Getty New England Patriots defensive tackle Daniel Ekuale pushes by New York Jets guard Greg Van Roten on October 24, 2021.
Week 7 was a catastrophe for the New York Jets from top to bottom, and everyone knew it.
When you get blown out 54-13 by your bitter rival, it’s hard to deny it. You just have to own up to the embarrassment and tell yourself that things will improve. That becomes more difficult when your starting quarterback and future of the franchise goes down with a knee injury though.
Even so, this is a team sport and it takes 50-plus people to win games when you consider the coaching staff and everyone that’s involved. Zach Wilson is one man and the rest of those 50-plus should be itching for another opportunity to change the narrative because right now, the Jets are back to being a punchline.
How do you do this? It takes hard work, dedication and a willingness to learn from your mistakes. It also takes passion, mentality and self-confidence. Focusing on the former, film study can be crucial in the game of football. The legends of the sport were all students of it too, and ex-Jet Damien Woody decided to educate this offense on October 26.
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Woody to Jets: ‘It’s Not That Hard’
Before Wilson’s injury, there was a 2nd and 10 in the first quarter where the rookie QB was forced outside of the pocket in under two seconds. When I timed it myself, it was approximately 1.9 seconds before the Jets signal-caller had Christian Barmore bearing down on him.
The worst part about this was that Bill Belichick chose to rush three Patriots on this play while dropping eight in coverage. To sum that up, the Jets had a five on three advantage and the offensive line lost the battle in under two seconds flat!
Video of the clip went viral on Twitter and Woody decided to provide a film breakdown for fans.
It’s not that hard guys
Woody explains that the Jets are in “empty formation” with no one in the backfield besides Wilson. The Pats are showing two down-linemen that are both lined up at the “inside shade of the tackle” with two pass-rushers way outside in coverage and Kyle Van Noy standing right over the center.
The ex-Jets lineman notes that you can tell neither pass-rusher is going to blitz the quarterback. He stated: “Look at the posture on the pass-rusher right here, feet are basically parallel [to the wide receiver], you know he’s not rushing… yes, [Matt] Judon, his feet are staggered but look how displaced he is [from] the line of scrimmage.” Woody added that offensive tackles Morgan Moses and George Fant should know that they are squeezing inside to help the guards.
He continued with his pre-snap reads: “There is no reason for Van Noy to be sitting here in the middle of the defense, there’s no back in the backfield so you should automatically be saying ‘alert, alert, this guy is going to rush, this guy is going to run some type of pick game, some type of stunt’ right there in the middle… when you look at the Jets right here I don’t see anyone communicating, when I run the play I don’t see anyone communicating. I don’t see any hands moving or anything like that.”
New England ends up running a pick with Van Noy as predicted, allowing Barmore to come straight up the gut around Alijah Vera-Tucker as Connor McGovern goes chasing after the middle linebacker. The whole play is beyond sloppy and Woody is 100% right, there’s not a single breath of communication from a Jets player.
Not Wilson, not McGovern, not Van Roten (the supposed spokesman of the O-line), and not the two veteran tackles. Outside of ‘AVT’ and the QB, this is not a young group! These players should know better and they should be helping each other. Why they aren’t doing so is a major concern, and it might explain why this unit is failing.
Woody concludes his lesson by voicing that a three-on-five quarterback pressure “should never happen.”
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Poorly Coached or Poorly Executed
There has been a ton of talk about how bad a job offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur has done but to be fair, John Benton certainly deserves a portion of the blame whenever the O-line is part of the discussion.
Benton is the OL coach and run-game coordinator for the Jets. Both of these areas have been a problem in 2021.
Whether LaFleur or Benton is to blame for not preparing these guys, the players are also to blame for not executing. Every blocking unit in the sport calls out reads and alerts, why don’t the Jets?
McGovern is not a rookie center. ‘GVR’ is a seven-year NFL veteran that also spent some time in other leagues. Vera-Tucker is a first-round draft pick. Someone on the interior has to figure this out! Let’s not excuse Fant and Moses, who we touched on earlier.
Yes, a quarterback like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers would have made these reads and Wilson also has to improve in this area as time goes on, but that doesn’t excuse this veteran O-line or this coaching staff.
Another play from Sunday 🤦🏾♂️
Here’s another Van Roten blunder that Woody referred to as “inexcusable.” When you make mistakes like this in the NFL, you get demolished, and that’s exactly what happened to the Jets in New England.
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