Jets 34 Redskins 17: The Rare Winning Streak

The Jets are on their first winning streak since October 2018. They dominated the Washington Redskins today in Landover, Maryland. The final score was 34-17. This was the third straight week the Jets faced a fellow bottom tier opponent. This is the second win in that time. Washington had no ability to do much of anything in this game. Let’s discuss what happened.

The Good

Sam Darnold: With the postseason likely out of reach, most of the attention the rest of the way will be centered on the development of the young quarterback. This was a second straight encouraging performance.

There are two caveats. First, Washington’s secondary showed zero ability to communicate and left Jets receivers running wide open all day. Second, Darnold did have an ugly interception in the second quarter.

With that said, this was a 4 touchdown game. Particularly encouraging to me was Darnold flashing ability to extend plays and make things happen outside the structure of the playcall. These are the things that made him look like a special prospect at USC. These are the things are saw at the promising end of his rookie season.

Ryan Griffin: Griffin was perhaps the greatest beneficiary of Washington’s “cover nobody” defensive strategy. He was wide open all day. But he still had to run the routes and catch the ball. His rewards were a 109 yard game and a touchdown.

Jamison Crowder: I’m sure he was hoping for a big game in his return to Washington. While it might not have been a monster statistical game, he registered 5 catches for 76 yards and a touchdown.

Jamal Adams: This game was really won by the Jets defense. For the second straight week, no Jets defender had a bigger day than Adams. He followed up a 2 sack effort against the Giants with a 3 sack performance against Washington. When most safeties and off ball linebackers blitz, they run straight as fast as they can. Adams has success as a pass rusher because he’s the rare safety who reads blocking patterns and exploits them.

James Burgess: He was all over the field with 9 tackles, 2 for a loss, and half a sack.

Nathan Shepherd: This was a second straight game with a sack for Shepherd.

Henry Anderson: In a disappointing year for Anderson, this was his most notable performance. He was disruptive around the line of scrimmage and recorded 5 tackles and a sack.

Bless Austin/Arthur Maulet: It isn’t easy to evaluate them since Washington’s passing game had no ability to threaten the Jets, but these guys held up as well as anybody could have asked.

Daniel Brown: He didn’t really dominate, but he did leak out unnoticed to catch the first Jets touchdown of the day.

The Bad

Chuma Edoga: Edoga left the game with an injury. Before that point, he was having a really tough time against Ryan Kerrigan, allowing a pair of sacks.

Vyncint Smith: If Washington was capable of doing anything on offense, his second quarter fumbled kickoff could have been a turning point of the game.

Sam Ficken: Ficken wasn’t asking to do much with the Jets scoring touchdowns, but he did miss his first extra point of the year and a 49 yard field goal attempt.

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The Jets are now on a winning streak, but the competition gets a bit more difficult next week against Oakland. Can they make it three in a row?