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In Part II of the films, it’s time for an intriguing look at the Jets afternoon of pass and run blocking. Here goes . . .
The Jets first rushing attempt of the game turned into a loss of one by Shonn Greene. LB Kam Wimbley made the stop, but the failure of this play wasn’t the fault of the man blocking Wimbley.
The blocker at fault on this play was Brick Ferguson. DE Matt Shaughnessy beat Ferguson, and blew up the play, and Wimbley cleaned it up.
Similar scenario at the end of this possession – on an incomplete pass to Dustin Keller, Wimbley had a pressure. But the pressure was caused by Wayne Hunter getting beat by DE Lamar Houston. This messed up the pocket, and allowed Wimbley to get to Sanchez.
The second possession didn’t start off well when TE Matt Mulligan jumped offsides. He needs to cut down on his penalties. The next play, a run by Greene went nowhere, but the issue here wasn’t the line. Greene stumbled in the backfield. By the way, the Jets had both both Brick and Hunter lined up on the right side on this play.
Later in the first quarter, another drive started off on the wrong foot when Matt Slauson had a false start on the first play of the possession.
One of the best run blocks of the game was actually by Plaxico Burress. On a 12-yard run off left tackle late in the first, Burress crushed S Matt Giordano in the left flat, and this created some nice space for Greene to work. The left side of the Jets line did a nice job of sealing the edge creating a lot of space for Greene to get going.
On the last play of the first quarter, Greene had a nine-yard run off left tackle. A key block on this play was by Dustin Keller who locked up S Tyvon Branch leading to extra room in the left flat.
Early in the second quarter, Mark Sanchez threw an incompletion to Jeff Cumberland in the end zone. While the play wasn’t successful, Greene deserves kudos for a block he threw on this play. Richard Seymour got by an offensive lineman, and Greene picked him up, and this prevented a big hit on Sanchez.
With all the talk about Seymour and Tommy Kelly, this Shaughnessy doesn’t get a lot of credit, but he’s underrated.
Early in the second quarter, he got by Brandon Moore, and got to Greene in the backfield. This would have been a loss, but Greene broke a few tackles and made it into a gain of one.
On a 15-yard gain by Greene in the middle of the second, Hunter did a nice job on the second level on CB Chimdi Chewka, and Greene went for 15.
The Jets had a very good running game plan in the first half of this game – outside pitches and off-tackle runs to stay away from Seymour and Kelly in the middle.
One of the Jets top plays of the game was LT’s 74-yard catch and run in the first quarter. Brick had an outstanding block on this play. He got to the second level, and walled off a S Jerome Boyd, who was near LT as he was catching the ball, and thanks in part to this block, LT was off to the races.
Also early in the play, LT broke tackle attempts by LB Rolando McClain and CB Joe Porter. Another key block on this play was by Burress on CB Chris Johnson in the middle of the run, and then once Burress was done blocking Johnson, Santonio Holmes nailed him, sending him flying out of bounds.
One of the better run blocks of the game was by Matt Slauson who pancaked Seymour (not an easy thing to do), on a Green gain of 12 in the middle of the second quarter.
The third quarter wasn’t a good one for the Jets line.
Wimbley beat Hunter for a sack to end a mid-third quarter possession.
On the next possession, Seymour sacked Sanchez. This was one of those domino effect plays. Kelly beat center Colin Baxter (who did a decent job for his first start), and then everything fell apart, and Seymour got the sack in the chaos that ensued.
Sanchez was sacked by Kelly early in the fourth. It looked like Kelly stunted on this play, and wasn’t even picked up.
Then the Jets line settled down after this bad stretch, and did a nice job on the Jets last two drives (a TD and one that came up just short on a Sanchez scramble).
Some Sanchez apologists will blame the protection for the quarterbacks inconsistency in this game. Let’s be honest, the rough stretch for the line was in the third quarter, and early in the fourth. They were pretty good in the first half and most of the fourth quarter. While the line deserves some blame, so does Sanchez, whose inconsistency hurts everyone on offense.