QuickFix: Wilkcome Back!

For much of this week, the discussion has centered around Muhammad Wilkerson and his lack of production. The team was supposedly considering shutting him down after he wasn't healthy enough to practice for the past few weeks and many writers believe his departure at the end of the season is inevitable. Some even think they should give some consideration to cutting him during the season so they don't risk further injury that could leads to 2018 guarantees crystallising.

Any of these things could still happen. However, in today's game, we finally saw the first extensive signs that the old Wilkerson is still in there somewhere.

Let's take a look at some of the positive things he showed.

First of all, he displayed both quickness and explosiveness on this pass rush:

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Wilkerson sets up his man with a quick jab step upfield and then beats him inside. This isn't the first time he's got past his man all year, but he hasn't tended to close on the quarterback of ball carrier with this kind of explosiveness.

Unfortunately, the pass was still completed.

This pass rush shows something else as he demonstrates good power on the bull rush.

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This time he drives his man back into the backfield, using leverage to get off the block and into the quarterback's face. Earlier this week, Brian Baldinger criticized Wilkerson's effort in a similar situation where he again drove his man off his spot but wasn't able to get to Tom Brady because he slid across in the pocket, so seeing him make the improvement and actually finish this week is a clear progression from that play.

Wilkerson also drove Steen back into the backfield as he penetrated to get in on a run stuff.

Once again, the above pass was completed, albeit on an extremely fortunate bounce. However, he had another pressure where he got immediately upfield on his man and shed the block to pressure Jay Cutler into throwing the ball away off his back foot.

The biggest headline play was, of course, his interception, which set up a touchdown:

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Really it's Jamal Adams who makes this play, but Wilkerson shows great awareness, realizing before anyone else that the ball has been tipped and where it is. He fights off his man to get to the ball and almost scores.

The fact that he's playing with his head up is a good sign that he's focused and in control on defense. In the trenches Wilkerson was constantly engaging his block with arms extended his head up, controlling gaps and not allowing himself to be driven off the line. He hadn't done that with any kind of consistency in the first six games.

It's worth asking what caused this improvement. Is Miami just a weaker opponent or a good match-up for Wilkerson? Did he catch wind of what was being written about him this week and give more of a consistent determined effort? Did the team change up their schemes to give him better chances to produce?

In terms of the opponent, it definitely helps matters that Cutler was the quarterback. Cutler has a tendency to hold the ball, giving linemen a better chance to generate pressure than most of today's breed of quick pass specialists. Even so, Wilkerson still produced after Cutler left the game.

The match-up seems like a good one for Wilkerson, who also had his best game of the season before today against Miami. He got most of his reps as a defensive tackle on the right side today so he was primarily matched up with Anthony Steen. However Steen had been actually grading out pretty well until last week when the excellent Grady Jarrett got the better of him. However, Wilkerson got even more out of this match-up than Jarrett did.

It wasn't just Steen that Wilkerson did damage against, though. One one run, he split a double team by Jermon Bushrod and Mike Pouncey to stuff the runner for no gain. On another, he took Pouncey and got penetration into the backfield, picking up the third down run stuff cleaning up after Leonard Williams bottled it up on the left side.

In terms of effort, that's a hard one to judge. He's been criticized for poor effort by some, but we'd be reluctant to do so because if he drops off the line on a pass rush, that's might be something he's required to do for pocket contain or to fill a lane and if he's slow in pursuit, that might be due to physical limitations. However, it was a good sign to see him chase down Jay Ajayi on a 3rd-and-long screen pass to get into on the tackle near the marker. It was also good to see a fired-up Wilkerson thumping his chest after some of his better plays.

So, did they do anything different to ensure Wilkerson was in more favorable match-up situations? Nothing obvious. He was used in a similar fashion as usual. Although the Jets created plenty of pressure, their defensive line still didn't generate any sacks. However, Williams and Wilkerson combined for five hits and it seems apparent that they can get each other going.

In truth, any of these reasons - or a combination thereof - could be factors in Wilkerson's sudden (and hopefully not temporary) resurgence. However, the most likely reason is still that he hasn't been healthy all year - and most of last year - but for whatever reason, felt better today. Maybe he got a pain shot at the right time that had a good effect. Maybe the injuries are gradually improving because he hasn't had to practice and benefited from the rest. Maybe he's figured out how to handle them better.

Was it his best ever game? Absolutely not. However, the signs he showed on some of the above plays suggest that the power, explosiveness and quickness (and perhaps even effort) that eluded him over most of the first six weeks could be returning to his game. Without those things, he has looked pedestrian, but today was a big step in the right direction.

It will be very interesting if he can carry this momentum into next week and perform well again.

Of course, despite these signs of life from Wilkerson, the Jets still lost. We'll have much more analysis and dig deeper into why tomorrow...