Victory Monday: Statement

Edition #244

🌟 Good morning.

Statement game. Statement made.

Its pouring down this morning in France so I'm going to take that time to get some thoughts down on yesterday's game. Newsletters this week may be a little erratic and will certainly be shorter as I'll be writing them on my phone. I'll make it up next week 👍

You're New York Jets are 4-2 on the season. They rode into Green Bay and took down a future hall of fame quarterback in his own building. If any questions remained about the teams legitimacy to compete, they were answered emphatically in 60 minutes last night.

🧀 Green Bay were 10-0 following a loss since 2019. During that run their run differential was +144 and their turnover differential was +19. Last week the Packers lost to the Giants, this week the Jets handed them a 17 point loss…Jets doing things differently.

🧀 Packers wide receiver Allen Lazard had this to say about Jets rookie Sauce Gardner “He played a good game, he's very talented”. This was after he knocked the cheese head off Sauces head with the Jets rookie celebrating the victory.

🎭 It wouldn't be the Jets without a little bit of drama. On a day where the passing game didn't really click, Elijah Moore posted this which actually says a lot. We'll see what happens over the coming weeks when the Jets offense is asked to do more through the air.

Elijah Moore @e_moore03

If I say what I really wanna say…I’ll be the selfish guy…we winning. Grateful! Huge blessing! All I ever wanted. Butter sweet for me em but I’ll be solid. So I’ll just stay quiet. Just know I don’t understand either. https://t.co/mROuef1ejd

Rich Cimini @RichCimini

Of all the eye-popping stats/factoids today, this one is hard to understand: Elijah Moore: 0 targets. #Jets

📊 The Jets outscored the Packers 10-0 in the 4th quarter and are now +48 in the 4th quarter. That is the 2nd-best 4th-quarter point differential by ANY team through 6 games in the last decade, only behind the 2016 Broncos (+57) (via ESPN)

🗽 Breece Hall has 609 scrimmage yards, the most by any Jets player in the team's first 6 games of the season since Curtis Martin in 2004 (789 scrimmage yards). It's also the most by a Jets rookie since Matt Snell.

💲The Jets are just the second team in the Super Bowl era to have a winning record through six games despite being an underdog in all six of those games (2001 Cleveland). Maybe Vegas will start respecting the Jets soon, personally I hope we're underdog again next week.

🤔 Here are some quick thoughts on the game last night.

Last week I wrote about the possibility of the Jets having both the offensive rookie of the year (Hall) and defensive rookie of the year (Sauce). Both stayed on track and enhanced their claim yesterday with outstanding performances. I'm not sure how many PBU's Sauce finished with, but I counted at least two. Breece put the team on his back again. We have two very exciting players on our hands.

The run game in general needs some real praise. I loved the play designs yesterday with plenty of traps, fake handoffs, fake tosses and misdirection. Mike LaFleur deserves some real credit for putting these together and towards the end of the third we got into a real flow. Duane Brown was getting out in space like a man 10 years younger and put some outstanding blocks on tape. In the first half we passed too much and Zach was a little off with his timing and internal clock, putting it on the ground made a lot of sense.

I thought the linebacking trio had their best game of the season yesterday, the combination of Mosley, Quincy and Kwon was dominant. Mosley and Quincy both made plays in the back field and the PBU by Kwon in the 2nd half was spectacular. We said in the off-season the linebackers were missing a coverage guy, someone who can move really well in space. It took a while to bag him, but Kwon has been a very welcome surprise and if he carries on playing as well as he has been then the Jets need to look at extending him sooner rather than later. Remember, he's only on a one year deal.

I don't have the words to describe how good Quinnen Williams is. He was the best player on the field yesterday, he beat single and double blocks, he made plays against the running backs and spent most of the afternoon uncomfortably close to Aaron Rodgers grill. He is an elite defensive tackle in this league, we've known it for a while but this is his introduction to the wider audience. He's at an All-Pro level right now, and the scary thing is I think he can improve even more.

The defensive line as a whole had an outstanding performance. All of them were generating pressure, in the preview on Friday we spoke about targeting the right side of the line and running stunts to confuse the RG/RT, the Jets did that a lot and it was absolute mayhem. I'm ready to admit I was wrong about Rankins, I thought he may get cut this off-season but he made the team and he's making plays on a weekly basis at the moment.

I think what we're seeing this year is absolutely due to an influx of talent, but it's also about experience in the system. On the defensive side of the ball in particular, players seem to appreciate and understand their roles so much clearer. Defensive lineman are sticking to their assignments and that allows the linebackers to flow to the football, gap assignments look cleaner than they did last year too. Those miscommunication's we saw earlier in the year have disappeared over the last three weeks as the new starters in the secondary have bedded in. Need to give credit to Jeff Ulbrich who was on the hot seat earlier this year. He's done a fine job.

While we're giving out some props we can't forget Brant Boyer who's working with his third Jets head coach. That really does speak volumes about his talent, that he's been kept on through three coaches. Yesterday the Jets special teams came to play with a blocked FG and a blocked punt scoop and score. We did have a pint blocked but let's focus on that positive energy. If Quinnen wasn't doing enough on defense, he came up with the blocked FG and it was Micheal Clemons who got his hand on that blocked punt. There was so much to like yesterday with the special teams unit.

I need to go back and watch the game again, but it seemed to me that the Jets played more man coverage than we're used to. Sauce is excelling in man and despite us being considered a heavy zone team, I thought I saw us align in straight man to man a lot yesterday. If the Jets are adapting their scheme slightly to play to the strengths of their personnel then that's serious growth. Looking forward to seeing if my eyes were playing tricks on me.

I hate playing the officials card, but as we won I can't be accused of being a sore loser. If anyone wanted to see the benefit of being a respected home team with a future hall of fame QB then yesterday was exhibit A. We had a very soft chop block, a late hit on Breece that the official actually went to throw his flag on and then put it back in his pocket, a missed obvious holding penalty and a few more too. Maybe you have to earn those calls and maybe we'll get there, but the established power teams in the NFL don't really need a helping hand.

Anyway I'm going to head out and enjoy some more 🇫🇷 sights, have some nice 🍷 and maybe destroy a little 🧀 too 😉