Jets v Jaguars: Eyes On The Offensive Line

We knew that there were going to be some growing pains for the offensive line, with Brandon Moore retiring, Matt Slauson finding his way to Chicago and the jury still being out on Austin Howard, it was never going to be the strongest unit in the NFL.

However once Brian Winters was drafted and veteran Willie Colon was signed, things started to look up. Against the Lions, the Jets offensive line was pretty dire, almost to the point I would call them awful. This is not restricted to the first unit, but the second unit and even the third.

We started against Detroit with a line consisting of, Ferguson, Colon, Mangold, Peterman, Howard. Although the first play was an incomplete pass, the writing was on the wall as the whole unit (particularly Howard) got pushed back into Sanchez's grills. On the pick, and this is not to defend it at all as it should never have been thrown, but Howard once again gets sold on the spin move and Sanchez is under pressure.

Colon looked gassed early, Howard was getting pushed back for fun and Peterman didn't look much better. It didn't stop there however, Oday Aboushi came in and had a nightmare performance to start his NFL career. Vladimir Ducasse still looks as though he is rookie with no awareness out there.

We didn't run the football very much, 16 attempts out of the backfield. However when we did there was very little room for us to run, any gaps that did appear were closed almost instantly.

Here is a list of penalties called on the offensive line:

Stephen Peterman - Holding (1st Quarter, 8:04)

Willie Colon - Holding (1st Quarter, 0:50)

Willie Colon - False Start (2nd Quarter, 12:59)

Oday Aboushi - False Start (2nd Quarter, 2:09)

Vladimir Ducasse - Holding (3rd Quarter, 13:18)

Oday Aboushi - Hands to the face (3rd Quarter, 11:43)

Oday Aboushi - Holding (4th Quarter, 9:29)

That is way too many, they also allowed three sacks as a unit, however they all came with the 2nd and 3rd units on the field. Now that was pre-season week one, there is bound to be some rust, but it's important that we start to clean up these problems before we head into the regular season opener. I fully expect us to be better in week 2, but they haven't set the bar high with 3 sacks, numerous pressures and 7 penalties.