injury. The Chicago Bears’ pass-rush is awful, that’s just a statistical fact. When you combine that with White’s ability to get rid of the ball quickly, you’re going to have a good day as a lineman, especially if you play well within yourselves. Let’s take a look at what PFF had to say:

Duane Brown - 0 sacks, 0 pressures, 100% pass block efficiency
Laken Tomlinson - 0 sacks, 0 pressures, 100% pass block efficiency
Connor McGovern - 0 sacks, 0 pressures, 100% pass block efficiency
Nate Herbig - 0 sacks, 2 pressures, 96.8% pass block efficiency
Max Mitchell - 0 sacks, 0 pressures, 100% pass block efficiency

This is an interesting one, as they haven’t attributed the sack to anyone here. I’d need to watch it again, but from memory, it looked like Laken Tomlinson passed the rusher off to Connor McGovern and the Jets center got pancaked for the sack. Overall though, it was a fine day at the office for the Jets offensive line.

Wide Receiver

The receiver room was in celebration mode after the game with everyone able to contribute to the win. Elijah Moore and Garrett Wilson led the way with the touchdowns, but in total 10 different players were targeted in the passing game. It makes it very difficult to defend when the ball can go to anyone and everyone. I’ve also added where they lined up in the below stats:

Garrett Wilson - 8 targets, 5 receptions, 95 yards, 2 TD, 28.6% in slot, 71.4% wide
C.J Uzomah - 3 targets, 3 receptions, 17 yards, 35% slot, 10% wide, 50% in-line
Tyler Conklin - 3 targets, 3 receptions, 50 yards, 40% slot, 8% wide, 48% in-line
Zonovan Knight - 3 targets, 3 receptions, 34 yards
Elijah Moore - 2 targets, 2 receptions, 64 yards, 1 TD, 61.5% slot, 38.5% wide
Michael Carter - 2 targets, 2 catches, 15 yards
Braxton Berrios - 1 target, 1 catch, 4 yards, 60% slot, 20% wide.
Denzel Mims - 1 target, 1 catch, 11 yards, 14.3% slot, 85.7% wide
Ty Johnson - 2 targets, 1 catch, 16 yards,
Corey Davis - 3 targets, 1 catch, 9 yards, 21.7% slot, 78.3% wide

There was a lot to like about the receivers yesterday, 0 drops are always something to be celebrated when it’s pouring with rain. It was great to see both tight ends involved in both the passing and running game, that’s why we spent so much money on the position over the off-season. Let’s hope this can be re-created against the Vikings:

Defensive Line

The Bears passed 25 times yesterday and the Jets generated 14 pressures and 3 sacks, that’s not a bad day at the office at all. On one of those sacks, Chicago completely forgot to block arguably our fastest pass-rusher in Bryce Huff.

John Franklin-Myers - 3 pressures, 1 sack, 10.0 PRP, 10% win percentage
Carl Lawson - 3 pressures, 0 sacks, 7.9 PRP, 26.3% win percentage
Bryce Huff - 2 pressures, 1 sack, 16.7 PRP, 22.2% win percentage
Micheal Clemons - 1 pressure, 0 sacks, 8.3 PRP, 50% win percentage
Quinnen Williams - 1 pressure, 0 sacks, 2.5 PRP, 10% win percentage
Nathan Sephard - 1 pressure, 1 sack, 11.1 PRP, 11.1% win percentage
Kwon Alexander - 1 pressure, 0 sack, 25.0 PRP, 50.0% win percentage
C.J Mosley - 1 pressure, 0 sack, 50.0 PRP, 100% win percentage
Vinny Curry - 1 pressure, 0 sack, 7.1 PRP, 14.3% win percentage

One noticeable stat was that Jermaine Johnson was only on the field for 6 pass-rushing snaps compared to 14 snaps as a run defender. The defensive tackle position vacated by the injury to Sheldon Rankins was largely filled by a rotation of Shepherd, Thomas and Smart. This means JFM is staying outside and that by its nature will limit the opportunities for guys like Johnson, especially when you need to rotate in guys like Huff who is having a fine season. Below you can see he was the pick of the rushers too:

Run Defense

If you’ve been following TJW recently then you’ll know that I decided to stop sharing the PFF run-defense grades, or any grades for that matter…mainly because they never made any sense. However I wanted a way to try and communicate the run defense of the Jets, so this week I’m going to be sharing the stops and stop % of players who made a play against the run. Stops are basically tackles that constitute a "failure" for the offense and then the stop percentage is the percentage of a player's run defense snaps where he was responsible for a stop.

Jermaine Johnson - 2 stops, 15.4% stop percentage
John Franklin Myers - 2 stops, 16.7% stop percentage
DJ Reed - 2 stops, 7.1% stop percentage
Nathan Shepherd - 2 stops, 13.3% stop percentage
Lamarcus Joyner - 2 stops, 7.1% stop percentage
C.J Mosley - 2 stops, 7.1% stop percentage
Michael Carter II - 1 stop, 6.7% stop percentage
Micheal Clemons - 1 stop, 8.3% stop percentage
Quincy Williams - 1 stop, 4.5% stop percentage
Solomon Thomas - 1 stop, 9.1% stop percentage

There were also 7 missed tackles in the run game and they belonged to Quincy Williams (2), Jordan Whitehead (1), Quinnen Williams (1), Will Parks (1), Lamarcus Joyner (1) and Vinny Curry (1).

Coverage

I thought the defense came out a bit flat in the first quarter allowing 10 points, but after that, they kept the Bears off the scoreboard. That helps the offense, but the offense staying on the field also helps the defense. You’re going to get bored of me saying this, but it’s just complementary defense. Sauce was called for a pass interference which was debatable, although I believe it was called a catch anyway. Let’s take a quick look at the coverage breakdown.

Michael Carter II - 6 targets, 4 receptions, 30 yards, 26 YAC
D.J Reed - 5 targets, 3 receptions, 18 yards, 4 YAC
Sauce Gardner - 3 targets, 1 reception, 31 yards, 2 YAC,
C.J Mosley - 3 targets, 1 reception, 33 yards, 31 YAC, 1 INT
Quincy Williams - 2 targets, 1 reception, 20 yards, 8 YAC
Jordan Whitehead - 2 targets, 1 reception, 14 yards, 9 YAC
LaMarcus Joyner - 2 targets, 2 receptions, 6 yards, 9 YAC
Brandin Echols - 1 target, 1 reception, 26 yards, 24 YAC

This is according to PFF, I thought that Sauce had a PBU in the end-zone on Chase Claypool but if Sauce doesn’t touch the ball it’s not counted as a PBU, but in my mind, it should be counted as a forced incompletion, which it wasn’t on this occasion. On the TD, Reed played it to perfection and the Bears receiver just went up and made a play, sometimes that happens, we need to remember those guys get paid to do a job as well. Overall it was a good coverage day against a Bears team who were missing several weapons.

Special Teams

We often don’t talk about special team tackles, and there wasn’t much to talk about yesterday due to the Jet’s offensive efficiency. Braden Mann only had to punt twice, one of those was downed inside the one-yard line by special teams captain Justin Hardee and the other saw Chazz Surratt make the tackle.

Greg Zuerlein made an outstanding franchise-tying 57-yard kick in the driving rain. However, he did miss a 53-yarder later in the game which can be forgiven. He made all four extra points too.

Punting wise Mann had a good day, his hangtime of 4.52 was significantly better than last week’s number of 4.27, and his outkicking the coverage obviously played on his mind. He did have the one mishandled snap on a FG attempt which cost the Jets a possible 3 points, but it was extremely wet out there and that hasn’t been an issue historically.