QuickFix: Buster'd Coverages
When it was revealed that Buster Skrine was concussed and likely to miss Sunday's game against the Falcons, some people felt like this wouldn't matter much. After all, Skrine had just had one of his roughest ever games as a Jet. Could his replacement be that much worse?
The issue for the Jets wasn't that they had nobody to replace Skrine, but rather more of a match-up problem. The Falcons' primary slot receiver is Mohamed Sanu and one of their other starters is Taylor Gabriel - the kind of small, shifty wide receiver that pure boundary corners usually struggle with.
Since the Jets released Marcus Williams - who incidentally had an interception today for Houston - they've not had much depth behind Skrine at the slot position, another problem which was worsened this week as they had to put Xavier Coleman onto injured reserve.
With Julio Jones occupying Morris Claiborne's full attention the Jets would struggle to match up with Sanu in particular. Once again, this problem worsened when Claiborne himself was knocked out of the game with a foot injury. This left the Jets with Juston Burris, Darryl Roberts and Robert Nelson at cornerback - three players with just six career starts between them.
The Jets clearly didn't feel good about their young cornerbacks' chances of matching up man to man. They did this sparingly, giving up some first downs when doing so. Instead, they mixed up their coverages, trying to avoid exposing anyone to an unfavorable match-up where possible. Unfortunately, this didn't work too well. Let's review some examples and try to figure out what was supposed to happen and what went wrong:
This first play came on 3rd-and-5 (ignore the incorrect caption on screen). The Jets were in their "Miles/Davis" seven-DB personnel package here and the slot receiver is uncovered down the middle of the field:
The Jets have Marcus Maye as a single-high safety on this play and the corners drop right off, giving responsibility for the intermediate routes to the other safeties and linebackers.
From Maye's reaction, it looks like either Rontez Miles or Terrence Brooks should have dropped with the receiver once Nelson passed him off close to the line before dropping off to the outside to try to prevent the outside receiver from making a comeback or out-breaking route near the marker. They both get drawn out of position by the other slot receiver's crossing route. Either Miles has to stay on that route while Brooks drops or Miles has to pass him off to Brooks and then drop into that passing lane. (He does this, but too late).
Let's look at the next one. On this one, the outside cornerbacks are in man to man out of the basic nickel package. However, the Jets play zone with the back and the tight end on the left side, while the other tight end stays in to block on the right side. The tight end who runs a route is wide open for a catch down to the goal line:
The problem here is that both Nelson and Davis pass the tight end off to someone behind them and then follow the back out into the flat. Maye is too far off to prevent the completion, even though he does make a touchdown saving tackle. It proves difficult for Nelson, who has only been on the active roster for about a week to make a split-second decision in a situation like this and the Falcons were able to exploit the fact he didn't have cover behind him as he had believed.
This next example is the easiest completion Matt Ryan had all day. It's a total bust, as the back is all alone for an easy first down:
It's difficult to know who was at fault here, but it has to go down as a communication breakdown. Basically six guys rushed the passer and four of the five receivers were accounted for in man coverage. The only person not covering someone was Maye, who was in deep coverage.
Either one too many people rushed and either Jamal Adams or Davis should have dropped off to pick up the back or Maye didn't get the message that they were rushing six, requiring him to come up from deep and pick up the back. The only other way this could have worked would have been if Roberts passed off his man to Maye and then came up to pick up the back.
This next example is similar to the first one in how the cornerback on the top of the screen drops deep but Adams drops off to the outside to guard against a comebacker or out-breaking route. The difference here is that the Falcons leave two extra backs in to block.
This linebackers drop off here and Jordan Jenkins is initially in a good position. Unfortunately, he oversteps to the inside and just loses contact with his man momentarily to set up a first down completion:
On this occasion, the Falcons themselves create the unfavorable match-up in space by leaving the backs in and spreading the receivers as wide as possible. Instead of spreading themselves across the field to prevent any one player from being isolated in coverage, the Jets allow themselves to be spread out even wider than they intended to create the space for the receiver to work in.
Our penultimate example looks like a quarters-style coverage. Morris Claiborne plays with outside leverage and then when his man breaks to the inside, he becomes Jamal Adams' responsibility. However, the Falcons smartly run a clear-out route through the same area, perhaps drawing Adams a step or two out of position:
Finally, here's something you don't often see from Todd Bowles' Jets. A Tampa-Two coverage. However, Matt Ryan probably diagnoses it immediately and finds a man wide open on a pass that could somehow be described as both "20 yards downfield" and "underneath":
Davis probably drops further than he needed to and Roberts seems to have Maye behind him to pick up Jones so perhaps he could have dropped off to pick up the slot receiver earlier.
The Jets did their best to scheme around what they seemed to believe were inadequacies within their coverage personnel groupings. However, in difficult conditions, there were too many breakdowns that made life easier instead of more difficult for Matt Ryan.
With Claiborne injured and Skrine not certain to return, the Jets will probably need to do some similar gameplanning for Thursday's night's game against the Bills. However, they need to do a better job of ensuring everyone knows their role.
If that proves unrealistic, they'll have to go back to the drawing board. Perhaps a more straightforward gameplan where they trust their inexperienced players to hold their own in man coverage combined with a more blitz heavy approach to creating pressure and preventing the quarterback from having time to make reads would be a better idea.
We'll have much more analysis and dig deeper into individual performances tomorrow...