The Stat Pack: New England Patriots

Edition #268

Good morning!

Unfortunately, the last 24 hours have done nothing to improve my mood about Zach Wilson. If anything my opinion of the Jets signal-caller has declined further. Having watched a fair few clips back from the game, it’s not clearer than ever that Zach is struggling to understand the basic concepts of the Jet’s offense. Mike LaFleur took a lot of heat yesterday and while some of it is still warranted, on 2nd viewing his scheme led to plenty of open receivers, Zach just ignored them.

It’s tiring to find yourself on a fairground ride that you have no interest in being on, but here we are back on the QB merry-go-round. I’ve lost pretty much all faith in Zach, and pray that he makes me look extremely silly in the months or years ahead.

Today we’re going to focus on the stats from yesterday’s game…because that’s what we do. I’m going to bypass the quick throws today as I always struggle to keep this newsletter compact.

A Change Coming?

The big news yesterday revolved around Robert Saleh being noncommittal on Zach Wilson being the starting QB on Sunday with the Jets’ head coach saying everything was on the table after an “unacceptable” display by the offense on Sunday. Personally, I think this is a Saleh ploy to try and light a fire under him, listening to Garrett Wilson talk about a need to focus on details throughout the week is a concern, he didn’t name Zach and used the collective term for the whole offense, but having watched some All-22 back, it’s clear that Zach needs to work on his details.

"I think we've got a championship-quality defense and I think we've got really good players on offense," Saleh said. "From a schematic standpoint, I think we're right there with everyone else. But I'm just trying to evaluate to see how we can get this offense going a little bit.

Wilson is 34th out of 34 qualified QBs in completion percentage at 55.6%, the exact same completion he had last year as a rookie. That shows a lack of growth and having him sit a week or two may be the best thing for him and the best thing for the Jet’s playoff chances.

Quarterback

We’ve seen some shocking performances from Zach over the last 20 games, but I’ve never seen a performance that was as lifeless as yesterday. Zach missed open targets all afternoon and showed a complete lack of understanding of offensive concepts. This is going to be extremely ugly, but let’s take a look anyway.

Zach passed for 77 yards total, with 34 of those yards coming on one play where he underthrew Denzel Mims. Fortunately for Zach, #11 saved him the embarrassment of having played an entire game while recording less than 50 passing yards. Zach wanted us to keep the conditions in perspective and the conditions were Mac Jones throwing for over 200 yards.

Zach completed 23.1% of his passes when kept clean and completed 0% of passes (6 attempts) when attempting a pass off of play-action. He completes 22% of his passes over 10+ yards down the field (2-9) and only 40% overall. There is no way to escape the truth, Wilson looked lost on the football field.

Running Backs

It was really tough for the backs out there. After Nate Herbig was active he was quickly replaced by Dan Feeney, which meant the Jets’ offensive line was shuffled all over again. With the Jets unable to move the ball through the air, the Patriots cheat down on the run. Like we said in our preview, the Patriots will force you to try and beat them in ways you don’t want to. They tempted the Jets to beat them through the air and Zach was unable to do that, I say Zach because on second viewing the scheme had players open.

Michael Carter - 8 rushes, 19 yards, 2.4 yards an attempt, 16 yards after contact, 1 MTF
James Robinson - 7 rushes, 10 yards, 1.4 yards an attempt, 8 yards after contact, 0 MTF
Ty Johnson - 4 rushes, 4 yards, 1.0 yards an attempt, 7 yards after contact, 2 MTF

The numbers speak for themselves, the Jets got no luck anywhere and maybe MLF went away from it a little too quickly. One thing is clear and obvious, the Jets were winning games because of Breece Hall and when he’s not around, it makes a lot of people look worse.

Wide Receivers

The Jets receivers cut frustrated figures during and after the game yesterday, none more so than Garrett Wilson. I can understand why, when you constantly get open and the QB throws the ball away or throws it 10 yards over your head, it’s going to be frustrating. Zach is costing them money and while it shouldn’t be about money when someone not doing their job starts to impact your earning potential, you become frustrated. Tomorrow I’m going to showcase why the receivers were frustrated, but today we’re just going to take a look at the figures:

Denzel Mims - 5 targets, 1 catch, 34 yards, 1 drop
Elijah Moore - 4 targets, 2 catches, 17 yards,
Garrett Wilson - 3 targets, 2 catches, 12 yards,
Tyler Conklin - 3 targets, 2 catches, 15 yards
Braxton Berrios - 1 target, 0 catches
Ty Johnson - 1 target, 0 catches
Michael Carter - 1 target, 1 catch, -2 yards

Denzel Mims had the one red flag in the receiver room with the drop, it’s a pass that he has to hang onto. But then I’d say he bailed Zach out on the deep 34-yard completion, so they’re even. Now here’s where they lined up, and as you can see Moore was in the slot a lot more.

Offensive Line

We’ve already spoken about the struggles in the run game, but how did they do in pass protection? Let’s have a quick look:

Duane Brown - 4 pressures, 1 sack, 91.4 pass-blocking efficiency, 65.4 PFF grade
Laken Tomlinson - 2 pressures, 0 sack, 96.6 pass-blocking efficiency, 76.5 PFF grade
Connor McGovern - 2 pressures, 1 sack, 94.8 pass-blocking efficiency, 71.0 PFF grade
Dan Feeney - 1 pressure, 1 sack, 96.6 pass-blocking efficiency, 76.6 PFF grade
Cedric Ogbuehi - 2 pressures, 0 sacks, 96.6 pass-blocking efficiency, 65.5 PFF grade

Was it perfect? No. Was it a disaster? No. Should Zach have done more with the time he was allowed? Absolutely. I didn’t think the Jets’ offensive line played too badly when it came to pass protection, and that holds up statistically. Zach threw from a completely clean pocket on 13 occasions and completed 23.1% of those passes, that’s just not good enough and that falls on the QB and not the offensive line.

The hope is we get Max Mitchell back this week and we’ll see where we are with George Fant as well.

Defensive Line

The Jets’ defensive line turned up the heat on Mac Jones yet again. They spent a fair amount of time in the backfield and came up big with sacks in key situations. For the sake of the pressure stats I’m going to be using PFF who don’t attribute half sacks, they credit a sack to anyone who was involved in the play.

Quincy Williams: 3 pressures, 2 sacks, 50.0 PRP, 40.0% win percentage
John Franklin-Myers: 3 pressures, 2 sacks, 12.5 PRP, 15.0% win percentage
Bryce Huff: 3 pressures, 1 sack, 22.2 PRP, 44.4% win percentage
Quinnen Williams: 2 pressures, 1 sack, 6.5 PRP, 13.0% win percentage
Carl Lawson: 2 pressures, 1 sack, 8.3 PRP, 11.1% win percentage
Jermaine Johnson: 1 pressure, 5.0 PRP, 20.0% win percentage
Micheal Clemons: 1 pressure, 1 sack, 11.1 PRP, 11.1 win percentage
Nathan Shepherd: 1 pressure, 2.9 PRP, 11.8% win percentage

Coverage

The Jets seemed to have a bend but don’t break attitude against the Patriots. Mac was able to move the ball at points but the Jets put the clamps on when they needed to and that resulted in the defense holding New England to just 3 points on the road which is a tremendous job.

Michael Carter II: 5 targets, 4 catches, 32 yards, 23 YAC, 1 PBU
DJ Reed: 5 targets, 5 catches, 51 yards, 7 YAC
Sauce Gardner: 4 targets, 2 catches, 19 yards, 13 YAC, 1 PBU
Kwon Alexander: 4 targets, 4 catches, 65 yards, 49 YAC
C.J Mosley: 4 targets, 3 catches, 31 yards, 22 YAC
Quincy Williams: 3 targets, 3 catches, 24 yards, 32 YAC
Marcell Harris: 1 target, 1 catch, 4 yards, 6 YAC
Jordan Whitehead: 1 target, 1 catch, 20 yards, 16 YAC

Mac Jones only attempted one pass over 20 yards, and just 5 passes over 10 yards. What he did do was read the defense and find the short option to keep moving the chains. Jones is an extremely limited QB but he really does do well in the short passing game.

Punting

If you’ve been reading TJW you’ll know that there’s one area of Mann’s game that bothers me on a regular basis and that’s his hang time. Over the course of the season, he’s slowly been improving to a point where his average 4.38 hang time ranks him, well, average. He’s joint 14th out of 34 qualified punters. The issue is consistency, overall against the Patriots that hang time was down at 4.27, and that as well as the direction of his kick led to the punt return touchdown that ended the game.

I know a lot of people have a problem with Mann but statistically, he’s an average NFL punter. It’s one of those situations where if you can try and improve on him then you do, but it’s not a priority at this point, even considering the way Sunday’s game ended.

Here’s how he ranks on the season in several key categories, all ranks out of 32 qualified punters:

Yards Per Attempt: 48.1 (13th)
Net Yards per Attempt: 41.8 (17th)
Punts downed inside 20: 16 (15th)
Returned %: 46.2 (20th)
Fair Catches Forced: 9 (21st)
Hangtime: 4.38 (14th)