The Stat Pack: Denver Broncos

Edition #248

Good morning!

The Jets are 5-2…let’s just repeat that for all those in the back, your New York Jets are 5-2 and on course to reach the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. I know, we can’t get too excited as there is a lot of football to be played, but I do know this team is on the right track. We have 10 games remaining, if we can go 5-5 then there’s a good chance we make the playoffs. But 5-5 shouldn’t be the goal, we still have New England (x2), Miami, Chicago, Minnesota, Detroit, Jacksonville, and Seattle on the schedule. All games I’d fancy us in. Two I’m not looking forward to being against Buffalo, but we’ll cross that bridge when we need to.

Right enough intro waffle, let’s get into it.

Unfortunately for the Jets, test results revealed that impressive rookie RB Breece Hall did indeed suffer a torn ACL against the Broncos, he also has a meniscus injury. That will unfortunately end his season, Hall racked up 681 total scrimmage yards and 5 touchdowns while averaging 6.9 yards per touch. We’ll have more on this tomorrow. We wish Breece the absolute best in his recovery and can’t wait to see him back on the field in 2023.

When it rains it pours, the Jets also announced that Alijah Vera-Tucker is also done for the year with a torn tricep. He'll need surgery to repair the damage, and that's a huge blow to the Jets offensive line, a unit that has already lost Becton, Fant and Mitchell. Hopefully we get some good news on some of these guys soon. Fant is eligible to come off IR this week but Saleh confirmed that it would be Cedric Ogbuehi starting at right tackle against the Patriots.

Coach Saleh confirmed that Elijah Moore is back with the team and while he hasn't spoken to him yet, he expects him to be active against New England.

According to ESPN’s analytics, the Jets now have a 60.8% chance of making the playoffs. Who would have thought that after 7 games of the season?

Over the last four weeks, the Jet’s defense has generated more QB hits & Sacks than any other unit in football, they’re also 3rd in takeaways and 2nd in points allowed. Not too bad, Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich have to be feeling pretty good about that.

No defensive tackle in football has more than Quinnen Williams's 29 QB pressures. Now imagine what that number would be if he averaged more than around 60% of the snaps. Or maybe he’s doing so well because he’s only averaging around 60% of snaps played, I’ll let you be the judge.

Sauce Gardner had 3 pass defenses against the Broncos, and with that he became the only rookie in the NFL since 2000 to register a pass defended in the first seven games of their career.

It’s always interesting to look at the stats in a game that was dominated by one side of the football. In the modern NFL, if you only score 16 points more often than not your going to end up on the losing side. Thanks to the Jet’s defense and in particular their second-half shutout, the Jets walked out of Mile High with their 4th consecutive victory. It also marked the first time since 2010 that they have gone 4-0 on the road to start the season. The offensive stats won’t be great, but the defensive ones will be exceptional, so let’s get into it.

As explained last week, I will be including some stats from pro football focus, but I won’t be including grades. We’ve seen how non-sensical they have become with the Quinnen Williams and Alijah Vera Tucker grades against Green Bay, and I’m now convinced they add nothing to our understanding of how the game was played.

Quarterback

Denver is one of the best defenses in the league, and against the pass, I’d argue they along with the Jets are the very best. It was always likely to be a slog for the Jet’s passing attack, especially when Denver didn’t have to focus on stopping Breece Hall. Saying that there are some worrying signs with Zach.

Zach had some open opportunities down the field and he just missed them, his footwork has become panicky and he’s started running himself into pressure. On occasions, I thought he left the pocket too quickly and when that happens the play breaks down. As you can see from the graph, Zach was 0/5 when attempting passes of 10+ yards, and his accuracy was all over the place at points, he sailed two balls on the first drive, missed a wide-open Uzomah and was a touch late getting the ball to his receivers which limited yards after the catch opportunities.

But, he didn’t turn the ball over again. His short passes are improving and that’s a good development. He is going to be asked to do more over the coming weeks and the defenses will get easier, New England is always tricky but they can be exploited as well. Zach was the first to say that he wanted some balls back and he needs to play better, if the Jets hope to keep this momentum going, he’ll absolutely need to improve.

Offensive Line

For as devastating as it was to lose Breece, it was equally devastating to lose AVT. The Jets have been able to start the same offensive line for the third game in a row and the early signs indicated they’d be opening up holes for Hall and company. Unfortunately, an elbow injury after just 16 offensive snaps forced Vera-Tucker out of the game. AVT has been unquestionably our best offensive lineman this year having filled in at RG and LT before finding a home as the Jets RT. in his place Cedric Ogbuehi came into the game and the Jets line suffered for it, that’s more to do with AVT than anything Cedric did.

First of all, let’s take a look at the pressure numbers for the linemen followed by the average separation of the Bronco’s defensive line to Zach when he let go of the football.

Duane Brown - 1 pressure, 0 sacks, 98.4 pass blocking efficiency, 3 penalties.
Laken Tomlinson - 3 pressures, 0 sacks, 95.3 pass-blocking efficiency
Connor McGovern - 3 pressures, 1 sack, 93.7 pass-blocking efficiency
Nate Herbig - 0 pressures, 0 sacks, 100% pass-blocking efficiency, 2 penalties.
Alijah Vera-Tucker - 0 pressure, 0 sacks, 100% pass-blocking efficiency
Cedric Ogbuehi - 1 pressure, 0 sacks, 97.6 pass-blocking efficiency

Receivers

Denver has an outstanding secondary and for much of the game, the Jets were down two receivers. Corey Davis left with a knee injury and Elijah Moore stayed at home after requesting a trade. That meant there were some opportunities for fringe receivers to make a statement, and while Mims only caught one pass he was active in the blocking game and he threw a good block that helped spring Hall for his long touchdown.

Here is the average separation for receivers yesterday. I need to take a look at the All-22 to really understand why Mim’s number is so high, but as you can see only Tyler Conklin was below the league average of 2.92, so the Jets receivers were getting open at points against Denver.

All of these players will need to step up next week. Without Hall I have a feeling that we’ll be throwing more than 26 attempts Zach had on Sunday, Saleh has said that Mims is going to play a big part moving forward so it seems unlikely they’ll trade him. Considering targets have been the talk of the town with the Moore trade request, let’s take a look at how they were distributed yesterday:

Tyler Conklin - 6 targets, 4 catches, 22 yards, 11 YAC
Garrett Wilson - 5 targets, 4 catches, 24 yards, 18 YAC
Braxton Berrios - 4 targets, 3 catches, 15 yards, 1 Drop, 11 YAC
Michael Carter - 2 targets, 2 catches, 45 yards, 43 YAC
C.J Uzomah - 2 targets, 1 catch, 5 yards, YAC
Denzel Mims - 2 targets, 1 catch, 4 yards, 1 Drop, 5 YAC
Ty Johnson - 1 target, 1 catch, 6 yards
Corey Davis - 1 target, 0 catches, 0 yards
Jeff Smith - 1 target, 0 catches, 0 yards

No real standouts in the passing game, but when you only throw for 121 yards, you’re probably not going to have any standout stat lines. They did credit Mims with a drop which I think is harsh because the ball looked behind him.

It was good to see Conklin involved more in the passing game and I do think it’ll be Conklin and Wilson who are asked to step up in the coming weeks. Moore will be if he can be integrated back into the team without any issues. Remember he is rejoining his teammates this week.

Running Backs

It was a tough day at the office once Breece Hall went down, the Jets rookie phenom had the one impact play on offense but two touches later was lost for the game (and the season). On that long touchdown run, Hall hit a ridiculous 21.87 mph, if you didn’t think Breece was fast, this says otherwise.

Michael Carter came in and made a couple of nice grabs in the passing game, but was unable to generate any impact on the ground. Don’t forget the Jets lost their best run-blocking lineman in AVT, and Denver is one of the fastest defenses in football. The graph below shows how difficult it was, regardless of the gap chosen:

The Jets are going to have to find a way to open some lanes for Carter, the 2nd year back is incredibly talented but Breece Hall is on another level. Hall can create a lot more on his own, whereas Carter will rely more on his teammates. Overall here are the rushing statistics for the Jets:

Michael Carter - 13 attempts, 29 yards, 2.2 yards a carry, 17 YAC, 0 MTF
Breece Hall - 4 attempts, 72 yards, 1 touchdown, 18 yards a carry. 61 YAC, 1 MTF
Braxton Berrios - 2 attempts, 27 yards, 13.5 yards a carry, 5 YAC, 0 MTF
Ty Johnson - 1 attempt, 3 yards, 3.0 yards a carry, 6 YAC, 1 MTF

MTF = Missed Tackles Forced

How the Jets manage this moving forward will be key. Will they look to the trade market to bring in someone to help Carter? Are they happy with Carter and Johnson as a tandem, potentially with a little Zonovan Knight mixed in?

Pass Rush

It wasn’t a marquee day for the Jet’s pass rush as they were only able to sack Rypien on one occasion with Bryce Huff and Carl Lawson combining to bring the backup down. That sack took 4.7 seconds which is relatively slow by NFL standards, but it was still the quickest sack of the day be either team:

Although the Jets were unable to bring Rypien down, it doesn’t mean they weren’t able to get in his face just a little bit. On several occasions, the Bronco’s backup moved up in the pocket well and on the Joyner interception, Quinnen Williams generated pressure up the middle to throw Rypien off his set. If you take a look at the below, the league average is 4.53 for average separation from the QB and everyone but Sheldon Rankins was under that number. The graph doesn’t show Huff as it only focuses on the starters, but I’m pretty sure he’d be under that number as well.

Quinnen Williams - 5 pressures, 18.8% win percentage
Jacob Martin - 3 pressures, 25.0% win percentage
Bryce Huff - 3 pressures, 16.7% win percentage
Nathan Shephard - 2 pressures, 38.5% win percentage
Carl Lawson - 2 pressures, 14.7% win percentage
Sheldon Rankins - 2 pressures, 13.6% win percentage
JFM - 1 pressure, 18.5% win percentage
Solomon Thomas - 1 pressure, 14.3% win percentage
Vinny Curry - 1 pressure, 16.7% win percentage

Coverage

The stats will show that the Jets gave up over 200 yards passing, but it will also show that the Jets allowed just 52.1% of passes to be completed and 0 passing touchdowns. When Brett Rypien is forced to throw the ball 46 times in a game, chances are you’re going to have some success. That’s not to take away from the performance in any way though, all four of the players in the secondary were outstanding throughout. Whether it was shutting down the receivers (Sauce/Reed), coming up to make big plays (Whitehead) or recording the interception (Joyner) they were all outstanding. They’ve also come a long way considering we were questioning Joyner and the communication only 4 weeks ago.

Let’s just take a look at those coverage stats, according to PFF which differs from outlets like ESPN. I also seem to remember Brandin Echols having a PBU but apparently, that wasn’t recorded.

Sauce Gardner - 10 targets, 4 catches, 16 yards, 3 PBU, 8 YAC
DJ Reed Jr - 9 targets, 5 catches, 50 yards, 3 PBU, 10 YAC
Jordan Whitehead - 4 targets, 1 catch, 4 yards, 2 PBU, 4 YAC
Lamarcus Joyner - 3 targets, 2 catches, 62 yards, 1 INT, 25 YAC
Michael Carter II - 4 targets, 3 catches, 30 yards, 0 PBU, 15 YAC
Brandin Echols - 3 targets, 2 catches, 23 yards, 2 YAC
Quincy Williams - 2 targets, 1 catch, 13 yards, 10 YAC
Kwon Alexander - 7 targets, 5 catches, 23 yards, 15 YAC
C.J Mosley - 2 targets, 1 catch, 4 yards, 1 YAC

Now, we can take a look at the average separation of the Denver receivers. Their two main threats Jerry Jeudy and Cortland Sutton were both kept below the league average and Sutton had a ridiculous 1-yard of separation on average, you don’t get much tighter than that.

Penalties

Last week I said I’d start including penalties to the breakdown on a Tuesday and that couldn’t be more timely considering what we saw on Sunday. The Jets were penalized 11 times which cost them a combined 85 yards. It’s hard to win football games when you are beating yourself so badly with flags, but the Jets managed it.

So far through the 2022 season, the Jets have had 48 penalties accepted against them, that’s the 5th worst mark in the league. Those penalties have cost the Jets 526 yards which is the most in the league. In terms of defensive pass interference, we have been called for 5 which is the 2nd highest mark in the league behind the Denver Broncos.

Here are the biggest offenders:

1. Duane Brown - 4

2. Lamarcus Joyner - 3

3. George Fant - 3

4. Connor McGovern - 3

5. Corey Davis - 2

Special Teams

Jets special teams may not have made the splash plays this week like they did against Green Bay, but across the board they were excellent. Whether it’s Greg Zuerlein hitting all three of his field goals, Braden Mann constantly pinning the opposition deep or the kick coverage being tight, everyone played a big role.

For the second week in a row, Kenny Yeboah led the team with 21 special team snaps. Some have questioned why he’s playing over Ruckert and the simple answer is special teams, Boyer really likes him in there, and with the Jets only needing 2 tight ends for the offensive gameplan, I imagine Brant has his choice with the 3rd.

Special mention to Braden Mann who averaged 47 yards net yesterday with a very very respectable hangtime of 4.68 seconds. That’s a season-high for hangtime for the Jets punter. If he were to average that 4.68 through the season he would have the third-best hangtime in football. Consistency is always the key and Mann is currently averaging 4.41, which is good for 14th in the league.