Michael Nania lists the New York Jets’ best and worst players against the Los Angeles Chargers, and stacks up the roster according to each player’s impact on the team’s performance to date.
Studs and duds + season-long roster rankings:
Week 2 vs. San Francisco 49ers
Week 9 vs. New England Patriots
Each week this season, I will be laying out my picks for the Jets’ best and worst-performing players from their previous game – but with a twist. Each player listed as a “stud” will receive a positive score ranging from 1 (solid) to 5 (dominant) based on their impact level, while each player listed as a “dud” will receive a negative score ranging from -1 (below average) to -5 (horrendous). The sum of all players’ scores will be equal to the Jets’ scoring margin from the game.
As the season progresses, we will get an increasingly good look at each player’s contribution to the team’s success (or lack thereof) up to that point.
Here are my studs and duds from the Jets’ 34-28 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. The Jets lost by 6 points, so the scores below add up to -6.
At the end of the piece is a ranking of the season-long scores for each player, showcasing the team’s most valuable and most detrimental players on the year.
Duds
Jabari Zuniga: -2
Another quiet game for the rookie, who posted no pressures over 13 pass-rush snaps and missed a tackle on one of his four snaps against the run. It’s too early to start criticizing Zuniga, who has only played 45 defensive snaps over three appearances, but he has not done anything of note to this point.
Ashtyn Davis: -3
Davis fell back down to Earth after a strong game against New England. In Los Angeles, Davis allowed 5-of-6 passing in his direction for 61 yards, three first downs, and a touchdown to Hunter Henry.
On the positive side, Davis made 13 tackles without being credited for a single missed tackle. Davis has 27 tackles and only one missed tackle this season.
Neville Hewitt: -3
Hewitt was credited with allowing 9-of-9 passing for 96 yards and three first downs in coverage, most notably yielding a 54-yard bomb to Tyron Johnson. He also missed a pair of tackles.
Lamar Jackson: -3
Jackson yielded four catches on five targets for 36 yards, two first downs, and one touchdown. The touchdown was actually covered rather well, but Justin Herbert threaded a tight needle to Keenan Allen.
Harvey Langi: -3
Langi did some good things against the run and made his share of nice tackles in the passing game, but overall, he did a lot more harm than good.
In coverage, Langi was tagged with 7-of-7 passing for 66 yards and two first downs, adding an illegal contact penalty that led to a first down. Langi also contributed to allowing three first downs on screen plays that did not go on his coverage line. On two of them, he was removed from the ball carrier’s path by a blocker in space, and on the other, he missed a tackle near the line of scrimmage, and Kalen Ballage ended up picking up a first down. Finally, Langi appeared to be partially at fault on the Henry touchdown that was credited to Davis. That’s seven conversions allowed through the air.
Langi continued to flash some intriguing athletic tools, and he recorded a good number of highlight-worthy plays, but his overall game still needs plenty of fleshing out.
Arthur Maulet: -4
Maulet allowed 4-of-5 passing in his direction for 58 yards, two first downs, and a 38-yard touchdown to Mike Williams. Maulet also missed two tackles and had a 37-yard pass interference penalty on Keenan Allen.
Chuma Edoga: -4
With George Fant missing 37 snaps and Mekhi Becton missing six, the Jets were forced to throw Edoga and Conor McDermott into the fire, and both players were abysmal.
Over 30 total snaps and just 22 snaps in protection, Edoga allowed three pressures (13.6% rate) and took a holding penalty to prevent a sack that he would have allowed to Joey Bosa. He added a false start as well. Both Bosa and Melvin Ingram had their turns at obliterating the second-year tackle. The Jets used Chris Herndon to help out Edoga on a few reps, as when he was left one-on-one, he was losing at an extreme rate.
Conor McDermott: -4
Playing six snaps at left tackle in relief of Becton and seven at right tackle in relief of Fant, McDermott was even worse than Edoga. He was credited with allowing three pressures over just nine protection snaps, a whopping 33.3% rate. The league average among tackles this season is only 5.2%!
Things were particularly bad for McDermott at right tackle. Bosa beat him to get an angle to Flacco on all five of McDermott’s protection snaps on the right side without tight end help. Only two of those were counted as pressures (McDermott allowed one to Ingram on the left side), but that’s simply because Flacco was rushing the ball out to avoid Bosa’ imminent arrival.
To McDermott’s credit, he did pave the way for Frank Gore‘s one-yard touchdown with a strong down block on Bosa, which came at left tackle.
Studs
We have nine players in this section, tied with the Week 9 game against New England for the most of the season.
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