The Jets went into their 39-38 win over the Cincinnati intent of taking the Bengals’ star receivers, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, out of the game.
They did a decent job with this, with Chase catching 12 passes for just 91 yards, with a lot of underneath stuff, and Higgins finishing with one catch for 44 yards and a TD, when a safety failed to provide the cornerback help.
“I thought (Steve) Wilks did an outstanding job of understanding strategically what we were trying to do and, after the first touchdown that was given to (Tee) Higgins, we kind of got right back into what we were trying to do of making sure we take those two guys out,” Aaron Glenn said. “So, after that first touchdown that Higgins got, he didn’t catch another pass after that which was good by our secondary guys, and also after the half, I think (Ja’Marr) Chase only had like 30 yards receiving.”
But the run defense wasn’t very good.
“Listen, I understand exactly what the runners did, they made some plays, and I will say that we have to continue to improve in our tackling because that had a lot to do with the runs that they scored on and some of the plays those other guys did,” Glenn said. “But at the end of the day, our focus was to make sure the two receivers aren’t the ones that beat us like what happened in the Pittsburgh game, so I thought that was really good by Wilks making sure our guys understood that.”
However, the Jets still gave up 38 points, the most they have given up in a game this season.
So while the strategy made sense, to take away Chase and Higgins, if the Jets’ offense didn’t have their best of the year, exploding for 502 yards of offense, what kind of result would we have seen in this game?
But the bottom line is the Jets won the game, and that is all that really matters in a results-based business.
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