There have been times this season when I wondered if Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was having his people secretly tank, maybe to further undermine embattled head coach Adam Gase so he could take over in the interim.
Though Williams is known for being a devious sort (i.e. BountyGate), that’s just my conspiracy theory running amok. Still, Thursday night’s disgraceful 37-28 loss to previously winless Denver had all the ingredients of a rigged defensive performance. The injury-riddled Broncos traveled to MetLife Stadium on a short week, with no practice reps for their third-string quarterback Brett Rypien, yet the Jets surrendered 359 yards and failed to come up with the key stop with the game on the line in the fourth quarter.
Worse, Gang Green’s defense was both undisciplined (to the tune of eight accepted penalties) and Football Follies-level inept, highlighted by cornerback Pierre Desir’s muff through his hands that turned a would-be second quarter interception into a 48-yard touchdown catch for Denver rookie receiver Jerry Jeudy. The Jets were called for an unheard of six personal fouls on defense, none more devastating than lineman Quinnen Williams’ face mask penalty with five minutes remaining that gave Denver a new set of downs after his third-down sack.
If Williams really desires the interim job, and wants to replicate the past (replacing Cleveland coach Hue Jackson in 2018 and going 5-3 down the stretch with a team as lousy as these Jets), maybe he’d better get his own house in order first.
Gase, who deserves to be fired this weekend for a second straight 0-4 start (but won’t be, according to The Athletic, since this defeat was somehow not deemed sufficiently embarrassing by clueless owner Christopher Johnson), did himself no favors with his decision to kick a go-ahead field goal on fourth-and-a-half-yard with 6:23 remaining. Relying on your defense is so 1980s, certainly not where football is going, and certainly not with this unit.
However, Gase’s failures managing the offense has overshadowed what has been a putrid first quarter of the season for Williams’ defense.
The Jets were a respectable seventh in the league last season in yards allowed per game, and 16th in points surrendered. They pretty much carried forward the same personnel, with one notable exception in traded All-Pro safety Jamal Adams, and are running the same system under Williams – yet they are hemorrhaging points, with Thursday’s results dropping them to 30th out of 32 teams with almost 33 points per game allowed.
I warned folks about Adams’ impact when they cried that he didn’t play a “premium position,” but those who haven’t budged from that view have a point that this season’s Jets mess casts a wider net than just one guy. You name the deficiency; the Jets have it. Besides discipline, there’s a meek pass rush, missed tackles, and holes in coverage.
There was absolutely no excuse for the Jets’ secondary to allow Rypien, a 2019 undrafted free agent promoted from Denver’s practice squad due to injuries, to carve them up with 15-of-21 passing for 187 yards and two touchdowns through three quarters, before two fourth-quarter interceptions dropped his quarterback rating to Earth.
Desir was the primary culprit, even with two interceptions that were converted into nine Jets points, including a pick-six that got New York within 27-25 early in the fourth quarter. Other than those two plays, Desir was burnt to a crisp, allowing eight receptions for 134 yards and two touchdowns when he was the nearest defender to the target, per NFL Next Gen Stats.
With Nate Hairston waived before Thursday’s game, that leaves Desir and Quincy Wilson, two Colts cornerback castoffs who were overhyped by Jets assistant general manager Rex Hogan, a former Indianapolis executive. Please, no more.
The execution problems in coverage run deeper than personnel. Since the Jets lack the speed to play man-to-man for long stretches, Williams has been forced to utilize more zone coverages. It has been a nightmare, like the early Seinfeld episode bit about how car reservation desks booked reservations but then didn’t have the car on hand. Seinfeld complained that anyone can take reservations, but it’s the holding of the reservation that is key. Similarly, the Jets defenders in zone coverage run to their “landmarks” on the field, but then they don’t “match routes,” allowing receivers to settle into seams uncovered. To paraphrase Seinfeld, “Anyone can run to the landmarks in a zone, but the matching of routes is really the most important part of the zone coverage.”
Williams has tried to use the pandemic as an excuse for the tackling fiascos, since the Jets were prohibited from conducting on-field offseason activities and all preseason games were cancelled. Great, but the Jets weren’t the only franchise held back – and sorry not sorry, but that still doesn’t explain his club’s 42 missed tackles through the first three games, a mark that not only topped the NFL, but was also about twice as many as the per-team league average.
The Jets didn’t even register a sack on Thursday, getting shut out by Denver’s offensive line despite claims that Brett Rypien would “see things he’s never seen.” They put more pressure on Rypien in the second half, but that was more than offset by all the unnecessary personal fouls. After Jets lineman Steve McLendon laid into Rypien late after a meaningless fourth-down throwaway pass with eight seconds remaining, Broncos coach Vic Fangio had his team bolt to the locker room without shaking hands.
Some suspect Williams of masterminding the ploy, given his past suspensiofor orchestrating a payout system for injuring opponents when he was Saints defensive coordinator over a decade ago. A baseless conspiracy theory, given his unit has had issues executing anything he designs all season, or is the old dog up to the same old tricks?
For a FAN’s perspective of the Nets, Devils and Jets, follow Steve Lichtenstein on Twitter: @SteveLichtenst1
