GGN Chalkboard: Jets Fly over Browns Pt. 1

First off, I had the priveledge of being at the game with my family. It was the first game we had been to since the butt-fumble game back in the Mark Sanchez Era/Error. The seats we had were on the 50, so I had a good idea of what to expect on the tape on some plays. On others, I came away with questions about what went right or wrong, which is why it's always fun to go over games I saw on TV or in person.

The first Browns TD didn't answer any questions on tape.

To set it up: Browns faced third down and really long. It's a down and distance you see some teams run a draw just to gain a few yards. The Jets at this point had knocked out McCown and had to face off against everyone's favorite, Johnny Manziel.

The Browns lined up in 4 wide with trips right and one receiver to the top. The Jets meanwhile showed blitz from the center. However, the blitz would come from the bottom via an overload blitz with two LB having to run all the way over to the other side of the field. On this play, the Jets rushed 5 and dropped back into what I believe is a straight man or perhaps cover one. The safety and Cro are in red, highlighting the fact both were the guys who may be in the wrong.

The problem lies here directly with the way Cro and the safety were expecting each other to cover the top WR. The safety played the inside route while Cro played a man coverage that expected safety help over the top. Mr. Football as I assume he'd like to be called, went straight up top to the lone WR running a deep route exposing the problem. Below the safety is keying on the inside man who's being tailed by the LB. Meanwhile Cro is dropping back.

Cro gets turned around here really badly. From the stands, it looked like Cro thought the ball was going to the outside or was trying to get to the outside to prevent a deep out or comeback route when the ball was in the air. On tape, the safety was playing man doubling up along with a linebacker on one of the slot wide receivers running over the middle. He tries to correct, but is woefully out of play.

The pass goes for an easy score. It's tough to say whether the safety covered the wrong man, was supposed to play cover one and reacted to the middle route, or whether Cro should have played the man more straight up instead of the way he did. Either way, it goes in the scorebook as the first TD and a really bad play against the Jets defense.

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Luckily for Gang Green, the next drive looked great early on. The Jets drove the ball straight down the field and looked to have momentum. But then Fitzpatrick decided to throw a dead duck pass when a good one would have put the Jets well within field goal range.

Let's set it up. Jets line up in single back with two tight ends with Marshall lining up well at the bottom of the screen and Decker in the slot. Jets run play action with just about max protection guarding the QB.

In this play Marshall runs a deep comeback route while Decker runs some type of a slant into deep cross route. This is designed to be a big play against a blitz, although a blitz never comes. As for the defense, I can't really tell what the Browns were running to be honest. My best guess is a cover one, with everyone grabbing a man and the safety over the top. Marshall is on an island with the CB, while Decker gets bumped hard enough off the route that he's pretty much out of the play. The line holds as expected with near max protection.

Marshall makes a move and shakes his man really well. I can't underscore how bad of a pass this really was. I've highlighted where the throw ended up. A pass more towards the sideline would easily be caught or perhaps gone harmlessly out of bounds. Where Fitz threw it begged for trouble. Of course it was picked and the play would have ended in disaster if not for the heroics of Marshall. 

Even the second LB almost got a finger on it it was that wobbly. Simply put, it's a terrible pass. As a side, after going through Fitz's 2014 season, I wonder if he lacks the arm strength to make deep passes like this without floating the ball some, which could lead to picks like this.

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All was not lost though! Due to Marshall's strip and recovery of the ball, the Jets ended up with a net gain on the play. A few plays later and ironically after a called back Ivory touchdown the Jets handed the ball off to Ivory.

To say Ivory has good vision may be a bit of an understatement. Ivory looks to go in between the guard and tackle on the left, but makes a cut to the right.

The blocking up front was superb and that might be a drastic understatement. Colon singlehandly beats his man, the combined double team on the left between Mangold and Breno takes out another lineman and after Breno gets the linebacker as well after peeling off the double team.

Perhaps the most interesting block is Cumberland who takes on a linebacker from the full back position. The view from behind shows Cumberland drilling the linebacker ending in a stalemate, which sets the big play up. Check out the hole Ivory has to work with.

At this point there's two men who could potentially make the play: the two safeties. Decker tries to get in front of the man directly in front of Ivory even though he's still a good half dozen yards away.

Decker tries to shield the block so Ivory can cut right but Ivory sees green to the left, even if he has to go through or around the safety. At the bottom is the corner back, who got caught because of the double team and subsequent block on the OLB. That caused him to get caught in the wash and end up on his rear.

Ivory does a spin move and gets into the end zone for the first score of 2015. 7-7 and the Jets are alive.

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Trying to avoid the lines during halftime but failing miserably, I didn't get to see the next TD drive from the stands. Instead I spent most of it stuck on line either for the bathroom or the snack stand. However, I did get to see the Decker TD on TV and knew exactly why it looked relatively easy and couldn't wait to break it down.

In contrast to the interception turned Marshall fumble recovery, the Jets send out all five out on patterns and use 5 men to block. A combination of a slant route by Cumberland and a deeper post route by Decker destroyed a basic defense.

The Browns run a very vanilla 3 man rush with cover 2 deep.It's a flat cover 2 meaning there's five men covering the underneath routes with two safeties being deep. The safety should provide help over the top to the man covering Decker if he decides to go deep. Instead he let's Decker fly by him for some unknown reason. Below you see Decker as he is about to make his cut and the safety barely giving him a look.

Decker is played correctly by the man covering the underneath zone but the safety is caught out of position. The other safety correctly shadows Cumberland over the middle. That means a deep, soft pass will hit an wide open Decker behind the safeties 8 yards in the end zone. Wouldn't you know that's exactly what happened?

The pass was on the money and the Jets took a 14-7 halftime lead on a perfectly executed pitch and catch.

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That does it for this edition, but I should have the second part of the chalkboard from the Browns game up tomorrow, so look forward to that. That edition looks at an interception thrown by Johnny Manziel, plus the Jets two touchdowns in the second half.