Jets Rewind: Analyzing the Good, Bad, and Ugly of the Jets vs. Phins game

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Jets Rewind: Analyzing the Good, Bad & Ugly in 10-6 loss against Dolphins in Week 14 »

By Manish Mehta

We begin the Strength & Conditioning Edition of The Rewind with kudos to a defense that showed some heart after an embarrassing performance against the Patriots. Then, we’ll get to the rest of the ugliness.

THE GOOD

A week after Tom Brady played pitch and catch with anybody he wanted during the 45-3 Monday Night Massacre, Rex Ryan’s defense bounced back by holding the Dolphins to 131 total yards and a microscopic 20 percent third-down conversion rate (3 for 15).

How dominant was the defense?

Well, Ryan’s unit forced a 3-and-out on more than half of Miami’s drives (9 of 16). They gave up only six first downs, including one in the second half.

Solid game by safety Brodney Pool, who’s been under the microscope recently with some communication lapses in the secondary. Pool had one of those Stat-sheet Stuffers (as Clark Kellogg likes to say): A sack, forced fumble and fumble recovery.

THE BAD

The defense wasn’t perfect. The Jets had to burn a timeout after inexplicably having only nine men on the field on a Miami first down inside the 10-yard line in the first quarter.

Poor execution by safety Eric Smith on Brandon Marshall’s 6-yard touchdown catch later in that drive. The Jets were playing bracket coverage on Marshall near the end zone with Bart Scott underneath and Smith over the top. Scott jammed Marshall, but Smith appeared to be too late coming over on the play, which left enough an opening for Chad Henne to hit Marshall for the only touchdown of the game.

THE UGLY

Mark Sanchez clearly was out of sorts from start to finish, but his receivers didn’t help him out, either. Here are the culprits on the seven drops that I counted:

Jerricho Cotchery - 3

Dustin Keller - 2

LaDainian Tomlinson - 1

Santonio Holmes -1

Holmes’ error proved costly. He was wide open after beating Nolan Carroll on a crisp slant-and-go, but let the ball get too close to his body. Holmes is known for having “late hands,” but he needed to position his body a little better while the ball was in the air to get a little more arm extension. Holmes called it inexcusable. And he was right.

Ryan pointed to Sanchez’s poor footwork as the primary reason for his poor play on Sunday. Whatever the reason, his performance simply wasn’t good enough for a team with a Super Bowl or Bust mantra.

How ugly was it? Well, consider that if you take away the seven drops, Sanchez (17-for-44 for 216 yards) still would have only completed 45.9 percent of his passes. Further, if you credit him with a completion on each of those seven drops, he’s still only up to 54.5%. Plus, Miami cornerback Sean Smith dropped three catchable interceptions. Toss in four fumbles into the equation and this was easily one of Sanchez’s five worst games of his career.

Here’s the most puzzling part of Sanchez's forgettable day: The Dolphins brought a conventional 4-man pass rush 77 percent of the time. They brought 5-man or 6-man pressure only 12 times in 52 dropbacks. The Jets offensive line wasn’t sharp (six sacks), but there were plenty of snaps when Sanchez made poor throws and decisions from a relatively clean pocket.

On this day, Sanchez saved his worst for the times that mattered most. He was 5-for-18 for 72 yards and two fumbles on third down. So, it’s no surprise that the Jets had a 29 percent (6-for-21) third-down conversion rate.

The Jets did a miserable job on first and second downs, which forced them in the daunting position of facing an average of 9.2 yards to go on third down. They faced three yards or less to go on third down just three times.

As a result, the Jets dialed up 20 pass plays on 21 third downs. 20! (Sanchez was forced to scramble on one pass call). In other words, they only called one run play all game on third down. That’s amazing.

What’s happened to the ground and pound attack? It’s clear that offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer tried to establish the run game in just about every series, but it didn’t work.

Consider: The Jets ran the ball 62 percent of the time on first downs, but they gained just 46 rushing yards on 18 first-down carries (2.6 yards per carry). In total, the Jets averaged 2.8 ypc (31 for 87).

The Jets managed only 73 yards on 29 first-down plays. That’s an average of 2.5 yards per play, which forced plenty of second-and-longs and third-and-longs. The Jets committed three penalties on 29 first downs, which forced 25, 15 and 20 yards to go. But that’s not the reason they struggled.

As a result, Sanchez had 28 pass attempts in the second half. For a one-possession game in poor weather, that's way too high.

Sal Alosi’s penalty was fair. There’s no place in the game for a bush league act like that, but he admitted his mistake. Hopefully, we don’t see a repeat of anything like this in the league.

[Jetfan13]

The Jets did a miserable job on first and second downs, which forced them in the daunting position of facing an average of 9.2 yards to go on third down. They faced three yards or less to go on third down just three times

No sh*t....