Jets Offense: A System Wide Failure

There’s no one root cause of the Jets’ offensive problems. There are a number of interconnected issues. An important turnover in the first quarter helps to display this.

On this play, the main action seems to be happening to the right of the formation. Garrett Wilson (yellow) is in the slot and running a route to the sideline while Xavier Gipson is running vertically.

To reverse engineer the progression on a given play, you have to put together a couple of pieces of data. As far as I can tell, it seems like Garrett is the first read. He starts his break outside at just about the same time Zach Wilson’s back foot first hits at the end of his drop.

And it looks like he’s open. He has plenty of cushion, and has cleared the sticks for a first down. Gipson’s vertical route is holding the outside corner deep and preventing him from firing down to help on Garrett. Zach Wilson seems to be thinking about throwing in Garrett’s direction, but then doesn’t.

From the angle above, it isn’t clear that he’s necessarily looking in Garrett’s direction, but the view from the end zone shows that he is. He also seems to have a clear view.

Again from what I can piece together, it seems like Gipson (red) would be the second option. If the outside corner drove down to help on Garrett, Gipson would be open further down the field.

Zach seems to rush through his read, however. He immediately comes off Garrett and Gipson and looks to Tyler Conklin in the middle of the field. And I say he rushes both because of how quickly he moves on to Conklin and because it takes time for Conklin to make his break and look back for the ball. Normally these are designed to happen simultaneously with the quarterback progressing to the receiver. It just seems like Zach stared down an open first read and didn’t really focus on his second.

Zach wasn’t the only problem on the play. Billy Turner gets totally overpowered by Joey Bosa.

Then Zach leaves the ball exposed and doesn’t feel the pressure. This sets up a fumble.

So ultimately you have quarterback and offensive line issues. Should Bosa have ended up one on one with Turner as often as he did in this game? I think the play calling from the offensive coaching staff could come into question there.

These interrelated problems were one of the stories of the game for the Jets on offense. And while there weren’t really many receiver issues on this particular play, they sure came up at other points during the game.

The result was not pretty.