Jets Disaster Against Patriots Highlights Issues

I’ve watched plenty of bad games. I’ve been blown out in high school. I’ve been blown out in college. I’ve been blown out in Madden.

The Week 7 54-14 slaughter of the New York Jets highlighted everything wrong with the franchise within the first half.

I’ll be completely honest: I didn’t watch the second half of the football game. I got the Twitter notifications, but I went to watch the Formula 1 USA Grand Prix to stop my Sunday from being completely ruined. And in that first half of the game, we could see every problem the Jets franchise has right now, and it put it under a magnifying glass.

Jets Offense Grounded

For Robert Saleh barking “All Gas, No Breaks” to the fans for half a year, this is the slowest offense I’ve seen in a while. The New York Jets have been outscored 44-0 in the first quarter, and outscored 106-20 in the first half of their 6 contests.

Part of this falls on the quarterback. Is Zach Wilson a rookie? Yes, but I don’t think anyone, coaches included, were expecting Zach to have as severe of a learning struggle as he is right now. He’s currently tied for first in interceptions thrown this season: 9, including 4 in the first matchup against New England. For those watching the games, sometimes Wilson makes amazing, drive-changing plays. Other times you cover your eyes and ask “What was he looking at?”

Receiving Troubles

Now it doesn’t help that lead receiver Corey Davis currently has five drops within this first stint of the season. His career high prior was six drops in his rookie year. Not to discredit him though: Davis has been consistent outside of his drops and a leader for the very young wide receiving core, which has been missing the most reliable receiver in Jamison Crowder.

Outside of Davis and Crowder, the passing offense runs through Braxton Berrios statistically, and the running back duo of Michael Carter and Ty Johnson.

Jets Run Game Closed

For some crazy reason, this Shannahan/LaFleur offensive family looks really different with the Jets and the 49ers than it does in Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers. Just some food for thought, especially considering the rushing game we were all expecting to carry this offense has earned 432 yards across 7 games.

Michael Carter has more or less come as advertised. While he still hasn’t broken a big run (career long 17 yards), and has only found the end zone twice, he’s leading the team in yards, attempts, yards per carry, yards per game, and attempts per game. Forget running back by committee, this is Michael Carter’s backfield. He also leads all running backs in receiving yards.

Despite all of these good things I can praise him for, he has 202 yards in 6 games. For those of you doing the math, that’s 33.7 yards a game on 9.7 carries on average. While having yet to allow a sack, tackle George Fant has a 61.7 Pro Football Focus run blocking grade. Guard Greg Van Roten, who is on a short leash by Jets fans, has a 65.3 run blocking grade.

Unfortunately, Carter’s advanced rushing stats, provided by Pro Football Reference, look scarily similar to that of former Jets running back Le’Veon Bell. Carter is averaging 1.6 yards before contact. For reference, Cleveland running back Nick Chubb averages almost 2 yards more. Outside of the 152 yards the offense got in the Week 2 Patriots loss, the next highest run total was Week 4 against the Titans. Gang Green ran the ball for 66 yards.

How Do We Fix It?

An inability to run the ball puts more pressure on Wilson than needs to be. The running game is not complementary to Wilson. It’s not something he can rely on when things are bad. It’s not something the Jets could utilize to give the rookie quarterback a break. Mike LaFleur’s inability to run the ball successfully puts the offense behind the chains, and makes Zach Wilson need to play hero ball every single week.

When Zach Wilson plays hero ball because the offense can’t function properly, he makes poor decisions. Admittedly, that’s a maturity problem. There is no 14-point play in football. You get 7 at a time if you’re lucky. So when you find yourself behind: breath. Relax. March down the field to get yourself back in the game.

If the Jets want to turn this disastrous start for Robert Saleh and company around let the quarterback, whether it be Mike White or Joe Flacco for the next few weeks, have a security blanket. Run to set up the pass. At least, that’s what this Green Bay/San Francisco offense is supposed to look like.

Above all else: stop playing catchup every single week.

Defensive Nightmares Hurt Offense

Stop telling me how good the front seven are. They were good last year. This is 2021. I’m beyond thrilled defensive lineman John Franklin-Meyers got his extension. He’s been a  force.

What’s unacceptable is that this defense has not allowed a team to rush for less than 100 yards yet this season. New England ran for 101 in Week 2, the lowest total gained all season.

The defense allows, on average, 403 yards of offense per week. You cannot win games that way. Is it fun to watch guys run around playing fast? Yes it is. That’s why it’s so entertaining to see Quincy Williams total 16 tackles. But there’s a clear drop off in depth. No CJ Mosely. Jarrad Davis has been missing. Blake Cashman, who I believe has been a total whiff of a draft pick, currently has a PFF grade of 29.1 overall. His run defense is a 54.2, and his coverage ability is a 29.4

Quincy Williams is a similar story: PFF overall is a 40.3, his run defense grades at 36.5, and his coverage grades at 49.1.

It’s “All Gas, No Breaks” until you demonstrate a basic inability to cover your gap and allow teams to literally run over you. It’s all fun to watch guys play fast until Cashman takes his 14th bad angle of the game to miss another 2-3 yard tackle and see it turn into 6-7 yards.

Secondary is…Okay? Ish?

Despite all of these gross ineptitudes, this young secondary with no legitimized, secure safety position has been playing well. Barring the 403 passing yards from the New England matchup, the secondary has been playing right around average. Does zero interceptions hurt? The team needs takeaways to be successful, but there are worse problems to have.

The secondary of this defense should be the weak spot. The oldest cornerback is Bryce Hall, who’s only in year two and has not allowed a red-zone touchdown pass to be caught on him yet. Even in the Week 7 blowout, Mac Jones targeted running back Brandon Bolden the most. Blame the backers, not the DBs. This secondary will be okay. Bryce Hall is the same guy he was last year. Michael Carter II, Javelin Guidry, and Brandin Echols are all playing above what you’d be expecting Day 3 guys to be playing at.

That being said, if safety Ashtyn Davis could not allow an 88% completion rating when targeted…that’d be great.

Jets Salvageable or Scrap?

With Wilson out 2-4 following a PCL injury, Mike White will start against Cincinnati. Expect Joe Flacco to start the week after. Let’s be real: there’s no wildcard for this team. But the keys to success are really simple, thank goodness.

Run the ball EFFECTIVELY. Eliminate the turnovers. Get healthy on defense, and have the front seven step up to the level of talent we saw last year. 365 days ago the New York Jets were a top 3 run defense. They aren’t right now. There’s a lot of maturing and growing that will happen this season with this young team. There will be plenty of growing pains.

But don’t give up on Joe Douglas or Robert Saleh yet.

I see it on the Facebook pages, in the sneaky tweets from burner accounts, and in the comment sections of Instagram. There’s a whole lot of new. We have draft picks, and so far, most of the previous ones look pretty good. Breath. There’s so many guys playing their first season in the league right now. We’ve been decimated by injuries.

Do not give up, no matter what. The outline to fix this team is simple.

Better days are yet to come.

J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!