Wrap-Up Wednesday

Edition #288

Good morning!

Fortunately, we only have to wait another 24 hours to get back on the horse, with the Jets heading to Jacksonville for a must-win game against the Jaguars.

As it stands the Jets have around a 12% chance of making the playoffs according to ESPN stats and information, if we lose tomorrow that will pretty much be 0%.

I like to use the Wednesday newsletter to just run through a few topics, today I’m going to focus on Special Teams, Bryce Huff, and the Jet’s lack of turnovers recently.

As expected, Coach Saleh confirmed that Mike White had not been cleared for contact and as a result, Zach Wilson will start against the Jaguars on TNF.

Saleh did say that White will be evaluated each week and he doesn’t consider this a season-ending injury, but we’ll wait and see on that one.

In other news, both Quinnen Williams and Corey Davis are trending in the right direction, but the decision on Williams will go right up until game time. If he can’t go, it’ll be a huge loss for the Jets, as it was against Detroit.

Tuesdays mean it’s time for some power rankings, let’s see how the Jets fare after another loss. Pro Football Network has us at #17, Sporting News has us at #18, USA Today has us at #15 and NFL.com has us at #14 (below). Unsurprisingly they all have one thing in common and that’s the Jets falling.

NFL

It’s about time we started to talk about the Jet’s special teams unit. Brant Boyer has been with the Jets since 2006 and by all accounts, he’s a very good coach. You don’t survive multiple regime changes if you’re not good at what you do, but the harsh reality is that the Jets are having a difficult year on specials despite having found a reliable kicker. Yes, I know Greg missed the 58-yarder at the weekend but he’s been largely reliable.

Here’s how the Jets rank on special teams according to DVOA:

Special Teams DVOA: 26th/32
Weighted DVOA: 30th/32
Field Goals/Extra Points: 14/32
Kickoff Return: 24/32
Punting: 32/32
Punt Return: 8/32

So we’re OK in terms of our field goal kicker and our punt return, but we’re pretty bad at everything else. So far in the NFL, we’ve seen three punts returned for a touchdown in 2022, and two of those have come against the Jets. So when we’re ranked 32nd in the NFL in terms of punting DVOA that’s on both Braden Mann and the return unit.

One interesting stat that I’ve never looked at on Football Outsiders is hidden points and they explain that stat as follows:

• HIDDEN represents the advantage teams have received from elements of special teams generally out of their control: opposing field goals, kickoff distance, and punt distance. It is listed as points worth of estimated field position and is ranked from the team with the biggest advantage to the team with the biggest disadvantage.

The Jets are actually 2nd in terms of hidden points at 10, only Las Vegas has more at 16. So there is an element of fortune for us, which is concerning considering we have the 26th-ranked special teams unit in terms of DVOA.

Here’s how the Jets have ranked in terms of special teams DVOA since Brant Boyer took charge all the way back in 2016:

2016: 32nd
2017: 25th
2018: 1st
2019: 4th
2020: 29th
2021: 2nd
2022: 26th

So as you can see it’s been a bit of a mixed bag, we’re either very good or we’re pretty bad. We have four seasons of being 25th or worse and three seasons of being 4th or better. A coordinator can only do so much, it’s up to the personnel, and if I were the Jets I’d start with the punter this off-season.

Sunday wasn’t a day to remember for the Jet’s pass rush, missing Quinnen Williams from inside, the Jets failed to muster a single sack against the Lions. It was bad timing considering the Lions have one of the better offensive lines in football. But there is usually one consistent when it comes to the Jets pass rush outside of Quinnen, and that’s the performance of Bryce Huff:

David Wyatt-Hupton @DWyattHupton

Bryce Huff has 4 sacks and 31 pressures in 152 pass-rush snaps. Or a sack every 38 snaps, pressure every 4.9 snaps. His 27.1% pass rush win rate is still #1 of 179 edge players in the NFL. I mean that is ridiculously good.

He’s not only performing at a level that would make him the premier pass rusher on the team but one of the better pass rushers in football. That may seem like a bit of hyperbole but if you just take a moment to analyze the stats, it does paint quite the picture.

The issue with just looking at the base stats is that some players play more than others, on one hand, that gives them more opportunities to pad those stats, on the other they’re not as fresh for those opportunities because they’re playing so much. I decided to take a look at some of the best players in football and calculated their pressure/sacks based on snaps.

Bryce Huff - 4 sacks (one every 38 snaps), 31 pressures (one every 4.9 snaps)

Matthew Judon - 14.5 sacks (one every 26 snaps), 59 pressures (one every 6.5 snaps)

Nick Bosa - 15.5 sacks (one every 27 snaps), 70 pressures (one every 6.1 snaps)

Myles Garrett - 13.5 sacks (one every 31 snaps), 65 pressures (one every 6.4 snaps)

Maxx Crosby - 11.5 sacks (one every 47 snaps), 62 pressures (one every 8.7 snaps)

Haason Reddick - 12 sacks (one every 29 snaps), 54 pressures (one every 6.5 snaps)

Yannick Ngakoue - 9.5 sacks (one every 42.7 snaps), 42 pressures (one every 9.6 snaps)

Obviously, we’re talking about a relatively small sample size, but his pressure percentage is something to write home about. Especially when you consider how he shakes up against the rest of the Jet’s pass rushers:

Carl Lawson: 6 sacks (one every 61 snaps), 38 pressures (one every 9.7 snaps)

John Franklin Myers: 4 sacks (one every 81 snaps), 39 pressures (one every 8.3 snaps)

Jermaine Johnson: 2.5 sacks (one every 42 snaps), 7 pressures (one every 15 snaps)

Micheal Clemons: 2 sacks (one every 54 snaps), 9 pressures (one every 12.1 snaps)

Vinny Curry: 0 sacks, 6 pressures (one every 13.8 snaps)

Obviously, this is only taking into consideration a player’s pass rush potential and productivity, it’s not taking into account how well they play the run, how well they tackle, etc, but it’s pretty clear to me that Bryce Huff is the most productive pass-rusher on this roster.

He’s also about to be a restricted free agent and if I were the Jets, considering the numbers, I’d be sticking a first-round tender on him to try and deter anyone from offering him a contract we can’t match.

One under-appreciated aspect of the Jet’s recent struggles has been the inability to force turnovers by the defense. Now, it seems pretty harsh to be blaming anything on the defense considering they’re one of the best units in football and it’s the offensive and special teams units that are letting the side down. But, we can’t ignore it.

vs Lions: Jets turnovers (1), Lions turnovers (0)
vs Bills: Jets turnovers (2), Bills turnovers (0)
vs Vikings: Jets turnovers (2), Vikings turnovers (0)

So in the last three games, all decided by one score or less, the Jets are -5 in terms of their turnover differential. For the season we’re now -3 which is 26th in the league, last year the Jets were 30th with a turnover differential of -13. While we’ve seen some improvement, the unavoidable fact is that we’re trending in the wrong direction.

Let’s have a look at the turnover statistics for our 7 wins:

vs Bears: Jets turnovers (0), Bears turnovers (1)
vs Bills: Jets turnovers (1), Bills turnovers (2)
vs Broncos: Jets turnovers (0), Broncos turnovers (1)
vs Packers: Jets turnovers (0), Packers turnovers (1)
vs Dolphins: Jets turnovers (0), Dolphins turnovers (2)
vs Steelers: Jets turnovers (2), Steelers turnovers (4)
vs Browns: Jets turnovers (1), Browns turnovers (1)

We haven’t lost the turnover battle in any of our 7 wins, and we’ve won it in 6/7, which goes to show how key turnovers are for this team. When you have an offense that sometimes struggles, giving them short fields to work with is imperative. Being +8 in turnovers through the 7 games we won is no coincidence, if the Jets want to beat the Jaguars on Thursday and then the Seahawks and Dolphins, the defense is going to have to create turnovers and the offense is going to need to avoid them.