Content available exclusively for subscribers
In Part II of “Looking at the Films,” Dan Leberfeld examines what was going on with the blocking in the Jets-Baltimore Ravens game . . .
This wasn’t a great game for the Jets quarterback or his blockers.
The best blocking by the Jets in this game wasn’t by their offensive line.
It was on Joe McKnight’s 107-yard kickoff return in the fourth quarter.
Four blockers deserve credit on this play – Marcus Dixon, Matthew Mulligan, Patrick Turner and John Connor.
Dixon and Mulligan were kind of the mini-wedge on this play. Connor had a key block on the speedy wide receiver LaQuan Williams toward the right sideline. Turner also had a nice block in space.
Another nice non-offensive line block was by Santonio Holmes on safety Bernard Pollard, helping pave the way on a Shonn Greene gain of five off left tackle at the end of the first quarter.
Now to to some of the bad stuff.
The Ed Reed blitz that led to a fumble and touchdown on the first series, I blame on either Sanchez or Shonn Greene.
How can you blame an offensive lineman for not picking up a safety blitz?
So often on blitzes, there aren’t enough blockers to pick up all the attacking players. So with this being the case, the quarterback is responsible for one player. Obviously he can’t block the player, but he can use a hot read to handle him. How could Sanchez not see Reed lingering around the line? Is he oblivious?
And maybe Greene should have altered his plans to go out for a pass and stayed in to block Reed.
Perhaps it was Colin Baxter’s fault for not pointing out Greene as a potential blitzer.
Reed did a nice job of pretending to be in a coverage mode, and then blitzing. If you saw his body language before the snap, he looked like he was going to cover on the play.
I’m leaning toward blaming Sanchez on this play. He said during the week the Jets had to be aware of where Reed was on every play, and then he ignored his own advice on the first series.
With all the talk about the backup center and the new right tackle, there is little focus on the play of Brandon Moore, who Rex Ryan feels is the best right guard in the league.
Moore is playing below his normal high standards. Perhaps this is due to missing most of camp thanks to off-season hip surgery.
In the second quarter, Moore missed a block on Haloti Ngata and the defensive tackle stopped Greene for a loss of two.
On the Jets first possession of the second half, DT Cory Redding stopped LaDainian Tomlinson for a loss of four.
Moore ran to the second level, and Redding went into the hole this created to stop LT.
In the third quarter, Ngata went between Vlad Ducasse and D’Brickashaw Ferguson to sack Sanchez, fumbled, and DE Jared Johnson picked it up and ran in for a touchdown.
There is a debate about whether this was Brick or Vlad’s fault. I just find it hard to believe that Bill Callahan would want Vlad to stop blocking the most dominant defensive tackle in the game in mid-stream and go to somebody else? This makes little sense.
Ngata had been lining up a great deal over Baxter, but when Rex made the astonishing decision to move Matt Slauson to center, and put Ducasse in at left guard, Haloti sometimes moved over to face Vlad. He spotted an opportunity. Ducasse isn’t ready to be an NFL guard yet, so why would Rex put him in the game? Shocking. So like I wrote yesterday, I blame Rex for this disastrous play – not the left side of the Jets line.
Aside from blocking issues at times, the line had some penalty problems.
On the drive that followed the Johnson TD, Ducasse jumped off-sides. Wayne Hunter jumped off-sides on the first possession of the second half.
On one drive late in the first half, Slauson was called for holding, and Ferguson jumped off-sides.
The Jets most effective run of the game was by John Connor, a gain of 13 yards late in the first half. Hunter pulled to his left on this play to pave the way for this nice gain.
In closing – the offensive line didn’t play great in this game, but for Ryan to blame most of the offensive woes in this game on them, and not lay a glove on Sanchez, is unfair.