Blessuan Austin flashes brightly in New York Jets’ loss to Buffalo

One of the New York Jets' lone bright spots in Orchard Park was clearly the play of young cornerback Blessuan Austin, who held his own against a great wide receiver group. In his first game back on the field since being benched at halftime of the Jets' Week 16 loss to Pittsburgh last December, second-year cornerback Bless Austin was moving with a noticeably different sense of urgency than his teammates on defense. The Queens native broke on throws quickly and finished tackles with ruthless authority, confidently talking smack and getting in opponent's faces after each play. Dennis Rodman-esque tenacity is fun to watch, but it hardly matters if the player does not fulfill his actual responsibilities. In Buffalo, Austin mostly walked his talk, holding up well in coverage against a talented wide receiver group that shredded the rest of the Jets defense. Austin allowed three catches for 12 yards and one first down over 52 snaps in coverage, leading the Jets secondary with only 0.23 yards allowed per coverage snap. It was not all good for Austin, who was tagged with an alarming three missed tackles, but there was a lot of positive to take out of the 24-year-old's seventh career start, which is what we will be focusing on here. (All-22 film does not come out until Tuesdays, so we will be taking a look at the broadcast view here.) Austin is capable of making some splashy plays coming downhill. Although he should probably tighten up on his tendency to go low when tackling (which is the root of his issues with whiffs), his impressive length, quick reads, effective angling, and accurate targeting allow him to make some strong finishes down low. On this 1st & 10 play in the first quarter, Buffalo runs a read option to Austin's side with a jet sweep motion. Austin reads the wide receivers' block attempts to diagnose the run in a hurry. While Austin is initially drawn to the motioning receiver, he recovers in time to make a diving stop on Allen for a three-yard loss, cutting him down with an accurately-targeted shot at the knees. Austin made an enormous play to keep the Jets in the game late in the first half. The Bills motion the receiver on Austin's side across the field to create some misdirection on a designed keeper to the boundary side (towards Austin). Austin, responsible for the flat, is placed in a crucial position. He decides to play it aggressively, going outside of the pulling left tackle to pursue Allen in the backfield. It's a risky decision, but it pays off, as Austin dips beneath the blocker and chops a leaping Allen to force a fumble that is recovered by the Jets. Foley Fatukasi set the table for Austin with outstanding penetration against the left guard that forced Allen to bounce the run outside. It doesn't amount to anything for the Jets, but Austin lands a crushing hit here on Stefon Diggs. Austin is playing man-to-man on the defense's right side (can't see the route due to broadcast angle), and Diggs enters Austin's area on a crossing route (beating Nate Hairston) to make the catch. Austin comes off his man and crushes Diggs. Although Diggs holds on to it being the stud that he is, that hit was good enough to knock the ball loose a decent percentage of the time. Nice hit even if the receiver hung on. Austin consistently out-hustles receivers in the run game, helping to limit big plays on the ground. Here, Austin breezes by a lackadaisical John Brown to thwart a potentially huge Devin Singletary run. Even though it's a loss for the Jets defense, yielding a nine-yard first down pickup, Austin's effort saved even more yardage. You can tell based on his reaction at the end of the play that Brown knew he should have put more into the block. Had Brown concealed Austin, Singletary would have easily had another chunk of yardage up the sideline. Austin's effort nets a positive value for the Jets. Late in the fourth quarter, Austin stuck his nose into the action for one more clutch play against the run. He positions himself well to defend the edge and then grabs Zack Moss around the leg to halt his momentum and prevent a potential touchdown. As mentioned earlier, Austin was credited with three missed tackles in this game, which is discouraging. Most of the tackles you saw Austin make above involved him putting his head down and going low. While it leads to some home runs, it also leads to some swings-and-misses. Here, Austin creeps down into the flat pre-snap. He does a great job of taking advantage of the five-yard contact window to throw off Gabriel Davis' flat route. Austin then drifts back to cover a deeper route (unseen), and when the ball comes out, he makes a very accurate break on Davis for what should be a one-yard stop. All good up to here. The problem - Austin flies in with his head down and dives at the knees. He whiffs badly. With Davis squeezed up against the sideline, all Austin needs to do there is square up and either wrap him up at the hips or shove him out of bounds. No need for the cut-down attempt. Austin missed a tackle on Adrian Peterson in a very similar scenario last year. Flat responsibility, dump-off to the sideline, and Austin is left in the dust as he goes low. Austin's proneness to missing tackles has mostly been an issue in the passing game. In his career, Austin has 11 tackles and one miss in the run game (8.3% miss rate) compared to 21 tackles and six misses in the passing game (22.2% miss rate). He needs to bring down the missed tackles in the passing game by cleaning up his technique, but this was still a nice season debut for Austin with quite a few moments of promise. The native New Yorker hits hard, consistently showcases a superior motor, defeats blocks and takes good angles against the run, and has the potential to become a solid outside-third zone defender.