GGN Chalkboard: Jets Ground Colts

What a week 2! The Ravens and Eagles are 0-2, Marcus Mariota looks human, and Bucs beat the Saints. Oh yeah, the 7 point underdog New York Jets upset the Colts in Indianapolis.

Throughout most of the game, the Jets defense was stout. Led by some big plays, they went into halftime giving up a goose egg in the score column. One reason was turnovers. The Jets picked a pass and recovered a fumble. Let's take a look at the Calvin Pryor interception where Douzable probably deserves another go around at the snack table.

Let's set it up. The Jets drive stalled, and they were forced to punt. The Colts drive was kept alive by a penalty on the Jets, but eager to give back, the Colts were guilty of a holding call. This brought up second and 18.

Colts line up in shotgun with 2 WR right, a TE left, and running back to the QB's left. The Jets look to bring some pressure. At first glance, you'd think it's coming up the middle, but Bowles has a nice trick up his sleeve. It's a zone blitz  with the safety coming off the edge and Douzable whose a 6'4 280+ DT/DE dropping into coverage. Let that sink in for a second, because what happens next made me want to hug the big man.

Behind the shenanigans going up front the Jets are in a cover two with man underneath. That would also be key to this play as it sets up Pryor. After the ball is snapped, Skrine has to work around the OT blocking Williams delaying his route to the QB by about a half second. Meanwhile, Douzable has dropped into "coverage." Across the middle of the field, Andre Johnson runs his route which takes him near Douzable is backing into.

Douzable shows off some great LB skills and doesn't give the slot guy a free pass. Instead he shoves Johnson ,effectively bumping him off the route. Johnson never fully recovers from that contact and stumbles about 5 yards as Luck winds up. Meanwhile, Pryor is lurking watching a deep route and staying in position for the shorter route while the corners shut down the other options.

Skrine is now full speed aiming at the QB. Luck sees a DE against a WR cutting across the field and throws him a pass a second after the Douzable bump. Johnson still stumbling, ends up tipping the ball right into the arms of Pryor who proceeds to return it to inside FG territory. Skrine a half second too late, settles for a QB hit which lead to a turnover instead of a sack.  Note the coverage everywhere else was perfect, so Luck did make a solid read, but the tip cost him.

Let's follow the chain reaction: 1) Jets call a zone blitz with Skrine rushing off the edge while Douzable will be in coverage. 2) Skrine gets a free shot at the QB, making Luck make a quick decision. 3) Douzable shoves Johnson off his route causing Johnson to stumble and fail to adjust to the pass. 4) The pass hits Andre in the fingers and 5) falls into the lap of Pryor for an interception.

That is what you call a well executed scheme.

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Moving to the offense, the Jets looked to take advantage of the turnover and great field position. They walked away with just what they wanted, a touchdown. Let's see how they got it.

2nd and goal, the Jets line up with two WR left, and a tight end also on the left. Ivor,y the running back, is to the right of Fitz in shotgun formation. The Jets run a "pick" route, with Decker running a slant route behind Cumberland whose doing a post route on the top. At the bottom Marshall runs a similar slant/post from the slot while the bottom WR runs a out/corner route.

For whatever reason, the Colts decide the best way to defend this formation is using a man scheme. What happens is that Cumberland drags his man through the mesh point, blocking the corner's path to cover Decker running the inside slant. The linebacker who should be there to stop an inside route steps up either on a blitz or because he was so totally fooled.

After the mesh point where Decker crosses underneath Cumberland's route, a giant lane opens up behind the late charging linebacker and in front of the corner. Fitz makes the easy pass over the LB'ers head and well out in front of the corner who just got around the Cumberland blockade.

Just like that, the Jets were on the scoreboard.

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Seemingly to confirm every pundit right, Fitz follows up a good play with a stinker later on. While I see why he threw the ball to Marshall, my thought is that the medium to intermediate routes were working really well and were open as you will see. His arm is mediocre at best and at worst a liability any time he wants to go deep. Let's break down the pick.

Jets are  having a decent drive and find themselves at the Colts 35 with a first and 10. Jets line up with Fitz in shotgun, with Powell to his left, and H back playing just off the left tackle and Marshall flanked out wide. At the bottom, Decker is in the slot, Owusu flanks him to the outside.

Jets are running a 3 man route with the protection rolled to the right with the backs helping block left. Decker is running an inside comeback route while Owusu and Marshall go long.

The Colts are playing man underneath with a safety playing cover one, taking anyone going long. Again, I can see why Fitz was eager to throw this ball to Marshall. One on one, with the safety having to get half the field, it's defendable throwing the ball as you see below.

Problem is Marshall is pretty blanketed and well covered the entire time. Decker ends up wide open on the underneath route if Fitzpatrick wasn't so locked on to Marshall. Instead of surveying all the options, Fitz decides to go YOLO and throw up a deep pass to Marshall. Below the contrast in amount of space each wideout has to work with.

The corner actually ends up in better position to make a catch while the safety hot on the trail. The ball gets double tipped by the corner and Marshall allowing the safety to make a really pretty catch and keeping both feet in bounds.

Here's my problems with this play:  Fitz completely was locked on. If Marshall decided to lay down, he probably would have still thrown the ball that way. Decker was open underneath for a 10 yard gain. The ball had the hang time of a space shuttle coming back down to earth and allowed the safety, who started in the middle of the field, to make the pick. While this turnover didn't kill the Jets, it's stuff like this that can cost us.

That does it for this edition. Second half will be covered in part two.