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New Jersey – A couple of issues to get into today in our Premium Whispers section regarding line play and secondary play . . .
The Steelers will be playing their third-string right tackle. Starter Marcus Gilbert is out, as is his backup Ryan Harris.
So Chris Hubbard will start.
Hubbard is a third-year player out of Alabama-Birmingham. He’s one of those jack of all trades, average at all of them, kind of guys.
He can fill in at all five line positions.
He spent his rookie season on the practice squad, and the last two years on the active roster.
He’s way undersized at right tackle at 6-3, 295. He’s listed at 6-4, but measured 6-3 at his Pro Day in 2013, so I doubt he’s grown. A lot of time roster heights are wrong.
Mo Wilkerson has been good, not great this season. He has 16 tackles and 1.5 sacks in four games.
As I have mentioned before, one of the issues is, in my opinion, he’s playing out of position.
He is a quintessential 3-4 end. He’s playing 4-3 end a lot now because the Jets want to get four defensive linemen on the field as much as possible because defensive line is their strongest position.
While this sounds great on paper, Wilkerson is lining up over offensive tackles a lot – 6-6, 300-pound type guys who are generally pretty athletic for their size (that is how they made it to the NFL), so Wilkerson doesn’t have as big a physical advantage over these kind of guys has he does of most guards and center. Wilkerson made a lot of hay destroying interior linemen in his first four years.
But in Hubbard, who is better suited to play inside, he will be facing the kind of guy he dominated as a 3-4 end and should get a lot done. And when the Steelers provide double-team help for Hubbard, this will free up other Jets defenders to make play.
It will be shocking if Wilkerson doesn’t have a big game . . .
Obviously if the Jets are going to win this game, their secondary needs to play a lot better than it has in the first four games.
Before I continue, it must be pointed out, that while the Jets secondary struggled against Seattle, Russell Wilson played an unbelievable game. He was fantastic.
But still, the Jets’ secondary needs to step up. They are holding this team back.
Darrelle Revis won’t play. I don’t think that is a huge deal. I hate writing that because it sounds so disrespectful, but that is the current reality.
Maybe changing things up a little bit from a personnel-standpoint will be good for the Jets’ deep patrol.
With Revis out, fourth-round pick Juston Burris will play a lot more. While he has some hip stiffness which can hurt him transitioning a little, man is he aggressive. He won’t back down from anybody and goes up for the ball in traffic like he won’t be denied. Also playing more will be Darryl Roberts, who has 4.37 speed. The Jets could use another speedster out there with Antonio Brown on the other team. I’m not saying Roberts will cover Brown, but he’s a nice option to have to double team Brown because Roberts can run with him . ..
October 7, 2016
Premium will return by 11:30 pm on Sunday night from Pittsburgh
