Michael Nania continues shining the spotlight on the overlooked stars of the New York Jets’ elite 2019 special teams unit.
Yesterday, I took a look back at each of the Jets’ successful kick returns in 2019 and handed out credit to the blockers who played a part in making those big plays happen. Today we flip the script. We’ll be looking at the Jets who were the most actively involved in limiting opposing returns to minuscule yardage.
Brant Boyer‘s special teams group was fantastic in both punt and kickoff coverage this past season. The Jets’ punting unit ranked fourth with a DVOA of +10.1, which made it the seventh-most valuable special teams unit of all 160 in the league (each team has five – field goal/extra point kicking, punt, punt return, kickoff, and kickoff return). In kickoff coverage, the Jets topped the league with a DVOA of +6.5.
Who were the studs most responsible for those tremendous rankings? Let’s dive in.
Punt coverage
Here is the leaderboard for total tackles made in punt coverage: