When the Jets traded an enormous sum of draft capital to draft Sam Darnold — more draft capital, mind you, than the number one overall pick — the organization expected big results. Instead, it get the smallest results possible, which is just one reason why the Jets fired GM Mike Maccagnan last year.

Darnold was drafted with the 3rd overall pick in the 2018 Draft, the second quarterback selected after Baker Mayfield. And from 2018 to 2020, among the quarterbacks with at least 600 pass attempts, Darnold ranked dead last in both Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt and passer rating. [continue reading…]

In 2001, the Jets did something pretty conventional.  On January 12, 2001, they hired a new GM in Terry Bradway, and six days later, Bradway hired a new head coach in Herm Edwards.  That’s pretty much the normal way a team operates: ownership (in this case, it was brand new owner Woody Johnson) picks a GM to build the organization, and then the GM picks a head coach to build the team.

Apparently, Johnson has since found the old fashioned way to be pretty boring.

In January 2006, the Jets traded Edwards to the Chiefs with Bradway’s tenure on the rocks. On January 18, 2006, the Jets hired a new head coach in Eric Mangini.  But then, a few weeks later, on February 7, 2006 Bradway was fired and assistant GM Mike Tannenbaum was promoted.  Tannenbaum was a friend of Mangini and “part of the interviewing process” — a common Jets theme — but acknowledged that it was Bradway who made the final call to hire Mangini.

Regardless, in late December 2008, Mangini was fired, and on January 20, 2009, Tannebaum hired Rex Ryan to replace him.

That worked out because the Jets had great seasons in 2009 and 2010, but after bad seasons in 2011 and 2012, Tannenbaum was fired on the last day of the 2012 calendar year. You might think that Ryan would be shown the door with him, but if you think so, you don’t know the Jets.

With Johnson determined to hire a GM while keeping Ryan in place, the best Johnson could do was hire John Idzik — another salary cap guru — to replace Tannenbaum.  That happened in January 2013.  But Idzik couldn’t help turn around a depleted Jets roster, and he never got a chance to hire his own head coach, either: at the end of the 2014 season, Johnson fired both Idzik and Ryan.

This gave the Jets a chance to bring on a new GM and have that GM hire his own head coach. It also gave the Jets a chance to reinvent the circus wheel, and that turned out to be the more appealing option.  On January 12, 2015, Johnson hired both HC Todd Bowles and GM Mike Maccagnan.  Maccagnan didn’t hire Bowles, but he was “part of the interviewing process” as the Jets ran a dual-track hiring approach. As Rich Cimini noted that day:

In hiring Maccagnan, the Jets have changed their power structure. He and Bowles will report directly to Johnson, who envisions the GM and coach as equal partners. Previously, the coach reported to the GM. Maccagnan will have control over the 53-man roster and final say on the draft; the coach will decide the weekly lineups. The lines were blurred with Ryan and Idzik, especially with quarterback decisions.

You may be surprised to learn that such a strategy did not work out.  Under Bowles and Maccagnan, from 2015 to 2018, the Jets were a bad football team.  At the end of the 2018 season, it made a lot of sense to fire both and start over.

But making a lot of sense is viewed as boring by the Jets.  Instead, New York fired Bowles and hired the underwhelming Adam Gase, whose Dolphins ranked 29th in points differential over his three years in Miami.  If you think limiting prospective coaching hires to only those who are willing to work under a bad GM who is on the hot seat and has a 24-40 record would limit the coaching pool, you are correct.  The Jets — after mismanaging the hiring process with another coach — were left with Gase, a candidate who would not have otherwise been a head coach in the NFL in 2019.

But today, on May 15, 2019, in a stunning move for those who don’t follow the Jets, the team has fired Maccagnan, a move that is long overdue but comes at a very suspect time.  It means the new Jets GM will have to inherit Gase as his coach, in typical Jets fashion. And the early reports are not very promising, as Gase is going to be acting as interim GM and assisting in the process of finding his own boss:

Six months ago, the Jets entered the offseason with a potential franchise quarterback in Sam Darnold, the #3 pick in the Draft, and a ton of cap space.  It was the perfect opportunity for the Jets to attract a strong GM candidate, and in turn, have that GM be able to find a strong HC. Instead, the Jets let Maccagnan run the offseason, hire Gates, and spend nearly $200M on free agents, and oversee the 2019 Draft…. and then fire him.  And now, the Jets are looking to to attract a GM who will have no power to make material changes in 2019 and be tied at the hip to Gase.

That strategy makes a lot of sense, but only if you are talking about the Jets.

In late October 2017, I wrote an article about Adam Gase and the Miami Dolphins.  Here was the introduction:

Adam Gase was hired as the Dolphins head coach last year. His tenure with the team has been both successful and underwhelming, which is pretty hard to do. The Dolphins are 14-9 under Gase, tied with the Packers for the 8th-best record in the NFL. It feels hard to imagine, but Miami has a better record than Philadelphia or Denver since 2016, and has as many wins as the Falcons.

On the other hand, Miami has a -77 points differential, which is the 7th-worst in the league. That’s a very stark difference: most teams have records that are proportional to their points differential, but not Miami. Tennessee (11th in record, 20th in points differential) and Houston (14th, 23rd) are the next two biggest outliers in that direction, with winning percentage ranks that are 9 slots better than their points differential ranks; Miami is at +17.5, by being tied for 8th in record and 26th in points differential. The Saints (t-19th; 8th), Jaguars (29th; 19th), and Chargers (t-27th; 18th) are the biggest underachievers by this method.

That article was written following week 8 of the 2017 season, roughly the halfway point of Gase’s tenure with the team.  What happened since?  Miami went from 14-9 with a -77 points differential to 9-16 with a -166 points differential.  In some ways, though, the Dolphins still overachieved: the team ranked 29th in points differential from week 9, 2017 through the end of 2018, and 25th in winning percentage.

Gase was fired in Miami, but his legacy remains a bit complicated.  Miami finished with the 29th-best points differential among the 32 teams during his 3-year tenure, but the 18th-best winning percentage.  Now, you may say it doesn’t matter whether the Dolphins were the 18th best team or the 29th best team — neither is very good.  But I do think that is a large enough distinction that it merits review.

That, of course, is because the New York Jets decided to hire Gase to become the team’s next coach.  And we could look at this two ways: did he coach a terrible team that got lucky to have a few more wins than they should have (in which case Gase should be considered a bad coach), or did he oversee a talent-poor team and coached them up to win more often than they should have (in which case Case should be considered a good coach)?

From 2016 to 2018, Miami went 18-5 in games decided by 7 or fewer points, and 20-6 in games decided by 8 or fewer points.  Both records were comfortably the best in the league.  So, is that sparkling record in close games a positive for Gase — hey, he’s a great coach who wins when the talent level is close! — or a negative for Gase (he’s a terrible coach who is lucky his teams won as often as they did).

Unfortunately for Jets fans, nearly all the research on this subject suggests that a team’s record in close games is not reflective of skill, but of luck.  The Jets have been terrible in close games in recent years, while Gase has been great: you would expect some regression to the mean in either instance, and I would project the Jets to be about .500 in close games during Gase’s tenure.

The bigger cause for concern, then, would be this: Gase went an almost unfathomable 3-19 in games decided by more than 8 points during his time in Miami.

On Sunday, the Jets lost to the Titans, 26-22. The Jets averaged 2.47 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, which is terrible; Tennessee averaged 7.05 ANY/A, which is a bit above average. In 2018, the average team is gaining 6.47 ANY/A. In other words, the Jets were 4.00 ANY/A below average, and Tennessee was +0.58 ANY/A above average.

Sadly for the Jets, that’s par for the course. There have been 21 games (out of 60) since the start of the 2015 season that the Jets were below average in passing offense and below average in passing defense. Here’s how to read the following graph:

X-Axis: Jets passing ANY/A, relative to league average
Y-Axis: Jets opponent’s passing ANY/A, relative to league average

Each year from 2015 to 2018 has a different data label, shown in the legend in the graph. But here’s the shorthand: dots to the left of the graph mean the Jets passing offense was bad; dots high in the graph mean the Jets passing defense was bad (because the opponent had a positive ANY/A relative to league average). Unfortunately for the Jets, things are getting worse: there are 6 large green dots (representing 2018) where the opponent was above average in ANY/A and the Jets were below average in ANY/A.

Here’s the raw data:

What do you think?

Over the Jets last 32 games, New York is 10-22, a 0.3125 winning percentage.

Over the Giants last 32 games, New York is also 10-22.

For the Giants, that numbers is a bit backloaded: Big Blue is 4-20 in their last 24 games, and 6-2 in the 8 games before that. By the end of the year, you could envision the Giants going 6-26 over their last 32 games (a 0.1875 winning percentage). The Jets went 5-11 last year, and another 5-11 season is a reasonable guess: that would bring them to 10-22 over their last 32 games.

If that happens, it would mean, on average, New York football would have a 25% winning percentage over the last two years. Which is really, really bad…and also pretty rare. The Jets and Giants may not always be very good, but it’s unusual for both teams to be bad for a notable stretch of time. The graph below shows the trailing 32-game winning percentage for both the Jets and the Giants since 1960. The Jets, of course, are in green; the Giants, in blue. [continue reading…]

The 2017 season will be the 58th season in Jets franchise history. It is also the least anticipated season by Jets fans in that 58-year history. New York went 5-11 last year, and probably wasn’t even that good (the Jets had an SRS of -8.5, 4th worst in the NFL). In the NFL, the way to give a fan base hope is to be good or to make some exciting changes in the offseason. The Jets retained the same general manager (Mike Maccagnan) and head coach (Todd Bowles) from last year’s uninspiring squad, and while New York switched quarterbacks, the addition of 38-year-old Josh McCown somehow feels like a downgrade on Ryan Fitzpatrick.

How bad is it? The USA Today had the Jets going 0-16. Multiple other outlets have spent time discussing that possibility, too. It’s only a question of degree, at this point: everyone assumes that the Jets are going to be horrible.  McCown is a 38-year-old quarterback who has won 8 games since 2006.  The offense is almost certainly the least talented in the NFL ignoring the quarterback position.  And if you were wondering how they got here, well, since the end of 2016, the Jets also said goodbye to:

• David Harris
• Nick Mangold
• Eric Decker
• Brandon Marshall
• Sheldon Richardson
• Darrelle Revis
• Ryan Clady
• Quincy Enunwa (placed on injured reserve)

And again: this team was terrible last year with those players.  So is this really the least optimistic season in Jets history?  Let’s run through things in reverse order, and explain why Jets fans were feeling better on September 1 of every other season than on September 1, 2017.  For brevity’s sake, I’m going to skip seasons where the Jets went at least .500 in the prior year, because, those seasons obviously had more hope than this one. [continue reading…]

As it turns out, drafting Mark Sanchez brings with it a form of Draft PTSD. Since selecting the USC quarterback with the 5th overall pick in the 2009 NFL Draft, the Jets have used 8 consecutive picks on defensive players.  That includes four busts (Wilson, Coples, Milliner), two hits (Wilkerson, Richardson), and three players where it’s probably still too early to evaluate.  Richardson has been great at times, but has also been frustrating on and off the field; in any event, his tenure with the team is likely coming to an end soon.  Pryor and Lee are still works in process, so it’s been mostly a mixed bag for the Jets over the last seven years:

Will that streak end tonight? If not, the Jets will set a record by becoming the first team to use 9 consecutive draft picks on players on one side of the ball. Right now, New York shares the distinction with three other franchises who have used eight consecutive first round picks in the NFL draft on efforts to rebuild one side of the ball. [continue reading…]

The Jets have drafted a quarterback in each of the last four drafts, and six quarterbacks since the 2009 draft. And yet the Jets still — unless they already do have their guy in Penn State’s Christian Hackenberg — are trying to solve the quarterback riddle.

Let’s be clear: this sort of analysis is mostly trivia in nature.  That’s because past draft picks are simply sunk costs, although that’s generally only clear after a team has reached an evaluation on a player.  The Jets drafted Mark Sanchez in 2009, and that didn’t work out.  Four years later, the team selected Geno Smith in the second round, and that didn’t work out, either. In between, the Jets spent a 7th round pick on Greg McElroy, but spending much time lamenting the use of a 7th round pick is not productive.  Similarly, a year after drafting Smith, the Jets selected Clemson’s Tajh Boyd in the 6th round. New York then upped the ante by grabbing Bryce Petty in the fourth round in 2015, a move which seems unlikely to pay off.

And while those picks may not have been good, they were old made under an old regime. General manager Mike Maccagnan came on board in 2015, and while he didn’t draft a quarterback that year, he did trade a 7th round pick for Ryan Fitzpatrick, a moved that was heralded as a steal last December.  So far, the only quarterbacks drafted by Maccagnan were Petty in ’15 and the second round pick used on Christian Hackenberg last year.  Petty has underwhelmed in limited action, while there has been no ability to grade the Hackenberg pick so far, as he (intentionally) did not see the field last year.

So yeah, the Jets have drafted a lot of quarterbacks.  And for the most part, those picks have been bad.  But that doesn’t mean the Jets should stop drafting quarterbacks or that drafting quarterbacks is a bad idea. It just means the team hasn’t found its quarterback yet — unless, again, they already have in Hackenberg (or perhaps Petty).

Two years ago, I looked at the draft capital spent on quarterbacks from 2000 to 2014.   Today I want to do the same thing but from 2009 (when the Jets drafted Sanchez) to 2016.  Again, I’ll be assigning draft picks value based on the Draft Pick Value Calculator, which comes from the values derived here and shown here. If we assign each draft pick its proper value, and then sum the values used to select quarterbacks by each team over the last eight years, we can see which teams have devoted the most draft capital on quarterbacks.

And while the Jets have used six picks on quarterbacks over that time period, New York isn’t alone. The Broncos have, too, and Denver may not be much closer than the Jets are when it comes to finding their franchise quarterback of the future. The table below is sorted by total value, and the Jets rank “only” 4th in that regard, behind the Rams (who have spent two number one picks on passers during this time frame), the Bucs (a #1 and another first) and the Titans (a #2 and a #8). I hvae also listed each quarterback selected by each team during this time frame, from most valuable pick used to least. Take a look: [continue reading…]

The Jets threw 25 interceptions last year, which was bad because no other team threw more than 21. Also not good: the Jets defense forced just 8 interceptions last year, tied for second-fewest in the league behind the Jaguars (7).

That means New York was at -17 net interceptions last year, which is bad. But the Jets have generally been pretty bad in this category over the last decade, with -59 net interceptions from ’07 to ’16. Take a look at the yearly totals, with interceptions throwing by Jets passers in white, and interceptions forced by the Jets defense in green. [continue reading…]

The Jets have not exactly been a powerhouse franchise in NFL history, and that’s true in recent years, too. But the Jets were legitimate Super Bowl contenders in 2009 and 2010, making the AFC Championship Game both years. Take a look at the Jets yearly SRS grades from 1990 to 2016, and ’09 and ’10 stand out as the last great Jets teams:

[continue reading…]

Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg was a very polarizing prospect. Pro Football Focus called him undraftable, and he ranked as the 2nd-worst quarterback in college football in 2014.

But there’s one thing we know: at least someone in the Jets organization really liked him. That person, presumably, is general manager Mike Maccagnan, although it’s likely that head coach Todd Bowles and now-retired offensive coordinator Chan Gailey (and perhaps owner Woody Johnson) had positive thoughts about Hackenberg, too. We know this because the Jets drafted Hackenberg with the 51st pick in the 2016 Draft, so obviously New York wanted him on the team.

Hackenberg was stuck behind Ryan Fitzpatrick, Geno Smith, and Bryce Petty as a rookie.  He was the fourth string quarterback for much of the year, so even once Smith and Petty were hurt, Hackenberg never had enough reps to make him prepared to take the field over Fitzpatrick even in the season finale.

So where do the Jets (which I am using as a stand in for Maccagnan, or a combination of Maccagnan and Bowles) stand on Hackenberg now? There are a few possibilities: [continue reading…]

Tonight’s game between the Jets and Dolphins certainly falls short of any threshold necessary for primetime television.  That said, for Jets fans, is there anything to get excited about with Bryce Petty?  What does he need to show over the final three games to enter 2017 as part of the conversation for quarterback of the future?

Petty was a 4th round pick who didn’t play last season; his first start came in New York’s 10th game this season, and he will likely that he’ll finish the year with five starts.

Since 1990, here are the quarterbacks who were drafted in the 3rd round or later, didn’t start in the first half of their rookie season, but started at least 3 games in the second half of that season.  Petty wouldn’t meet this definition, but I wanted to run the numbers for context:

Nick Foles
Ryan Lindley
T.J. Yates
John Skelton
Keith Null
Charlie Frye
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Luke McCown
Mike McMahon
Kent Graham
Tom Hodson

Okay, not exactly a promising group there.  What about players more like Petty — 3rd round or later, didn’t start a game in their rookie year, then didn’t start again until the second half of the season of their second season, and started at least 3 games?

Brodie Croyle
Scott Zolak
Bobby Hoying
Aaron Brooks
Koy Detmer
A.J. Feeley
Derek Anderson
A.J. McCarron
Josh McCown

A couple of promising names there, perhaps, with Brooks (at least to me) sticking out as the most promising case. Over the second half of the ’00 season, Brooks ranked 8th in AY/A.  As for Petty? He hardly has shown much yet: he currently ranks last in Adjusted Yards per Attempt over the second half of the year.  But if he has any chance of throwing his hat into the 2017 ring, it starts tonight.

There were no shortage of characters worthy of finger-point when it comes to the Jets 23-22 loss to the Bengals yesterday.

• Ryan Fitzpatrick completed just 54% of his passes, despite a game plan that was nearly entire dink-and-dunk (he averaged 10 yards per completion).

• Darrelle Revis was torched by A.J. Green repeatedly, to the tune of (by one count) 10 receptions on 10 targets for 152 yards and a touchdown.

• Nick Folk missed an extra point and had a 22-yard field goal attempt blocked.  The latter error was just the second missed field goal from inside the 5-yard line since 2013. Obviously those missed points came back to haunt the Jets.

• Brandon Marshall had just 3 receptions for 37 yards, and failed to haul in/dropped what could have been a game-saving catch on the final drive.

[continue reading…]

The Jets defense was pretty good last year. New York allowed 29 touchdowns in 2015, tied with the Broncos for the fourth fewest in the NFL. But the Jets allowed a ton of long touchdowns: on average, those 29 touchdowns scored by opposing offenses came from 23 yards away.

That may not mean much to you in the abstract, but only three other defenses (Ravens, Vikings, Rams) saw allowed touchdowns from, on average, at least 20 yards away; by contract, the other 31 teams allowed touchdowns that gained, on average, 16.22 yards. One reason I initially thought the Jets defense fared poorly in this statistic is because of the team’s historically great run defense, and that’s partially true. The Jets allowed only four rushing touchdowns last year, and they came from 1, 1, 2, and 18 yards away.

But if you look at only passing touchdowns, the Jets defense still allowed the longest average touchdown at 26 yards (even worse than the Saints!), compared to an NFL average of 19 yards. The Jets allowed 15 touchdown passes of 20+ yards last year, tied with New York’s other team for the most in the NFL.

What was the reason for those long touchdowns? I went back and re-watched all 15 touchdowns, and tried to assign blame.  In most cases, it was pretty easy. [continue reading…]

Today at 538, a look at how no passing attack in the NFL was as reliant on two targets the way the Jets passing attack was last year.

Thought of another way, Marshall and Decker saw 305 targets last year, with all other Jets players combining for nearly an equal number: 297. Yet Marshall/Decker combined for 2,529 receiving yards and 26 touchdowns, and all other Jets combined for 1,641 receiving yards and just seven receiving touchdowns. Marshall and Decker together averaged 8.3 yards per target; all other Jets averaged only 5.5 yards per target.

You can read the full article here.

Background:

• 2012 AV
• 2013 AV
• 2014 AV
• 2015 AV

In 2012, the Jaguars went 2-14 with an offense centered around Blaine Gabbert/Chad Henne, Maurice Jones-Drew, Cecil Shorts, and Justin Blackmon. Since then, the team has been rebuilt, and gotten better and younger. Among offensive players, only Marcedes Lewis was on the team during each of the last four years. I’ll have more on the Jaguars tomorrow, but given the way the Jets have moved from young and bad to old and good, I think that’s the more interesting team to analyze today.

Here’s how to read the table below. In 2012, the Jets offense had an age-adjusted AV of 26.9; that dropped to 26.4 in 2013, then rose to 27.5 in 2014 and up to a league-high 29.2 last season. That’s an average of 27.5, but more interesting (to me) is the variance of 1.1 years. [continue reading…]

The Jets lost Chris Ivory to Jacksonville, but may have improved the offense by going in the other direction and adding Matt Forte. Ivory is one of the most one-dimensional running backs in recent memory: he has the 4th most rushing yards of any runner since 1990 who has 10x as many rushing yards as receiving yards. Forte, meanwhile, is one of just 12 players in history in the 4,000/8,000 club, and there’s a good chance he joins Tiki Barber, Marshall Faulk, and Marcus Allen as the only members of the 10,000/5,000 club before he retires.

The move makes a lot of sense for a Jets team that had the most two-dimensional passing attack in the NFL last year. Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker were outstanding and historically great at scoring touchdowns, but they combined for 61% of all Jets receiving yards last year. That was the most in the NFL in 2015, and the 8th highest rate since 2002 among teams with at least 4,000 receiving yards. [continue reading…]

Jets defensive tackle Damon Harrison is a free agent, which leaves New York in a tricky position. According to Pro Football Focus, Harrison was the 7th-ranked interior defensive lineman, and the number one rated nose tackle. Not coincidentally, Harrison was rated as the single top run defender among all defensive lineman. As a result, he’s likely to command a pretty decent contract on the open market, and is also pretty valuable to the Jets.

On the other hand, Harrison was on the field for only 53.9% of all Jets defensive snaps in 2015. And given that the vast majority of Harrison’s value comes in the rushing game, and not the passing game, there’s a limit to the sort of contract he will receive. But what I wanted to highlight today is the interesting way in which the Jets have managed to get 8 years of strong run defense and great nose tackle play with a lot of moving parts. From 2008 to 2015, the Jets rank 3rd in yards per carry allowed.

In 2007, the Jets run defense was pretty mediocre; in ’08, the Jets traded a third and a fifth round pick ^[1]Which turned into Charles Godfrey and Gary Barnidge. for Kris Jenkins. That turned out to be a great trade initially, as Jenkins was an All-Pro caliber player ^[2]He was a Sporting News first-team All-Pro in ’08, and an AP 2nd-team choice that year. during his 23 games with New York, but injuries ended his career. [continue reading…]

Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker have quickly become one of the best wide receiver duos in the NFL. In their first game together this season, against the Browns, both scored a touchdown. The next week, the duo repeated that act against the Colts. A month later, both caught touchdowns against Washington. Then, Marshall and Decker each scored in back-to-back games against the Jaguars and Bills, and have since caught touchdowns against the Dolphins and Titans.

That’s seven games where both players have scored touchdowns in the same game.  They are just the second pair of receivers to pull off this feat. And with two games remaining, it’s still possible for them to tie the NFL record for any pair of teammates. Today, let’s look at all duos to score a touchdown in at least seven games.

Nine Games

In 1995, Emmitt Smith rushed for 25 touchdowns, while Michael Irvin caught 10 touchdowns. Of course, Smith set a record by scoring a touchdown in 15 regular season games, the only player to ever do that. Irvin’s 10 touchdowns came in 10 games, and while he did catch a touchdown in the lone game in which Smith was left out of the end zone, that still leaves 9 games where both players scored a touchdown. Incredibly, Smith then scored in all three playoff games, while Irvin caught touchdowns in the Cowboys wins over Philadelphia and Green Bay, giving the duo 11 games that season where both scored a touchdown. [continue reading…]

The Jets are 4-3, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the team’s success is heavily tied to New York’s ability to control games on the ground. The Jets running backs have rushed for over 150 yards in three games this year, wins over Washington (190), Miami (173), and Cleveland (155). The Jets have also had three games with 60 or fewer rushing yards, losses against New England (60), Philadelphia (34), and Oakland (28). The seventh game, a win over the Colts, saw the Jets running backs operate at a reasonably effective pace of 26 carries for 95 yards.

In other words, when the Jets run well, they win, and when they don’t, they lose. That sounds simplistic, and it is: it’s a bit of an over exaggeration, although one grounded in some truth. In general, teams run more when they win — or, more precisely, when they have favorable Game Scripts — and run less often when they have negative Game Scripts. And the Jets games have had pretty strong Game Scripts in the four wins, scoring a +6.1 against Washington, +6.5 against Cleveland, +7.3 against the Colts, and +11.9 against Miami. Those are the sorts of games where it’s easy to produce good numbers, and Jets running backs ^[1]This is meant to exclude Ryan Fitzpatrick and other non-running backs. have averaged 153.25 rushing yards in these four wins.

The losses to Philadelphia (-10.6) and Oakland (I haven’t calculated it yet, but it will certainly be in the double digits) were ugly; the Patriots game (-0.6) was the only game that unfolded with a neutral Game Script. Still, in three losses, the Jets running backs have rushed 54 times for just 122 yards. So the causation arrow isn’t pointing only one way here: the Jets are winning when they run more effectively, and losing when they aren’t, on top of whatever bonus the raw totals get out of Game Scripts. [continue reading…]

This week at the Washington Post, a look at how the Jets built an offense the “wrong” way.

Fitzpatrick is the team’s leading passer, Ivory the leading rusher, and Decker and Marshall the two leading receivers.

It’s very rare for a team’s top passer, top running back, and top two weapons in the passing game to all come from other teams. In fact, the 2015 Jets will become just the second team in the last 10 years to meet those criteria, and just the 12th since 1970. The question now is how well this core can sustain this high level of play. As you can see from the table below, which illustrates the first 11 teams that featured out-of-house core fours, success isn’t that common for teams of this type.

You can read the full article here.

This week at the New York Times, a record-breaking stat to highlight the 180-degree turn in Houston.

In 2014, the Houston Texans rushed on 52% of all plays, the most run-heavy ratio in the N.F.L. The team rushed a league-high 551 times last season, as the Texans quickly self-identified as a power-running team in head coach Bill O’Brien’s first season in the league.

…

Instead, the Texans — through four games — have become one of the most pass-happy teams in N.F.L. history. Including sacks, Houston had 52 pass attempts against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 1, 59 against the Carolina Panthers in Week 2 and 58 Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons. In the process, the 2015 Texans became the first N.F.L. team with more than 50 pass attempts (including sacks) in three of its first four games. The Texans have recorded 209 pass attempts (including sacks) through four games, also the most in league history.

You can read the full article here.  And check back later in the day for some equally astonishing stats to chronicle the turnaround by the Jets defense.

It’s safe to say that no team has exceeded expectations through two weeks quite like the Jets. In week 1, New York was a 3.5-point home favorite against the Browns, but won by 21 points (a 17.5-point cover). In week 2, the Jets won 20-7 in Indianapolis, despite being 7-point underdogs (a 20-point cover). The Jets are the only team to cover by 17+ points in each of the first two weeks; in fact, Arizona (+10 against New Orleans, +23 against Chicago) is the only other team to even cover by at least five points in both games so far.

The last team to pull off this feat? The 2007 Patriots. Yes, another day, another Tom Brady/Ryan Fitzpatrick comparison. From 1978 to 2014, there were 19 teams that covered by at least 17 points in each of their first two games. How did those teams do the prior year, and during the rest of that season?

I’ve included the relevant data for each team in the table below. Here’s how to read the line of the ’06 Chargers. San Diego covered by 24 points in week 1, and 21 points in week 2. The Chargers won 9 games in 2005, but the hot start in ’06 was a sign of things to come, as San Diego won 14 games. That was an improvement of 5 wins, although the Chargers season ended in the Division round of the playoffs. [continue reading…]

For the fourth straight year, the Jets have opened at home. Each time, the Jets have been blessed with the good fortune of getting to face one of the weaker teams in the league. And each time, the Jets have emerged victorious. Given that I spent half of my Sunday at the game, my week 1 analysis is going to be limited to the wonder that was Jets/Browns.

The optimistic view is that over 60 minutes, the Jets were pretty clearly the better team. New York averaged 4.3 rushing yards per play with 9 first downs, while holding the Browns to 3.7 rushing yards and just 5 rushing first downs. And, frankly, that’s pretty misleading, because Cleveland’s top two rushers were the team’s quarterbacks, who gained 58 yards on 8 carries, carries which came with a large cost: three fumbles. Cleveland running backs had 20 carries for just 46 yards. [continue reading…]

The Jets coaching staff underwent a significant overhaul this offseason, headlined by the hiring of head coach Todd Bowles. For any defensive-minded head coach, the most important hire is his offensive coordinator. Here, Bowles tapped veteran coach Chan Gailey as the man responsible for reviving the Jets offense and, perhaps, the career of Geno Smith.

Gailey has been lauded as a quarterback whisperer based on… well, let’s just take a look and see exactly what that is based on. Because when it comes to new Jets offensive coordinators, it’s best to actually study the numbers and not just listen to hype. [continue reading…]

Teams should not draft for need in the first round, particularly in the top half of the first round.  So when perhaps the best player in the 2015 draft — Southern Cal’s Leonard Williams — the Jets were faced with an interesting decision.  Williams profiled as a five-technique defensive end in a 3-4 or a 3-technique defensive tackle in a 4-3, although he’s lauded for his versatility in playing along the line.  For New York, the team’s best position in terms of talent and age is 3-4 defensive end, where Muhammad Wilkerson and Sheldon Richardson ply their trade.

Last year, Pro Football Focus charted 47 3-4 defensive ends that played at least 25% of their team’s snaps.  The top three were J.J Watt, Richardson, and Wilkerson.  For a team that went 4-12, adding a third dominant (if Williams pans out) 3-4 defensive end seems like a luxury.  But is it?  What are the Jets thinking?

Can’t the Jets Just Switch To A 4-3 Defense?

Not really. Sure, Todd Bowles is famous for his versatile defensive fronts, as Rex Ryan was before him. In a 4-3, the Jets could get everyone on the field, but they’d lack a true pass-rushing 4-3 defensive end. More importantly, the Jets don’t have the personnel to play linebacker in a 4-3.

The Jets two inside linebackers, David Harris and Demario Davis, led the team in snaps last year.  Switching to a 4-3 obviously means either benching one of them or switching one to outside linebacker.  Harris, limited in his speed and agility even by 3-4 ILB standards, would appear to be a terrible fit for a 4-3, and benching him is unlikely given that he has more guaranteed money per year on his contract than any other inside linebacker.  Davis could, perhaps, switch to outside linebacker, but who would be the other option? Calvin Pace or Quinton Coples would be far too slow to cover enough ground at that position.  Frankly, in a 4-3, the Jets would have one of the worst linebacker groups in the NFL.

The Jets would be fine in nickel (4-2-5), but again, where would the pass rush come from?  The farther you put two of Wilkerson, Williams, or Richardson from the center/quarterback, the less you get to take advantage of their true talents.  None of them are true 4-3 pass rushing ends; all could play it, but you move away from their strengths. Williams, Wilkerson, and Richardson are all about 6-4 and 300 pounds.  Last year, there were 19 players who recorded double digit sacks in the NFL.  Twelve of those players weighed 260 pounds or fewer, while another three were between 260 and 280 pounds.  The remaining four: two huge outside linebackers (Paul Kruger and Mario Williams), a defensive tackle (Marcell Dareus), and Watt.  If the Jets switch to a 4-3, the team would probably be worse off when it comes to rushing the passer, and it’s hard to imagine the team being any better against the run.

Okay, what about a 3-4 with those three on the line?

That could work… if the Jets didn’t happen to have one of the best nose tackles in the NFL.  Among 3-4 teams, Damon Harrison rated as the top nose tackle against the run by Pro-Football-Focus last year, which is where he ranked in 2013, too.

Harrison recorded a “stop” on 12.5% of his snaps last year when the opposing team ran the ball.  That was the best of any defensive lineman, regardless of position or alignment, in the NFL in 2014. In 2013, Richardson ranked 2nd to Watt in this metric.  Taking Harrison off the field on running downs makes no sense at all, especially when he’s about 50 pounds heavier than each of Wilkerson, Williams, and Richardson.

Okay, So Now What? Do They Trade Wilkerson?

Richardson is not going to get traded, while Wilkerson is playing out his fifth year option this year.  It makes no sense for New York to trade him right now, though, given that he’s only due to count for seven million against the cap.  And since the Jets could still franchise him, there’s no rush to trade him, either, at least until Williams shows that he’s as good as everyone thinks.  Oh, and by the way, teams aren’t in the habit of just letting All-Pro caliber defensive ends just leave in the primes of their careers.

Okay, so Harrison has to be on the field on run plays, and the Jets probably can’t play a 4-3. So what do they do with Williams?

This was the conundrum faced by the Jets once Williams slid to the sixth pick.  Do you bypass an elite talent because he’s not a need pick? Of course not!  Do you remember Tony Jones and Orlando Brown? Both were above-average tackles, the position of strength for a bad Cleveland Browns team in 1995.  The team was hoping to take Simeon Rice with the 4th overall pick in the ’96 draft, but the Cardinals took Rice with the 3rd pick.  With the 4th pick, the franchise — now in Baltimore — selected Jonathan Ogden.

As a rookie, Ogden … played left guard for the Ravens.  After the season, Baltimore traded Jones to Denver for the 58th pick in the ’97 draft.  The Jets could be in a similar situation, and it wouldn’t shock me to see the team try to trade Wilkerson for a 2016 1st round pick (if not more). That’s what you call a good problem.

But What About 2015?

Again, teams shouldn’t make their draft decisions based on what will happen in the immediate future.  If the Jets took Kevin White or Vic Beasley — the 7th and 8th picks and players at clearer positions of need — both would just be rotational players as rookies. ^[1]White would  not start over Eric Decker or Brandon Marshall, and Jeremy Kerley would still get his snaps.  The Jets desperately need an edge rusher like Beasley, but the Jets would still have … Continue reading  And that’s what the team will do with Williams this year.

Richardson and Wilkerson generally play about 80% of the team’s defensive snaps.  Perhaps that number drops to 70-75% this year: and while you don’t want to take either of them off the field, you may be able to extract even better play on a per-play basis if you give them a breather every once in a awhile. That would leave Williams around to play about 55% of snaps as a rookie, which is a pretty reasonable number. And, of course, the team could wind up having all three on the field every once in awhile, so Williams could still feature in about 2/3 of all plays.

Last year, rookie Aaron Donald played in 67% of the defensive snaps for the St. Louis Rams, despite being arguably the best defensive tackle in the NFL.  And who knows what the team will do this year, with Donald, Michael Brockers, and Nick Fairley all on the defensive tackle depth chart.  But that’s the point: teams need to rotate their defensive linemen, particularly the interior linemen.

So the Jets have three great five technique defensive ends.  Would the team be better off with an elite edge rushing 3-4 OLB than Williams? Probably, but presumably the team’s scouting department didn’t see a player that was on the same talent level as Williams.  And not reaching is the right move in that case.

When the Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2013, the team rotated its top seven defensive linemen.  In Seattle’s 4-3 defense, all seven played between 480 and 600 snaps, and that seemed to work out just fine for the team.  Rotating three defensive stars (and occasionally having all three on the field) may not be the sexiest solution, but it’s the most reasonable. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

After two seasons on the job, Jets general manager John Idzik was fired on Black Monday. Idzik has been loudly criticized for his personnel decisions — more on this in a bit — but even the anti-Idzik crowd would recognize that firing a general manager after just two years is unusual. Firing a general manager who drafted the defensive rookie of the year in one of those two seasons, and who never was permitted to hire his own head coach, only adds to the perception that Idzik’s tenure in New York was unique.

In retrospect, the decision that may wind up ruining Idzik’s career was the one to agree to take the vacant Jets job. Recall that Jaguars GM Dave Caldwell chose Jacksonville over New York, in a move that foreshadowed some of the problems Idzik would encounter. Chief among them: rebuilding in New York — and in particular, with the Jets — is just not like rebuilding in other places.  The Jets were 6-10 and coming off back-to-back seasons without the playoffs when Idzik was hired.  New York was in a clear rebuilding situation: the Jets cap situation was in terrible shape, and the talent had been depleted.  This was going to take some time.

Idzik came from Seattle, where John Schneider took the Seahawks from 5-11 to 7-9 and 7-9 in his first two seasons.  Now recognized as one of the best GMs in football, Schneider may well have been fired after two years had he compiled that resume in New York and had the same strained relationship with the media that Idzik had.  At a high level, Idzik planned to do in New York what Schneider did in Seattle, or Ted Thompson has done in Green Bay: build through the draft, spend money wisely, and patiently construct a roster.  With the Jets — and in particular, due to the media that covers the team — that plan leaves very little margin for error. [continue reading…]

This article should have been written two years ago. At the latest, it should have been written last year. Technically, we’re still a few hours away from the title of this article being accurate and/or breaking news, but there’s no drama left in New York. Ryan is going to be fired as the Jets head coach.

The Jets went “all in” from 2009 to 2011 in the hopes of winning a Super Bowl. New York got very, very close, reaching consecutive AFC Championship Games in 2009 and 2010. After the 2008 season, the Jets had a talented roster but were in need of a new head coach and a new quarterback. Then general manager Mike Tannenbaum tabbed Rex Ryan as that man. Ryan retained offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, and then New York traded up to acquire Mark Sanchez.

At that point, the fates of Tannenbaum, Ryan, Schottenheimer, and Sanchez were aligned. Other than the owner, the general manager, head coach, offensive coordinator ^[1]Particularly when the head coach has a defensive background., and the quarterback may be the four most important men in any football organization. Together, the quartet began a new era of Jets football. And it was very successful… for two seasons.

The 2011 season was very disappointing, with a cherry on top being a disaster of a finale in Miami. The Jets then decided to move on from Schottenheimer, which made sense: things roll downhill in all walks of life, and the NFL is no different. Sure, Sanchez had turned into a bust, and maybe Ryan had lost control of the team, and perhaps Tannenbaum’s drafting had taken a turn for the worse, but maybe, just maybe, the team’s troubles were all the fault of the offensive coordinator! As a first step, keeping the nucleus intact but with a new coordinator made sense: it was the path of least change.

Unfortunately, Schottenheimer’s replacement turned out to be Tony Sparano, so you can imagine how that ended. After the 2012 season, the Jets fired Tannenbaum, and Sparano, and the majority of the defensive coaches moved on, too. ((DC Mike Pettine went to Buffalo,while Ass. HC/LB coach Bob Sutton, Ass. DB coach Jim O’Neil, OLB coach Mike Smith, and Ass. DL coach Anthony Weaver all left, too.) Sanchez was only retained because of his enormous cap figure, but he had also played his last regular season game for the Jets. At that point, firing Rex made a lot of sense. [continue reading…]

Since 1970, only three teams have finished first in both offensive and defensive ANY/A:

• The 1996 Packers were the last team to do it. Brett Favre and Antonio Freeman helped the Green Bay offense average 6.5 ANY/A, just ahead of Miami for the league lead. On the other side of the ball, Reggie White and LeRoy Butler guided a dominant Green Bay defense that allowed just 3.1 ANY/A, far ahead of the rest of the NFL (Pittsburgh, at 3.8, was the only other defense that allowed fewer than 4 ANY/A).

• The 1987 49ers averaged 7.5 ANY/A, and no other offense topped seven ANY/A that year. The full season numbers are a bit funky for the ’87 season due to the strike, and San Francisco (thanks to Bill Walsh) handled the strike much better than most; of course, with Joe Montana, Roger Craig, and Jerry Rice, the 49ers were pretty good when the real players came back, too. On defense, the team (led by All-Pros Ronnie Lott and Michael Carter) allowed just 3.2 ANY/A, comfortably ahead of second-place New Orleans (3.6).

[continue reading…]