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As I touched on a little on Sunday …
. . .one of the odd things about the Jets’ dominating defensive performance in their 34-3 win over the Raiders, was it happened without much of a pass rush.
They had just one sack in this game, a shared sack between safety Jamal Adams and OLB Brandon Copeland, who was unblocked due to a miscommunication by the Raiders’ line.
It’s pretty amazing to dominate like the Jets did defensively with very little pass rush.
The Jets’ zone coverage schemes had Raiders QB Derek Carr baffled. He’s never been that great at reading defenses and Gregg Williams’ coverage schemes had him totally befuddled most of the game.
The Jets’ pass coverage was outstanding. The two young corners starting right now, Bless Austin and Art Maulet, are both very disciplined and extremely bright, and generally where they supposed to be. Mental errors plagued the Jets at these positions in the past with guys short-circuiting . . .
Jets 2019 first-round pick Quinnen Williams finished with 1/2 tackle against the Oakland Raiders.
Last week, Adam Gase defended Quinnen Williams’ underwhelming statistical numbers this season.
“I look at it as that defense as a whole is playing well, especially against the run,” Gase said. “I know those guys are working hard to help each other free up. There might be times where [Williams’] doing something where he’s sacrificing himself to help somebody else pop free. We just look at it as a group so much. If those guys are all doing their job, somebody’s going to get free. It just hasn’t been him.”
But there is clearly more to his than “Quinnen Williams is doing the dirty work that is freeing up other players to make plays.”
As we have mentioned before, Quinnen Williams, who is just 21, needs to get stronger, and could use an entire NFL off-season conditioning program. He obviously didn’t get last year since he arrived after the draft. So at times he’s getting engulfed by massive, powerful offensive linemen he’s having a hard time shedding.
But let’s put the run defense issues aside for a second. While he might not have enough “mass in the ass” as scouts like to say, one of the reasons he was picked third overall was his pass rushing skills. He has very quick feet and top-shelf athleticism. He had eight sacks last year at Alabama. To use another scouting expression, “He has the feet of a dancing bear.”
So why isn’t he ALWAYS on the field as an interior rusher on third-and-long or other obvious passing situations? Isn’t this a no-brainer?
On a third-and-seven with 12:17 left in the third quarter, it was Nathan Shepherd in the game at defensive tackle, not Quinnen Williams. On this play, Derek Carr ran for 11 yards up the middle.
Shortly after this, on a second-and-13, Shepherd was in again instead of Quinnen Williams. There was no pass rush at all, and Carr hit WR Hunter Renfrow on the left side for a gain of 11.
Both obvious passing situations, so why would you have Shepherd in there who isn’t a pass rusher? At Division II Fort Hays State, he had three sacks as a junior and four sacks as a senior, against very low-level offensive linemen. Shepherd has a tremendous motor, and gives you everything he’s got, but is heavy-legged and lacks ideal quick twitch to be used as a pass rusher in obvious pass rushing situations. Why would the Jets use him this way? That makes little sense.
And why wasn’t Quinnen Williams out there?
Clearly something is going on here that we aren’t aware of with Quinnen Williams.
It’s not just that he’s doing the “dirty work.”
Something is amiss here.
November 25, 2019
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