BGA: Packers @Jets

WhiteShoeWillis · Nov 4, 2010

By Bent on Nov 04, 2010, 12:23 pm

Disclaimer: All analysis was taken from the TV coverage, so at times it may have been hard to identify players or what was happening, because I was limited by their footage. However, I have tried to be as accurate as possible and apologize for any inaccuracies or omissions (which I am happy to correct).

Yes, believe it or not, I was prepared to put myself through this again and it was actually a fascinating insight into how teams are approaching the Jets this season and the limitations they still face in their efforts to solidify their championship credentials. If you have anything else you’d like me to comment upon, please leave your requests in the comments and I’ll do a follow-up post tonight.

After the jump, catch my analysis of Sunday’s game, including – but not limited to – comments on Mark Sanchez, Bart Scott and Jerricho Cotchery.

Playcalling

Once again, there was plenty of debate surrounding the offensive playcalling in this game. Clearly, whenever you fail to score any points at home, something is up with the offensive gameplan. However, having rewatched the game, what I saw was perfectly acceptable playcalling, but horribly inconsistent execution. Perhaps even more disconcerting was that these failures came from a variety of culprits. Can it all be attributed to post-bye week rust? Are the Jets so unused to being successful that they’re all getting the yips? Whatever the reasons, there were several guys guilty of making errors on plays that should have been successful to put an end to drives.

Teams seem to have come up with a blueprint for the best way to approach stopping the Jets. Stack the box with eight guys, making it difficult for them to get the running game going. Drop linebackers into coverage to slow the intermediate passing game. Send zone blitzes to disrupt the short passing game. Play up on your man so that you dare the Jets to beat you deep. Every team has basically put together a defensive gameplan containing some or all of those elements. So, is it impossible for the Jets to move the ball on such a defense?

Of course it isn’t. The Jets offensive gameplan is to mix up formations, try and stay out of obvious passing situations and work matchups to get the ball down the field. That hasn’t changed, philosophically, from game-to-game, other than in the Bills game, where they were able to run the ball so well that they were rarely in passing situations anyway. It’s a gameplan that should work, can work and has worked, notably against the Patriots in the second half and against Miami. In order to work though, it needs good execution. A lot of that falls on Sanchez. When he holds the ball for too long (Denver, first half against NE), checks down too much (Baltimore) or makes inaccurate throws (Sunday), then drives will stall. However, it’s not only Sanchez that was to blame for drives coming to an end – a problem which has affected their redzone production for most of the year (and last year).

I read a lot of criticisms of the gameplan and the play calling, but they didn’t really approach the game any differently to those ones where they had success earlier in the year. We’ll get to some of the individual mistakes that caused plays to fail in the positional breakdowns, but let’s give some examples to address some of the concerns with the offensive performance.

The major complaint was that they are not running the ball enough. Green Bay had eight men in the box on every running down. Even when the Jets went three or four wide, Charles Woodson would line up in the slot and be in perfect position to enter the box on a running play. While I understand that pounding the ball can wear down a defense, if you don’t pick up at least eight yards on the first two downs, then you put yourself into the kind of obvious passing situations that the Jets are trying to avoid, and you risk having even fewer carries overall, because many of your drives will stall sooner. As it happened, the Jets moved the ball well for most of the day (360 yards), but drives mostly just ground to a halt because individual mistakes landed them in passing downs.

If there was one thing I could change, it would be that Shonn Greene would get more carries, but it’s obvious why he isn’t. Whenever Greene enters the game, defenses are even more geared up to stop the run. On six carries, 19 of his 22 yards came after contact. The reason for this is that he cannot really be relied on as a pass protector, which we will get to later. I thought it was a big mistake to go away from Greene in week one after he lost a fumble and to an extent they did the same thing this week with Brad Smith. The Seminole/Tigercat formation is a good way to still run the ball when the other team stacks the box. Another good way is for the Quarterback to tuck and run, or even for some designed QB runs to be worked in, neither of which have been happening. Finally, the end around can work well against such an alignment. I know you all hated the double-reverse to Cotchery, but it would have gone for a huge gain if Damien Woody didn’t block completely the wrong guy, leaving Howard Green unblocked and easily able to blow it up.

When the other team is daring you to beat them downfield, you need to pick your spots. Green Bay had a coverage breakdown at one point and Braylon Edwards was wide open downfield, but unfortunately Sanchez was rolling left on the play and even though I think he saw Edwards, it would have been a difficult throw and he instead went for his first option and a sure first down. I have heard conflicting reports about the wind on Sunday, but I think we can all agree it was unpredictable and seemed to affect his long throws all day. On the first play of the fourth quarter, Sanchez threw a long out to Edwards that sailed incomplete when he had LaDainian Tomlinson wide open underneath for what would probably have been an easy 15 yards or so. Just another example of poor decision making.

His decision making wasn’t all poor though. He did have 256 yards and six of his passes were dropped, not to mention the two that were stripped and intercepted, although of these eight passes, at least half of them were slightly off-target. He threw slightly behind Keller on Woodson’s fourth quarter incompletion and Holmes on his first half drop. Cotchery’s late drop where Charlie Peprah knocked the ball loose would probably have been a catch if he didn’t have to jump for the ball. When the decision making was good, his protection sometimes let him down. He had Edwards deep down the seam, but was hit as he threw and the passed fluttered well short of its intended target.

Many people have complained that the Jets didn’t throw a quick slant or crossing pattern enough, but they did have some success with this early, including on one first down throw to Holmes. However, the Packers were gameplanning to take this away, with linebackers dropping off to the inside – as Jason Hunter did for his interception last week and AJ Hawk did to deflect away a throw to an open Cotchery. When they did go to Holmes on a crossing pattern on third down on the first drive of the first half, he dropped what was clearly going to be a 45 yard touchdown pass. Another drive stalled due to poor execution.

The final complaint I want to address is that the Jets don’t use the screen pass enough. Notwithstanding the fact that the Packers sent a few zone blitzes, which can make screen passes more difficult, the Jets did run the screen play a few times and looked to have it set up perfectly for a decent gain. Unfortunately, Greene dropped one and another was a poor throw by Sanchez that hit Tomlinson in the leg. They did successfully pick up a couple of first downs with dumpoffs to the running backs, but when you have a play designed to fool the other team and it works, but then you screw up the execution, this only makes it less likely to work the next time.

Nobody calls a perfect game, but the calls for Schottenheimer to be fired are misguided in my opinion. Sunday’s gameplan would have worked if the Jets had executed anything like they did in the games leading up to the bye. In any case, Bill Callahan, who has a reputation for having some of the most complex playbooks in the game, doesn’t sound like the ideal short-notice replacement many are assuming he would be.

Phew. And I said I didn’t want to talk about playcalling every week…

Quarterback

I’ve already gone into plenty of detail about some of the mistakes Sanchez made, but his overall performance wasn’t that bad. As I alluded to, his statistics would have looked much better if his receivers didn’t let him down. He is still holding the ball too long at times though, and I wish he would tuck and run when nobody is open more often. It is clear that he is trying to avoid making a mistake, because even the two interceptions were pretty safe throws. I wonder if he’s being a bit too careful, though. All his best performances this year have seen him be decisive and make a strong throw without hesitation. Where Sanchez does need to improve is in terms of putting a drive together and finishing that drive. This is something Chad Pennington was much better than him at.

Last week, Sanchez was 0-for-7 when under pressure, but this week, he was 5-10-148 yards and a 95.8 passer rating. Where he struggled was when the Packers just sent a three or four man rush and he had a load of time to try and find a receiver coming open. As I suggested above, he is best when he’s being decisive. I was concerned that the arrival of Santonio Holmes, who has a reputation for being excellent at freelancing to get open off a broken play, would cause Sanchez to try to keep plays alive more often, rather than going to his first option. Perhaps I was right to feel that way.
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http://www.thejetsblog.com/2010/11/04/bga-packers-at-jets/

WhiteShoeWillis · Nov 4, 2010

continued ...

Offensive Line

True to form, the offensive line played okay, but had some costly mistakes to cause drives to stall.

Nick Mangold had a false start and a costly holding penalty on a play which should have set up first down at the 15. On the play, B.J. Raji got penetration and Mangold wouldn’t have needed to hold if he held his ground a little better.

Damien Woody was also penalized, missed his assignment badly on the end around and gave up a crucial sack to Clay Matthews when he was beaten by a spin move, leaving the Jets in a 4th and 11 hole. Overall, he held Matthews to four pressures and a sack, which is actually a creditable display.

Matt Slauson gave up one QB hit and three pressures, but no sacks and actually had the best run blocking grade on the team.

Once again, Brandon Moore and D’Brickashaw Ferguson were solid, giving up just one pressure between them.

Running Backs

For the second straight week, neither LaDainian Tomlinson or Shonn Greene broke a tackle. That might explain why the running game never got off the ground. Tomlinson broke 15 in the first five games, but hasn’t broken one since. Neither of them had a run longer than eight yards.

Perhaps more concerning was the struggles they had in blitz pick-up. Tomlinson gave up a sack and, as well as the hit he gave up that ruined the long pass to Edwards, Greene also got beaten and was called for a hold. All of these mistakes put the Jets into passing situations and stalled drives.

Tony Richardson also gave up a QB hit, but was okay in terms of run blocking. John Conner saw just six plays and had one bad whiff.

Tight Ends and Receivers

Jerricho Cotchery called his day “frustrating”, but that doesn’t seem to go far enough. Targeted twelve times, he caught four, dropped three and had one wrenched from his grasp for an interception. He was also stuffed for a loss after he fumbled a handoff on an end around and got blown up on a running play which led to Braylon Edwards being called for yet another hold. Cotchery has no drops in the five Jets wins and a total of five in their two losses. The Jets need him to return to last year’s form where PFF had him ranked as the 8th best WR in the league. This year, he’s at 92.

Also guilty of dropping two balls was Santonio Holmes. After a great first quarter (3-43), he was shut out for the rest of the game. One of the drops should have been a touchdown and may have been the key play in the game. The other was thrown slightly behind him, but you would still expect him to make that play.

Braylon Edwards had just one catch, but did get open deep a couple of times. I hope the Jets don’t start just using him for downfield routes, because he’s been their most reliable receiver this year on the short-to-intermediate stuff. He has just two drops on the year, and six in 18 regular season games as a Jet.

Dustin Keller actually had a decent game in run blocking this week. However, on one play he lined up at fullback and took such a poor angle that the runner essentially tripped over him and on another, he had a holding penalty which came after the Jets had finally looked like they might establish the run, having run three times in a row and picked up the first down. He only caught two of the six balls thrown his way and perhaps should have done better on the interception, although I didn’t like the call.

Defensive Line

Let’s move onto something positive. What a defense this is! The Packers did everything they could to get the Jets out of their usual alignments and it worked in terms of forcing the Jets to go with some unusual position groupings. Starters Mike Devito and Sione Pouha only played 10 plays each in the first half. Bart Scott, who regularly plays the whole game and rarely misses more than a handful of snaps was only out there for 68% of the time. Bryan Thomas was only in on just over 50% of the plays. Despite this, the Jets held the high-powered Packers offense in check and it all starts up front.

The running game was never a threat. Brandon Jackson broke a meaningless 27 yarder just before halftime, but other than that they picked up just 2.2 yards per carry and less than a yard per carry after contact. As usual, Pouha spearheaded the effort on the line, but Shaun Ellis also had a good game against the run. He also added two pressures and is now leading the league in that category for 3-4 DE’s.

Off the bench, Trevor Pryce again made a great contribution with three pressures. This was crucial, because the Jets didn’t send as many blitzes in this game, but were still able to record two sacks, three hits and ten pressures. On average, they sent just 4.2 rushers on each dropback.

Linebackers

Bart Scott had his second straight superb game at inside linebacker. He was great against the run, with two tackles behind the line and also had a QB hit and a pressure. He is currently ranked as the best ILB in the NFL by PFF. David Harris also had a good game, with six tackles, two QB hits and a sack.

The outside linebackers did not have much impact, recording one pressure each. They’ve all been okay this season, but none of them has really stepped up and been consistently dominant. I wonder if the rotation or the fact they sometimes play as 3-4 ends is limiting their effectiveness.

Defensive Backs

Since Darrelle Revis returned from his hamstring injury, the Jets have faced Brett Favre, Kyle Orton and Aaron Rodgers. None of them has managed to complete 45% of their passes. That’s remarkable. This week, Revis wasn’t thrown at much (four targets) and gave up just one catch for 11 yards.

Antonio Cromartie only gave up two catches on five targets, but he was beaten deep on two of the incompletions, so he could have been better. I still think he may be better suited to being given an assignment and sticking to it. Drew Coleman got plenty of playing time, giving up a team-high three catches for 55 yards.

The safeties did okay this week, although Jim Leonhard again gave up completions on both throws that went his way.

As mentioned above, the Jets had some unusual personnel groupings that meant extra playing time for James Ihedigbo (two snaps in the previous two games) and Dwight Lowery (one snap in the previous game). Lowery in particular responded well. Marquice Cole and Eric Smith saw action on 10 plays between them.

Special Teams

Not a good week for special teams. Nick Folk missed a chip shot field goal and Steve Weatherford showed poor judgement on his fake punt run. Also, the usually dependable Marquice Cole blew his assignment on the punt return unit, leading to Jim Leonhard getting nailed. Brad Smith did have a nice kickoff return though.

PFF Analysis

I once again contributed to the game recap article for ProFootballFocus.com (which also gives you a sneak preview of some of their player ratings) and here’s a sample quote:

After their Week 6 win over the Broncos, the Jets were flying high with the league’s best record, five straight wins and some serious momentum. The bye week soon put a stop to that, though … Dropped catches, penalties and uncharacteristic turnovers stalled drives for the Jets, as three Mason Crosby field goals were more than enough to give the Packers their first road win ever over the Jets. The banged-up Packers managed to thwart the Jets’ offensive gameplan and capitalized on New York’s mistakes to put some points on the board.

TJB readers can obtain full access to PFF’s premium stats for $63 this season. The discount available has been increased to 30%. E-mail me ( bentdouble@gmail.com ) to obtain a code to enable you to get the discount.

Conclusions

Is it time to panic? No, I don’t think so. The defense is great and the offense just needs to iron out some of the elementary mistakes. I’m not sure where the blame lies for the offensive failings this week, nor that it would be particularly productive to make much more of an effort to determine this. Instead, it’s time to move on. Onwards and upwards. We’ve got some catching up to do now.
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Fiftynine · Nov 4, 2010

What is this garbage?

Well reasoned? Logical? An author who clearly reviewed the game multiple times?

Not the thing we need around here.

Fire Schotty! Sign Randy!

:smile:

ajax · Nov 4, 2010

Great analysis. After reading, I'm even more impressed than before with this D.
Offense .... well ... guess you can't have it all.

GB defensive gameplan was great & was helped out w/ the strong/unpredictable winds. Hopefully, this will calm down the masses who insist on running into 8+ men in the box. Greene needs to work on his blocking or receiving. Just too predictable what his role is when he's out there. LT failing to break tackles also.

Just seemed to be an off day across the board offensively & in special teams.

LeonNYJ · Nov 4, 2010

Great point about Greene. It's almost a guarantee that when he comes into the game that the Jets will be running the ball. They don't have enough confidence to use him often in the passing game.

fozzi58 · Nov 4, 2010

Fiftynine said: ↑

What is this garbage?

Well reasoned? Logical? An author who clearly reviewed the game multiple times?

Not the thing we need around here.

Fire Schotty! Sign Randy!:smile:
Click to expand...

A giant block of shit no one wants to read.

Actually it was a really good analysis. Very impressed with the detailed observations.

fozzi58 · Nov 4, 2010

LeonNYJ said: ↑

Great point about Greene. It's almost a guarantee that when he comes into the game that the Jets will be running the ball. They don't have enough confidence to use him often in the passing game.
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Absolutely agree. However, he better spend his off days in front of the jugs machine cause we are going to need his hands.

Fiftynine · Nov 4, 2010

LeonNYJ said: ↑

Great point about Greene. It's almost a guarantee that when he comes into the game that the Jets will be running the ball. They don't have enough confidence to use him often in the passing game.
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Agreed, when a D sees Greene in the game, they stack the box. They should run more play action when he's on the field.

bucknasty · Nov 4, 2010

LeonNYJ said: ↑

Great point about Greene. It's almost a guarantee that when he comes into the game that the Jets will be running the ball. They don't have enough confidence to use him often in the passing game.
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you think they could use this as a decoy though, keep the defenseguessing , maybe throw in some play action once in a while

WhiteShoeWillis · Nov 4, 2010

That's why that screen play to green was a great call, unfortunately he didn't catch the damn thing.

Namath2Kolber · Nov 4, 2010

This article supports what a lot of us realized after watching the Packers game - our receivers need to step up and play a lot better.

gustoonarmy · Nov 4, 2010

Post this review in the locker room, please.

Clown · Nov 4, 2010

Great analysis! i wonder why they dont use too much play action with greene too. Imean its not like greene is the only running back has issues catching in this league.

Zach · Nov 4, 2010

All right. I feel a lot better after reading this passage. Maybe my obnoxious shots against Schotty wasn't all that warranted this week.

But then, if the most culpable of them all were the WR crews, then the blame should go to... what, Henry Ellard? (I didn't like that guy anyway...)

BGA: Packers @Jets

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