Three on O: Qvale, Seferian-Jenkins, Carpenter
After each game, we're going to highlight three defensive and three offensive players and look in detail at their performance. We'll start today with the offense:
Get Brent
He had plenty of playing time in the first three weeks, but how would Brent Qvale fare in his first start of the season?
The answer: Not too badly, although he did give up a strip sack and got beaten a few other times in pass protection, including one where he ended up on his back. As ever, Josh McCown was getting the ball out early most of the time and the Jets employed extra blockers on the right side, so Qvale didn't have to block on an island very often.
Qvale played a much more active part in the rushing attack than left tackle Kelvin Beachum did, as the Jets barely ran the ball over the left side all day (although they had multiple cutback runs that started off going to the left).
Here's a good example of him working in tandem with Brian Winters to double-team at the line. Qvale is then able to open up a lane by driving that man downhill as Winters peels off:
Qvale had a couple more good run blocks, including one where he pulled to the outside. However, he allowed a couple of runs to get blown up with penetration, including one where his man split a double-team, and also got beaten inside on a run stuff. On the whole though, he limited his mistakes well in the running game.
While Qvale still had some issues, he was better than Brandon Shell has been over the past few weeks. Qvale - who is only 11 months older than Shell - is proving to be a valuable player that can fill in at multiple positions without the line falling apart.
Everybody's gone Seferian
Austin Seferian-Jenkins has provided a boost to the Jets' offense and he performed well again on Sunday with four more catches and some good contributions as a blocker.
All four of Seferian-Jenkins' catches came before half-time, though, and three of them were on simple dump-offs underneath. However, he had this big catch on a deep crossing route just before half time:
As a run blocker, Seferian-Jenkins gave a very consistent performance with no obvious mistakes. He had good blocks on each of the touchdown runs and also made his block well on the play in the first gif above.
However, there were still a couple of mistakes. He false-started once and then got badly beaten around the edge when pass protecting on the right side. He compounded that error by committing a holding penalty which negated a big pass to Jermaine Kearse that would have given the Jets a first down near midfield in overtime. The penalty ended up forcing the Jets into a 3rd-and-18 situation from where the drive stalled.
It's been a good start to Seferian-Jenkins' season and while he hasn't had that break-out game yet, his all-round play is encouraging and somewhat unexpected.
Carp looking sharp
Although, as mentioned above, the Jets didn't do much damage running over the left side, James Carpenter still made some good contributions to the running attack. However, his performance was not without fault.
Here's perhaps his most impressive block of the day, as he takes his man and absolutely buries him to the inside to create a big running lane:
In this game, Carpenter made some good blocks on the move but he allowed a couple of runs to be bottled up at the point of attack and also missed a second level block and a cut block to lead to runs being stuffed. However, if he makes a clean block, he is often opening up some huge running lanes.
Aside from his contributions in the running game, Carpenter was solid in pass protection, allowing just one pressure when an end stunted inside. He also got out in front of a screen pass well, but did commit a false start penalty.
Carpenter remains the key figure on this offensive line. When he's on his game, the Jets running game clicks, which needs to happen for the offense to operate efficiently.
PREVIOUSLY: 3-on-D: Lee, Skrine, Ealy