The Jets First Half Was a Disaster

The first half the Jets played on Sunday was not good.

Let's take a look at special teams shall we? Once again, the special teams failed us badly. The punt return had a little bit of everything. It was a terrible punt. Calling it out kicking the coverage would put it mildly. Devin Smith blewby the return man, and the rest of the coverage unit was stonewalled.

Here's where the kick landed and was caught by Harris. A lot of hoopla was spent on the fact the Giants had a fake trick return. At the end it made no consequence really. It took the top three guys out of the play, but that wasn't exactly going to stop this return.

Smith does a terrible job of contain and flies completely by Harris. There in lies the problem with out kicking the coverage after the initial man there is no one really left. Three guys to the top fly after OBJ, but Harris was always going to the left sideline, so their impact would be marginal at best. The next closest is the near side gunner who never gets off his block. 20 yards ahead of Harris is the main wave of the kick team.

With a head of steam and some good blocks Harris flies by them as well.

While Quigley deserves a ton of criticism for the kick, I can't fault him for not making the tackle. He turned the return inside, which was as best as you can ask. Unfortunately none of the Jets could make the tackle.

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On a long drive the Jets nearly unraveled in the redzone, but a nice piece of running and a super conservative yet risky playcall worked out really well. I'll be the one guy that loved the call. It wasn't a true RB screen, but rather an inside WR screen. The Giants had become very aggressive so a play like this could work against a blitz.

What's more interesting is that it worked on a super conservative defense. The setup is 5 wide with Smith set out right, Powell in the slot with Enunwa in a tight slot. Enunwa sets the screen while Smith does the only thing he can do: run a fly route. On the other side of the field Decker runs an in route while Marshall runs an arrow and up route.

The defense is as conservative as you can get with two deep man under coverage. This should prevent deep plays, but actually  helps the screen game. The big key is getting a good screen on Powell's man and also getting the man guarding Enunwa to bite. Both of these happen.

The reason this went for a TD:  Mangold and I believe Carpenter set up blocks downfield on the safeties.

Even providing just a bit of shield helped make this go from good solid gain to a big play TD.

Yes, once again Chan goes behind the line of scrimmage on third down. But here I like the playcall against the defense which was playing aggressively up until this point. The Jets lucked out that Giants played man, Enunwa made a good screenm and the lineman got down the field and provided some blocking down the field.

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On that note, let's get to the tire fire that was the long touchdown. What happened on defense is a total miscommunication. In essence, the Jets double teamed two receivers not named Beckham and left him open in the center of the field.

The Giants lined up with an empty set with two TE tight with two right and one left. The left WR runs a 5 yard in, while both TE run flat routes to the sideline. OBJ runs a simple 3 yard slant and the far WR runs a slightly deeper post route.

I know I tend to use a bit of exaggeration on here, but this play is terrible beyond comparison. I watched it three times and had 3 different defenses. A cover one, cover 3, and combo man and zone. To be honest it looked like the defense didn't know what it was playing. Skrine went right after the slot man while the opposite middle linebacker ran over to the other side. No one and I mean no one covered the most dangerous threat.

After the catch it was Gilchrist who decided to add gasoline to the fire. He took a poor angle but to be fair, OBJ had a ton of room to maneuver. Only a great open field contain and tackle would keep this from being a super long play. It didn't happen.

OBJ beats Marcus and wins a very one sided footrace even though Cro gave it his all.

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For as well as the Jets played in the last 6 minutes, the first 30 were horrific, as two huge plays put the Jets in the hole.