2017 Jets Pass Coverage Stats: Final Numbers & More

Yesterday, I concluded my series going week-by-week charting the 2017 coverage stats for the Jets, Trumaine Johnson, and Avery Williamson. You can go back and enjoy every edition below:

Previous editions: Week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

To wrap everything up, I’ll go over some of the biggest things that stood out to me on the statsheet, as well as provide a few additional stats and numbers.

Firstly, here is the final tally shown on Week 17’s report.

A few notes:

• Trumaine Johnson finishes first in yards allowed (782) by a wide margin, but also first in lowest passer rating allowed (80.0) by wide margin (among players with legitimate target totals). He was not playing a style in the Rams’ scheme suited to limiting targets, but more of a bend-but-don’t-break style. He mostly executed that well, with a strong 1-2 TD-INT ratio over the year and just a 60% completion percentage. The downsides are his 14.0 yards per completion and 41% first down rate. Hopefully more opportunities to press will help him get even better.
• Morris Claiborne was for the most part solid outside of a bad four-game stretch late in the year. He had more good games than bad games from a statistical standpoint. I’m intrigued to see what he’ll do next to Johnson.
• Buster Skrine was the most shocking player I covered in this report. He had quite a few very, very good games; actually posting more of those than very bad games. The 11 penalties and 5 TDs are both horrifying, but Skrine balanced that with superbly low rates of 6.4 yards per attempt allowed and a 33% first down rate allowed. I think that is just what you’re going to get with Skrine. He’s an aggressive player; so he’ll make some splashy plays short of the sticks, but he’ll also rack up flags and touchdowns. Hopefully having two trusty outside corners will help out Skrine.
• Darron Lee really struggled for the most part. He made some nice rangy plays here and there, but everybody makes their share of plays. Lee allowed the highest QB rating among Jets with 20+ targets (122.4), the highest yards per completion rate among Jets linebackers with more than 1 target (11.7) and the highest first down rate among Jets with 10+ targets (49%). His recognition needs to get a lot quicker. He was just too far behind most of these plays. Hopefully another year of experience sharpens that aspect of his game.
• Though he didn’t draw many man-to-man downfield assignments, Davis did his job in coverage very well. Ignore the quarterback rating and look at his 8.8 yards per completion allowed and 32% first down rate allowed. Those numbers are excellent. Avery Williamson did not see a huge target volume in his limited playing time, but sat somewhere between Davis and Lee in production. Williamson has the same positive tools as Davis with his ability to read, break and finish downhill (what makes them both great against the run), but similar struggles to Lee in lack of recognition and reaction.

MORE NUMBERS!

Miscue Percentage

Let’s take a look at a few new numbers. First, I’ve sorted the cornerbacks by the percentage of their targets in which they were burnt but ended up as an incompletion due to an offensive miscue making up for the bad burn. It’s an arbitrary measure of a player’s luck or lack of luck in coverage. A lower miscue percentage means the player was bailed out less, while a higher miscue percentage means the player was bailed out more.

Jamal Adams checks in as the unluckiest Jet to see regular playing time, matching up with my perception that his matchups were making stellar plays against him with regularity. We can expect Adams to see that number move closer to the mean next year, which would help better his numbers independent of his own development (which is obviously still extremely important, however).

The cornerbacks were tightly knit in the stat outside of Juston Burris, who was lucky not to post even worse numbers. Marcus Maye and Demario Davis topped the regular Jets with the most luck in coverage.

Passes Defended Rate (Cornerbacks)

I was curious to see which Jets cornerbacks were racking up plays on the ball at the highest rate. I excluded positions outside of cornerback since many of their passes defended are actually tips at the line rather than plays in coverage. Here is how the corners stack up in percentage of targets defended.

Yards Per Completion (Linebackers)

I’ve found that the most efficient way to evaluate linebackers in coverage is yards per completion. A heavy dosage of the “targets” I assigned to linebackers were against running backs on screen plays. Linebackers are bound to allow a high completion percentage since they can rarely make a play on the ball, thus inflating their quarterback rating and sometimes their first down rate. Yards per completion is a good way to see how well a linebacker limited the damage. Here is how the Jets inside linebackers stacked up in 2017.

Stanford looked great in his limited time filling in for Lee. Of course, I can’t beat his drum all offseason based on the stats because he is now in Buffalo. Davis had a rough start to the year but was extremely solid against the pass for most of the season. As noted, Williamson struggled, but not as much as Lee.

So, that about does it for the 2017 Jets Coverage Stats series! Thanks to everybody who followed along, and don’t forget that every article is linked at the top if you missed anything. I’m looking forward to potentially making this series a weekly feature during the 2018 season, and perhaps the preseason as well.

If you have any questions or specific stat requests, let me know below and I’ll be glad to discuss some more coverage!