Three on D: Phillips, Johnson, Stephens

After each game, we'll be highlighting three defensive and three offensive players and looking in detail at their performance. We'll start today with the defense:

Harrison provides a fillip

The Jets brought in Harrison Phillips to shore up their run defense and you can't argue with the results as the Steelers didn't have a single 10-yard run all day.

While Phillips only had two tackles, Quinnen Williams had a monster game which was one of the key anticipated benefits from making this trade.

This was his best play, where he showed excellent hustle and pretty impressive balance and athleticism to ride the cut block.

With that said, Phillips wasn't perfect. He was sealed off on a down block and moved out of the hole on two of the rare successful Steeler carries.

So far, so good from Phillips, though. Let's see how things develop.

Jermaine's back, son

Jermaine Johnson is back. By which, we don't just mean back in the line-up. He legitimately looks like he is back to his old self. For example, check this out:

The interesting thing about the success of the above inside spin move is that Johnson set this up by having good success getting upfield and squeezing the edge on right tackle Troy Fautanu's outside shoulder. He had four pressures in all.

Like Phillips, Johnson only had two tackles but his role in the running game was obvious because he was out there on all but three of the Steelers' run snaps. He showed good hustle coming downhill to get in on this stop after Jowon Briggs' penetration.

It's been said that the first game back after a long-term injury is sometimes easier than the 2nd, 3rd and 4th games, because you have so much adrenaline to carry you. The Jets didn't limit Johnson at all though, so hopefully he can maintain this solid level of play throughout this tough first month.

On the feast of Stephens

On the negative side, some Jets fans are already calling for Brandon Stephens to be replaced after he had a few costly negative plays in the first game. On seven targets, he gave up five catches for 60 yards and two touchdowns, slipping a few times and coming up too fast on Calvin Austin's go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. He also had a pass interference penalty on a play where he was beaten over the top.

This has been the pattern with Stephens, who tends to get a lot of targets coming his way when paired with a superior starter like Sauce Gardner.

Not to bend over backwards to defend the indefensible, here's one play that deserves a second look. Stephens stays with the outside receiver as Jamien Sherwood drops to pick that up, clearly hoping Stephens could pick up the crosser.

You'd like to believe that Stephens could show more awareness there and move onto the new assignment but it's possible they were in a pure man and Sherwood didn't do a good enough job of making him aware of the potential for a switch. Or maybe Deuce Carter has to not get rubbed and stick with his man in those situations. So, this one perhaps isn't on Stephens, but speaks to the inadequate communication in the back seven.

Throughout his career, Stephens has tried to hold his own despite the ball coming his way so often and he's usually mixed in some good plays and games during that time.

Sunday was no different as he made a good run stop on the edge, got away with physical downfield coverage on a key late pass break-up and kept the Steelers from getting closer to field goal range with this terrific read and stop in the flat.

In fact, if Chris Boswell's 60-yard field goal had missed, Stephens would arguably have been one of Sunday's heroes for making two plays that made it a tougher kick.

Of course, if he could have made a tough interception a few minutes earlier, the game could already have been over by then. Over the course of the season, these positives and negatives will hopefully balance out, but if they don't, Azareye'h Thomas is waiting in the wings.

Three-on-O will follow tomorrow.