Three on O: Abanikanda, Becton, Lazard

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

All I want for Christmas Izzy you

In Sunday's game, Breece Hall was ineffective in the first half and then after he rushed for one yard on the first snap of the second half, he didn't get another carry or target. This allowed Israel Abanikanda to play a career-high 22 garbage time snaps.

The Jets have nothing to lose by feeding Abanikanda reps and should probably do so more over the remaining games with Dalvin Cook presumably on his way out after the season.

He hasn't had much success so far, but did have his longest play in the NFL so far here:

Other than that play, Abanikanda only has 23 yards on 10 touches so far. He showed good power to drive for six over the right side on Sunday, though. He also had a first down run over the left side which was negated by a holding penalty.

Abanikanda obviously needs to work at his pass protection, with the team reluctant to use him in those situations especially when their pass protection in general is so bad and their struggling quarterbacks need all the protection as they can get.

However, getting him into the lineup and giving him some touches is a no-brainer. Hopefully he can establish himself as someone who can grow into a bigger role next season.

Becton Halls with boughs of holly

Mekhi Becton has probably been the Jets' most consistent lineman this year, but over the past two weeks he's been struggling. Becton has given up five sacks in the past two games after only giving up six sacks in his first 11 games.

Interestingly, though, his on-field discipline has improved. He had eight penalties in the first seven games but only has two in the last six. A handful of these have been harsh calls, too.

On Sunday, the Jets' protection was a mess and Becton ended up essentially blocking nobody a couple of times when Miami ran stunts up front. He wasn't the only man to not make a block on any of these though, as it was an obvious unit-wide situation.

Becton had one play where Bradley Chubb beat him inside where he clearly should have got help from the inside as he stepped out to pick up a stunting tackle. Another saw him force his man upfield but the quarterback had to drop back rather than step up due to internal pressure. On a third, he stopped his man from getting upfield but then the quarterback stepped up and tried to run so his man was able to disengage and again get in on the sack. So there was a lot of plays where Becton's man was in on a sack but wasn't completely to blame.

There was one play where he was beaten cleanly in a one-on-one matchup and that was on the Trevor Siemian fumble. Even on this you can see that Siemian's hesitation cost him here as he could easily have hit Allen Lazard on the crosser or Tyler Conklin as the safety valve.

While there are some excuses that can be made for Becton's numbers, he still showed poor body language at times and didn't always play to the whistle. Presumably that was a combination of fatigue and general frustration.

While looking for positives, there's not much to point to either. Becton's best reps were when pass protecting one-on-one and the group as a whole did a much better job of passing off stunts in the second half. Did they adjust at half time or were the protections just set correctly - and if it's the latter did Joe Tippmann make the adjustment or was it a product of Siemian knowing what he was doing better than Zach Wilson does?

In the running game, Becton didn't have much impact but this was more of a unit-wide issue. He rarely found his target at the second level and his best block was a kick-out on the Abanikanda run that was negated by a penalty anyway.

Whether Becton's struggles are physical, mental or just the product of him being placed into impossible situations due to the mistakes of others (setting the protection wrongly, not passing things off etc), he's obviously in a bit of a slump and clearly frustrated. As for his longer-term future with the Jets or otherwise, it remains to be seen.

He'll look to reverse this downward trend and put some good games together down the stretch.

O Come Allen Ye Faithful

Jason Brownlee's injury has given Allen Lazard a route back into the rotation and he actually saw some targets this week after only being thrown to once since week 10 prior to this.

While his output was underwhelming - three catches for 21 yards on six targets - Lazard did a nice job to get open for this first down.

Lazard's drop rate was poor earlier in the season, although he's now gone five games without one. He was only 4-for-12 for 38 yards over that span though and his catch rate has dipped below 50 percent.

There wasn't much he could do about any of the incompletions from this game though. One was thrown a beat late and the safety easily came over to bat it away. Another was broken up at the catch point. The third was a wide throw out of his reach as he had half a step breaking towards the sideline.

Lazard has been a big disappointment this year and it's probably only his contractual status and the hope that he'll have better chemistry with Aaron Rodgers that is going to keep him on the team for 2024. It would be nice if he could make some plays to end the season on a high though.

Previously: Three on D: Huff, Mosley, Holmes