Jace Amaro Introduces Himself To The NFL

Jace Amaro has been receiving around 30% of the offensive snaps so far this season. He was targeted infrequently and was never given a chance to showcase why the Jets decided to use a 2nd round selection on him in the 2014 NFL draft. During the week, offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg hinted that Jace would be a bigger part of the gameplan this week against the Broncos and he stayed true to his word. Jace Amaro was in on 57% of the offensive plays against the Broncos and he finished with 10 receptions for 68 yards and a touchdown.

After the performance last night, I wanted to check how he rated against his peers through 6 weeks of the season. Overall, PFF have him rated as the 15th TE out of 59 who have played in 25% or more of their team snaps. He has caught 24 passes on 28 targets for a QB completion percentage of 85.7%, which is good for 6th best in the league. He has a very positive run blocking score and if he can just improve his pass blocking, he'll become one hell of a TE.

Now there is still work to do for Jace. We saw yesterday that he stills makes a few errors from time to time, like running a 3rd down route short of the sticks. However we also saw how reliable his hands can be, and how if he gets momentum, he can really start producing. A good tight end is a Quarterbacks best friend, with the athletic ability that he possesses and the frame he has, he creates a lot of problems for defensive backs. If the Jets scheme correctly, they can consistently get mismatches, just like they did for his touchdown.

Jace has come under a lot of scrutiny so far this season, he dropped a lot of passes in camp and he failed to make much of an impact through the first 5 weeks of the season. However he admitted that the play-book was a lot more complicated than the one he saw at Texas Tech, and that it was taking a while to get the verbiage down. However you want to see improvement from a rookie when you start to move through the weeks. This is something we are seeing from Jace and the key now will be to see this kind of performance consistently.