The Stat Pack: Dolphins

Edition #240

Good morning!

When the Dolphins beat a banged-up Bills team, I saw a lot of “no excuses” tweets coming from South Florida. Over the last 24 hours, I’ve heard a hell of a lot of excuses originating from those teal-wearing fans heading back down Route 1. Bitterness is an ugly look.

Today is Tuesday, which means one thing and one thing only…Stat Pack! We’re going to get into all the stats that matter from the 40-17 demolition on Sunday, and maybe even some that don’t, I’ll let you be the judge.

For me personally, I’m excited about the Rangers season getting started tonight, and as I know a lot of Islander fans read this newsletter as well, good luck to you too…but not too much.

The Jets have scored 58 fourth-quarter points (#1 in the NFL) this season, outscoring teams by 38 points (#2 in the NFL). In the fourth quarter, the Jets rank tied for first in takeaways (five), second in total yards (126.2), and third in sacks per pass attempt (1.3%).

Coach Saleh confirmed that Jermaine Johnson is day-to-day with his ankle injury and he’ll be assessed later this week, at this point he has not been ruled out for the Green Bay game.

The #Jets were credited with 16 quarterback hits Sunday, with Carl Lawson getting seven of them - the most in a game by a Jets player since 1970. Thank you to Dennis Waszak Jr. for that one

John Franklin-Myers had five quarterback hits Sunday. He and Lawson join Cleveland's Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney as the only teammates to each have at least 5 QB hits in the same game in the last two seasons.

As always this is going to be a packed-out newsletter, but I’ll try and divide it into sections so you can skip to the stats you really want to see. If you have any questions on player performances that I haven’t covered, pop them in the comments below and I’ll do my best to find the answer.

DVOA

As with every week, we’re going to start the Stat Pack by taking a look at the DVOA and comparing it to last week. This is a stat created by Football Outsiders and is widely respected within league circles. Like with any cumulative stat is has its limitations.

DVOA measures a team's efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent.

Team DVOA: 17th (+9 on last week)
Team Offense: 20th (+3 on last week)
Team Defense: 21st (+4 on last week)
Special Teams: 2nd (no movement on last week)

All going in the right direction which I love to see.

Offense

Quarterback

21 attempts, 14 completions, 210 yards, 0 TD (1 rushing TD), 0 INT, 0 turnover-worthy plays, 0 drops by receivers, completed 7-10 passes when blitzed

Zach Wilson is 2-0 this year as the Jets starter and those wins have come in very different ways. Against Pittsburgh, he had to throw the ball 36 times, against Miami he had to go to the air just 21. A good team and a good quarterback can win in various ways. His completion % jumped from just 50% against Pittsburgh to 66.6% against Miami. That 66.6% completion was his highest number as a Jet and a lot of that has to do with his improved short-yardage ability.

We know that Zach can make plays down the field, the fact that he was 1/4 yesterday doesn’t concern me in the slightest. His short throws have been the issue for him over the course of his first 12 months in the league and yesterday he was a perfect 11/11 on throws up to 10 yards down the field. That to me is huge for the growth of our quarterback and a good sign that the game is slowing down for him. When he needed to make plays he made plays, but he didn’t force the ball. Zach registered 0 turnovers on the day.

Offensive Line

We are now through 5 weeks of the season and we’ve had a different offensive line for 5 straight weeks. With Duane Brown returning to action, Alijah Vera-Tucker was asked to move yet again, this time taking over at RT, with him being just over a year into his NFL career, the center is the only position he hasn’t played. I was excited to see how Brown did in his first game action and I was glad to see Nate Herbig given another chance after his performance last week in Pittsburgh, a performance that was more pleasing to the eye than the stats would indicate. So how did everyone get on against the Dolphins?

Alijah Vera-Tucker - 0 sacks, 0 pressures, 100% pass-block efficiency, 76.7 run-block grade
Laken Tomlinson - 0 sacks, 0 pressures, 100% pass-block efficiency, 60.4 run-block grade
Duane Brown - 0 sacks, 1 pressure, 97.9 pass-block efficiency, 49.1 run-block grade
Connor McGovern - 0 sacks, 1 pressure, 97.9 pass-block efficiency, 71.4 run-block grade
Nate Herbig - 0 sacks, 0 pressure, 100% pass-block efficiency, 50.3 run-block grade

PFF have attributed both sacks to the running backs with Micheal Carter being credited with allowing one and Breece Hall the other. Overall the offensive line did a fine job protecting Zach and allowing him the time to complete the plays he needed to. It was also nice to see an offensive line start and finish a game together, that really hasn’t happened this year and it goes a long way for a team trying to develop chemistry as an offensive unit.

I’d keep this unit together for as long as possible now to allow them to develop that chemistry.

Running Backs

Heading into the season we were excited about the combination of Breece and Carter for the Jets, and while we’ve seen flashes throughout…they’ve taken it to the next level over the course of the last two weeks. Breece Hall has become the #1 running back in terms of carries, but Carter still has a vital role to play and that was evident yesterday with his two short-yardage touchdowns.

Breece Hall - 18 carries, 97 yards, 5.4 YPC, 1 TD, 63 yards after contact, 5 missed tackles forced
Michael Carter - 10 carries, 21 yards, 2.1 YPC, 2 TD, 31 yards after contact, 2 missed tackles forced
Braxton Berrios - 1 carry, 15 yards, 15 YPC, 1 TD, 1 yard after contact, 0 missed tackles forced

Breece Hall’s ability to work through the initial contact is evident every week and his yards after contact seem to be increasing every week as well. You’d like Hall to get a little further up the field before being contacted and that will come once the offensive line has had a chance to gel, but he showcased talent as both a runner and receiver on Sunday. Unsurprisingly a lot of his success came running behind AVT:

Breece averaged 6.5 yards a carry when rushing outside right tackle and it was there where his touchdown came as well. That’s the second week in a row where Breece has scored a touchdown now, and if we’re being honest he could have easily had all three. There will still be some bumps in the road for Hall and every rookie, but this was a great sign.

Wide Receivers

When your quarterback only has to complete 14 passes throughout the entire game, you know the receiver section is going to be relatively quiet. Three players tied for the team lead in 3 targets and with 0 drops as a unit, they all did their job to convert on key downs and give the Jets an opportunity to keep running the ball. Last week I focused on Corey Davis’s complete game and all the receivers show a real effort in the run game.

I will say that I thought Miami’s defense did a fine job in terms of coverage, and their corners allowed very little separation to the Jet’s receivers as you can see from the chart below. The Uzomah number is skewed by that straight 3rd down formation the Dolphins played which basically gave C.J the middle of the field.

Sometimes receivers struggle to get open, it hasn’t been a consistent problem for the Jets this season so it’s nothing to worry about. The important thing is the Jets showed the ability to win by relying heavily on the ground game, there’s nothing wrong with that in the modern NFL as long as you have the ability to push the ball down the field when needed, the Jets can do both.

Corey Davis - 3 targets, 2 receptions, 38 yards, 0 TD, 0-1 contested catches
Elijah Moore - 3 targets, 1 reception, 11 yards, 0 TD, 0-0 contested catches
Garrett Wilson - 3 targets, 3 receptions, 27 yards, 0 TD, 0-0 contested catches
Breece Hall - 2 targets, 2 receptions, 100 yards, 0 TD, 0-0 contested catches
Micheal Carter - 2 targets, 2 receptions, 12 yards, 0 TD, 0-0 contested catches
C.J Uzomah - 2 targets, 2 receptions, 12 yards, 0 TD, 0-0 contested catches
Jeff Smith - 1 target, 1 catch, 11 yards, 0 TD, 0-0 contested catches
Tyler Conklin - 1 target, 0 catches, 0 yards, 0 TD, 0-1 contested catches
Braxton Berrios - 1 target, 1 catch, -1 yards, 0 TD, 0-1 contested catches (1 rush TD)

It was slightly surprising to see Conklin largely ignored in the passing game based on what we’ve seen through the first four weeks of the season, but I imagine he’ll be heavily involved next week when New York heads to Green Bay.

Defense

Pass-Rush

The Dolphin’s offensive line has been troublesome this year in terms of pass protection and when they lost Terron Armstead just 8 plays into their offensive game plan their job became even more difficult. A lot has been said about the Jet’s defensive line rotation, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both Quinnen Williams and Carl Lawson saw a season-high in terms of defensive snaps played, and both had dominant performances that limited Miami. Obviously you do have to point out that Miami had a 7th round rookie starting behind center and his processing wouldn’t be as fast as someone like Teddy, but he actually did a very good job avoiding sacks.

Carl Lawson in particular had a very dominating performance for the jets with his average separation from the QB at the time of the throw a minuscule 3.27 yards, that’s over a yard below the league average of 4.53.

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

Carl Lawson - 8 pressures, 1 sack, 16.1 PRP, 39.3% win percentage, 92.7 pass-rush grade
JFM - 7 pressures, 1 sack, 16.7 PRP, 33.3% win percentage, 83.8 pass-rush grade
Quinnen Williams - 6 pressures, 1 sack, 13.0 PRP, 22.2% win percentage, 83.4 pass-rush
Bryce Huff - 4 pressures, 0 sacks, 15.4 PRP, 38.5% win percentage, 87.3 pass-rush
Jacob Martin - 2 pressures, 0 sacks, 16.7 PRP, 33.3% win percentage, 88.4 pass-rush
Sheldon Rankins - 2 pressures, 0 sacks, 4.3 PRP, 13% win percentage, 74.1 pass-rush

I’ve only included players who had at least 10 pass-rush snaps in the above apart from Jacob Martin who saw 6 snaps and generated 2 pressures. Bryce Huff saw his playing time extended after a positive debut against Pittsburgh and he rewarded that faith with 4 more pressures on just 15 pass-rush snaps. His 38.5% win percentage was the second-highest on the team behind Carl Lawson.

The Jets generated 32 pressures in total against Miami with Gardner, Clemons, and Shepherd each contributing one to the total. Here’s the % of defensive snaps played and in brackets the difference to last week against Pittsburgh:

Carl Lawson - 73% (+20 from 53% last week)
Quinnen Williams - 70% (+9 from 61% last week)
JFM - 66% (+18 from 48% last week)
Sheldon Rankins - 64% (+14 from 50% last week)
Solomon Thomas - 28% (-8 from 36% last week)
Bryce Huff - 22% (+8 from 14% last week)
Nathan Shepherd - 22% (-12 from 34% last week)
Jermaine Johnson - 22% (-12 from 24% last week, injury related)
Jacob Martin - 16% (-22 from 38% last week)
Micheal Clemons - 15% (-10 from 25% last week)

It’s interesting to see the starts all up across the board, maybe Carl was higher than expected thanks to JJ’s injury, but you would presume the Jets may have played Huff or Martin more if that was the case, this to be looks like a concerted effort to get their best players on the field more.

Run Defense

If there is one area where I thought we looked vulnerable it was against the run. Mostert had great success on the ground and considering we were facing a 7th-round rookie QB, you would think they’d have loaded up against the run. The opposite argument can be made that the Jets focused on stopping Waddle and Hill, and were very successful in doing that. Let’s take a look at the PFF run-defense grades for all players who appeared in 10 or more run-defense plays:

Jordan Whitehead - 76.7
JFM - 70.4
LaMarcus Joyner - 69.2
Will Parks - 69.1
Quinnen Williams - 68.0
Kwon Alexander 67.5
Carl Lawson - 65.3
D.J Reed - 60.9
Sheldon Rankins - 49.8
Sauce Gardner - 48.2
Michael Carter II - 45.8
C.J Mosley - 45.2

Coverage

Whoever was playing behind center, the job for the Jets remained the same. Don’t let Tyreek Hill and Jaylon Waddle beat you, considering the Jets didn’t allow a receiving touchdown and walked out of Metlife with a 40-17 victory, I’d say that was job done for the secondary who continue to build as the season progresses. The corners have been outstanding from the start, but the safeties are starting to catch up.

Here are the coverage stats for everyone who appeared in at least 10 coverage snaps:

Sauce Gardner - 5 targets, 3 receptions, 26 yards, 17 YAC, 1 INT
D.J Reed - 5 targets, 3 receptions, 15 yards, 5 YAC, 0 INT
Michael Carter - 4 targets, 3 receptions, 21 yards, 29 YAC, 2 PBU
Kwon Alexander - 8 targets, 4 receptions, 35 yards, 16 YAC
C.J Mosley - 6 targets, 5 receptions, 56 yards, 7 YAC
Jordan Whitehead - 1 target, 1 reception, 13 yards, 0 YAC
Will Parks - 1 target, 0 receptions, 0 yards, 1 PBU
LaMarcus Joyner - 0 target, 0 reception, 0 yards

Obviously, the Jets allowed a few pass interference calls, whether you agree with them or not. Sauce, Reed, and Carter were all called for pass interference penalties, at the end that didn’t come back to bite them and they managed to keep Hill and Waddle out of the end zone, and that’s all that really mattered.

Special Teams

Once again Greg Zuerlein was perfect, hitting his only field goal and converting all five extra points. Braden Mann averaged 46.3 yards per attempt, dowing two kicks inside the 20-yard line with an average hangtime of 4.25 seconds. That hang time is worth monitoring, it was rated as the 21st best this weekend and it’s a vital stat for coverage purposes.