Some'stuff' to improve on- Randy Lange

Some 'Stuff' to Improve On
Published: Mon, June 25, 1:50pm EST

By Randy Lange
Lange is editor-in-chief of newyorkjets.com. He covered the Jets for 13 years for The Record of Hackensack, N.J.


File Under: David Harris, Jonathan Vilma, Stuffs, Jets

change font email article 06/25 ? It's late June and many of us are planning to scatter for the oceans, the mountains, the city, the country. And that includes most of the Jets' players and coaches, who will pack in one last stretch of down time before Training Camp II under head coach Eric Mangini.

But we're going to keep cranking out the content for you here at newyorkjets.com. We've got fun and funky features in the pipeline on players' off-season plans and profiles on the members of our new, yet-to-be-named flag crew.

And with this blog, I'm kicking off a twice-weekly feature for the next four weeks that we can call "The Trendy AFC East." I'll take each team in the division and go over two trends it either established or extended last season, one downward drift that it wants to turn around in 2007 and one upward tendency that it wants to keep building on.

For starters, let's take the Jets' defense and its penchant for (not) making tackles behind the line of scrimmage. The Green & White was one of the bottom "D's" in the NFL in this category.

First, though, we should define terms. "Stuff" is the word that Stats Inc. and others use to mean a tackle for a loss on a running play. Nothing wrong with that definition, except that it's one of several ways to measure how often a defense spends time in the other teams' backfield.

For example, for more than a decade I've charted the Jets' "tackles for loss/no gain." The reason for the "no gain" part is that then the stat coincides with the criteria for sacks ? a sack is credited whenever a QB is taken down at or behind the line of scrimmage, so zero-yard sacks do occur. And I've included in that charting tackles at or behind the line on pass completions, not as frequent as TFLNG's on runs but equally devastating to offensive continuity.

But "stuffs" it is for this conversation, and so we can say this about the 2006 Jets: They were among the least successful in the NFL with 25 tackles for loss on running plays. In fact, they were tied with two other teams for last in the league. And according to Stats Inc., those 25 TFL's are the fewest in a season since the independent group started recording the statistic in 1994.

Here are the lowest unofficial totals in the league last season:

Rank Team TFLs Yds Lost
32 JETS 25 52
New England 25 43
San Diego 25 55
29 Dallas 26 63
28 Washington 27 53
Green Bay 27 39

You may notice that the list is top-heavy with 3-4 playoff teams and you could say that those read-and-react type fronts don't have as many opportunities to play behind the line as do those one-gapping 4-3s.

But the Jets have been a 4-3 as well as a 3-4 for the past 10 seasons, and neither alignment has led to the Green & White making a ton of TFLs ?the Jets in the last decade have averaged 36.5 stuffs per year, which easily ranks as the lowest in the league.

Yet there are reasons for the Green & White could be registering an uptick in this category soon. One is the introduction of second-round ILB David Harris to the equation ? he had 14 stuffs as a Michigan senior. Anthony Schlegel, in his second year as a Jet, was also good at the point of attack at Ohio State.

And another is the general progress in Year 2 of Mangini's and DC Bob Sutton's scheme. As Jonathan Vilma said before the playoff game at New England: "We're confident about ourselves individually and confident about our defense. We know we can stop anybody down the road."

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