New York Jets Coverage Stats: Weeks 16-17

We’re back for the final Jets coverage report of the 2018 season! I missed last week’s report for the Packers game, so in this post I’ll include numbers from both the Jets’ Week 16 loss to Aaron Rodgers’ Green Bay team and their Week 17 loss to Tom Brady’s Patriots.

Previous editions: Pre 1, Pre 2, Pre 3, Pre 4, W1-DET, W2-MIA, W3-CLE, W4-JAX, W5-DEN, W6-IND, W7-MIN, W8-CHI, W9-MIA, W10-BUF, W12-NE, W13-TEN, W14-BUF, W15-HOU

RULES

• The coverage numbers include only legitimate targets into the general area of a receiver/defender; throws in which a defender in coverage was directly involved the outcome. Throwaways, deflections at the line, and other plays of that variety are excluded.
• The stats for each individual are that of the quarterback’s passing numbers when targeting the individual’s matchup. A player could receive coverage credit even if a teammate finished the play. For example, against Denver this season, Morris Claiborne tipped a pass in his direction that ended up being intercepted by Marcus Maye. I credited Claiborne with that interception.
• Penalties and pass breakups counted are only those accumulated in coverage. Penalties/PBUs picked up on blitzes, or penalties tackling another player’s responsibility, are not included. Also, PBUs and INTs in the box score are not exclusive to one another.
• “Burns mitigated by opponent miscue,” or “miscues” (M) are included in charting to attempt to knock defenders who benefited from an egregious error by the offense (drop, horrible throw) and give perspective to the validity of their raw stats. A defender can still register an interception or incompletion to his credit on a miscued play.

We’ll go in reverse order, starting with the game most fresh in your mind. Here are the individual numbers for the Jets against New England.

Next, let’s take a look at the coverage numbers broken down by individual player-vs.-player matchups and man coverage vs. zone coverage.

Quick takeaways from New England:

• Nice game for Derrick Jones. Not perfect, as his technique seemed shaky at times and there was one dive tackle he made where he just barely got enough of the receiver to turn a potential 15+ yard gain into a 4-yard one. Regardless, he finished the game allowing only 18 yards on four targets while not allowing a first down. Tom Brady had much more success attacking the rest of the Jets defense.
• Another rough game in coverage for Neville Hewitt, who allowed two touchdowns and a total of 51 yards. He was schooled by James White on a Texas route for an early score and later made a blatant error as he completely missed his zone assignment as Julian Edelman picked up the most wide open score he’ll ever get.

I tagged Hewitt for 50+ yards allowed in each of his final two games; I had Darron Lee for 55 yards allowed in total over his final four games. I also hit Lee for only one touchdown over his twelve games. Altogether, Hewitt finishes the year with his success rate a whopping 25.2 percentage points lower than Lee’s (67.3 versus 42.1).

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Let’s turn the clocks back a week and look at what happened against the Packers, as Aaron Rodgers tossed for 442 yards. Here are the individual numbers for the Jets against Green Bay.

Next, let’s take a look at the coverage numbers broken down by individual player-vs.-player matchups and man coverage vs. zone coverage.

Quick takeaways from Green Bay:

• This was a tough game to judge. Miscommunications were aplenty, and they often occurred on big plays. I had to make some tough calls on who to assign big time plays to. For example, there was a Jake Kumerow 49-yard touchdown in which it was a tossup between Trumaine Johnson and Jamal Adams as to who was responsible. Both guys played the underneath route while Kumerow ran over the top uncovered. I ultimately went with Johnson, as Adams seemed to be trying to redirect him to play the second man out, and usually that is supposed to be the outside corner’s responsibility anyway. A lot of plays like that in this one.
• Johnson racked up short completions throughout the first three quarters of the game, but collapsed late with a myriad of chunk gains. In addition to the Kumerow touchdown, he was beat by Kumerow inside for a 13-yard gain. He allowed a 24-yard completion over the top along the sideline to Equanimeous St. Brown in zone coverage, as he got greedy locking on to Rodgers and tried to undercut the ball. He added an absolutely terrible 33-yard pass interference on Marquez Valdes-Scantling. The contact was completely unnecessary as an errant Rodgers throw would’ve brought up 4th & 10 on the Green Bay side of the field, giving Sam Darnold the ball back with a chance to win. Instead, the Jets’ highest paid player blew the game.

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Here is my final tally of Jets coverage numbers for the 2018 season!