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Here is Part I of Dan’s breakdown of the defense from the San Diego game. The Jets defensive coaches made a personnel decision in the first half that almost lost them the game. We take a look at this . . .
On the Chargers first run play of the game, Calvin Pace knifed into the backfield, blowing up a run by RB Ryan Matthews, and Mo Wilkerson and Kenrick Ellis cleaned it up. However, the play gained three yards, when it should have been a loss. Wilkerson missed a tackle attempt in the backfield. The Chargers first series ended with a three-and-out.
On the first play of the Chargers second series, Sione Pouha snuffed out a sweep to the left side by Mathews, and stopped the runner for a loss of one. But after this nice play, the Jets run defense wasn’t very good the rest of the half.
And this one is on the coaches.
For some strange reason, after the injury early in the game to Ellis, instead of replacing him in the starting lineup with Marcus Dixon (pictured above) or Ropati Pitiotua, they used Martin Tevaseu as a defensive end, or sometimes they moved MTV to nose tackle, and used Pouha out of position at end.
This was a big mistake, and it’s hard to figure out their thinking.
MTV is 6-1, 325. He should never play end in a 3-4. He’s almost not big enough for 3-4 nose tackle to be quite honest.
On the second play of this possession, MTV got engulfed at the end spot, and Matthews ran at him for a gain of nine off right tackle.
Later in the drive, Randy McMichael, pushed MTV to the inside, and Tolbert gained eight yards off right tackle.
This drive ended in a Phillip Rivers touchdown pass to Antonio Gates.
On the first play of the next drive, RB Mike Tolbert ran for 29 yards to the left side, another runner gashing the Jets to the outside. There is plenty of blame to go around on this play, including Calvin Pace jumping the wrong gap, but a big problem here was the defensive line didn’t protect the linebackers. Bart Scott and David Harris both got locked up. MTV was handled by Antonio Gates. This drive ended with Tolbert waltzing into the end zone on touchdown run.
So there were two big chunk runs where Tevaseu was handled by a tight end.
I’m not blaming MTV for this. Not at all. It’s on the coaches. We you play a guy out of position, and he struggles, that is on the coaches, not on the player. I would cut them some slack here if they didn’t have Ropati and Dixon in reserve, ready to roll.
The Jets really, really missed Mike Devito in the first half.
And the Ellis injury didn’t help, though I don’t know why he was starting, that was a leap of faith. He had one game under his belt.
While the defensive coaches messed up in the first half using MTV as an end, to their credit, they shelved this strategy in the second half and used Dixon and Pitiotua in a rotation with Wilkerson, and the Jets run defense improved significantly.
