It’s a move you’ve heard second-guessed, analyzed, and even blasted by fans, the media, and WFAN’s hosts on Monday: Why did New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh leave rookie corner Javelin Guidry on Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs after Brandin Echols left the game due to injury, instead of matching up with other defenders?
“That’s just not what we do, or how our defense works,” Saleh said about his defense on Sunday.
Further, when asked why maybe Bryce Hall, the Jets’ best corner right now, didn’t switch to match up on Diggs, Saleh doubled down with this:
“We’re not a team that matches up like that. Diggs lines up in certain spots, and to start chasing when that’s not your style… there’s a lot that comes into play when you try to travel and figure out where to go from an alignment standpoint,” Saleh said. “It sounds simple but we’re not a man-coverage team; it’s not something we do, and we were in those situations trying to get safeties over top of him, but when we did, they went to the other side.”
Indeed, the Bills torched the entirety of the Jets’ secondary, as Diggs had eight catches for 162 yards, but the other backs, receivers, and tight ends had 13 more grabs for 204 more yards – 21 completions for 366 yards, a 17.4 yards per-completion average.
“Even when we were going single-high, certain defenses were designed to make sure they weren’t able to get it to Diggs,” Saleh said. “You’re scooting up to try to take care of the run game, and they’re throwing go balls and you have to win one-on-one there. You’re going to get caught in certain one-on-one situations, and they got the better of it today.”
It was a chance for other Jets to step up, and, well, they didn’t.
“Situational football, good players make good plays. We have to go through these learning curves,” said linebacker and Jets defensive captain C.J. Mosley. “It’s going to hurt, but I feel that as long as we stay together and guys put their heads down and grind the rest of the season with the mentality we’re going to get better each day, we’ll be okay.”
And, as Saleh noted, a quick flurry of poor play in about a 10-minute span between the final two of the second quarter and first nine of the third turned the game from a nail-biter to a laugher in a hurry.
“The first play in the two-minute… a double move, eyes in the backfield, just bail and keep everything in front. Those are things a young group has to understand – what teams are trying to achieve in a two-minute situation,” Saleh said of the first play of the Bills’ second touchdown drive, a 57-yard pass from Josh Allen to Diggs. “It’s why a lot of teams defer. You score before the half, then score coming out of the locker room, a 10-3 game becomes 24-3 in a heartbeat and you wonder what happened. We have to be better, and a lot of it is understanding situations.”
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Echols, who was covering Diggs on that big play near the end of the first half, leaving due to injury was a big factor, but even before Saleh announced Monday that the corner was expected to miss 3-to-5 weeks with a thigh injury, he noted that when it comes to his secondary, “we need healthy bodies, but we have to find a way as coaches to help these guys out a little better.”
Hopefully, this is all growing pains as the Jets get to where they want to be defensively… which, apparently, is modeled after the Bills, the current No. 1 defense in the NFL.
“We run a very similar defensive structure to what we do,” Saleh said. “They’re four years in now, and they’re very talented and precise with what they have to do. There’s a reason why they’re No. 1.”
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
