If you want to throw on the San Francisco 49ers defense, it all starts with silencing the man who leads the NFL with 115 quarterback hits since 2021: Nick Bosa.
No other player in the NFL has even 100 quarterback hits over this span. Maxx Crosby is a distant second with 97. After Crosby, the next-best player has 89 (a tie between Myles Garrett and Micah Parsons).
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To be clear, a “quarterback hit” is tallied whenever a defender puts the quarterback on the ground. It includes all sacks plus any plays where the quarterback was knocked down after getting the ball out.
Nobody is better at laying hard shots on the quarterback than Bosa. With that in mind, he is arguably the last player the New York Jets would have wanted to see in Aaron Rodgers’s return from an Achilles injury at 40 years old.
The Jets must keep Bosa in check on Monday night – not just to maximize their odds of winning this particular game, but to keep their entire season alive. Bosa’s career-high for quarterback hits is five, which he has achieved an NFL-high four times since 2022 (double any other player). If the Jets let Bosa knock down Aaron Rodgers five times on Monday… well, I won’t speculate, but let’s just say it wouldn’t be ideal.
Keeping Bosa completely silent is extremely difficult. Excluding a Week 18 game where he only played 8 snaps, Bosa had at least one hit in 15 of his 16 games last year.
Luckily, two of the Jets’ starting offensive linemen participated in the only game where Bosa went hitless: left guard John Simpson and right tackle Morgan Moses.
How Morgan Moses and the Ravens shut down Nick bosa
In a Week 16 home loss against Simpson and Moses’s Baltimore Ravens, Bosa finished with no hits for just the sixth time in his career, including only the second time at home. Bosa also finished with only 3 pressures, tied for his second-fewest of the 2023 season (excluding a Week 18 game he barely played in), and a 7.3% pressure rate, his lowest of the season.
Being an interior lineman, Simpson won’t see much of Bosa, but Moses was Bosa’s primary matchup in that game, and we should see it happen again this week. In 2023, Bosa played 71% of his defensive snaps on the left side of the defensive line, which puts him across from the right tackle.
In the Ravens’ Week 16 road win over San Francisco, Bosa leaned even more heavily toward the left side, playing 54 of his 64 snaps (84%) on the left. Moses rose to the challenge. Across 29 pass-rush snaps on the left side of the defensive line, Bosa had no sacks, no hits, and two hurries (6.9% pressure rate).
So, if Bosa is mainly going to battle against Moses, then where does left tackle Tyron Smith – the man in the title and thumbnail of this article – come into all of this? Bear with me; I promise we’ll get to him. As George Lucas once said about Jar Jar Binks, Tyron is the key to all of this.
I dove into the film of that Ravens-49ers game to see how Moses achieved such great success against Bosa. What I discovered was a strategy that the Jets are equipped to copy on Monday.
Crazy as it may sound, Moses was hardly responsible for Baltimore’s silencing of Bosa. That’s not to say he was bad, but it wasn’t Moses’s individual effort that held Bosa in check. It was Baltimore’s all-out effort to stop him.
I watched every one of Bosa’s pass-rush reps against Baltimore and tallied the resources that were allocated toward blocking him. Here is what I ended up with:
- Zero help: 8 plays
- 1 RB to Bosa’s side (but did not engage with Bosa): 6 plays
- 1 RB to Bosa’s side (chipped Bosa): 5 plays
- 1 TE over Bosa: 4 plays
- WR chip + 1 RB to Bosa’s side: 2 plays
- 1 TE, 1 RB, 1 H-Back to Bosa’s side: 2 plays
- 1 TE over Bosa + 1 RB to Bosa’s side: 2 plays
- 1 RB to Bosa’s side + pulled TE to Bosa: 2 plays
- 2 TE to Bosa’s side: 1 play
- 2 TE + 1 RB to Bosa’s side: 1 play
- 1 TE over Bosa + 1 tight WR: 1 play
- 1 TE, 1 Extra OT, 1 RB to Bosa’s side: 1 play
- 1 TE + 1 RB to Bosa’s side, plus pulled LG to Bosa: 1 play
Out of the 36 plays I watched, there were only 8 (22%) in which Bosa was left one-on-one with absolutely no extra help in the area if needed (excluding other O-linemen). At least some degree of non-OL help was present on his side on 28 of the 36 plays (78%), and on 22 of the 36 plays (61%), at least one non-OL either engaged with Bosa or at least lined up directly across from him to impede his rush lane.
On more than one-third of the plays (36%), there were multiple non-OL dedicated to Bosa in some form. The play below encapsulates how greatly the Ravens emphasized stopping Bosa.
On this play, Baltimore has two tight ends and a running back on Bosa’s side. The running back goes to the other side of the formation on a play fake, but both tight ends get involved in blocking Bosa.
The inner tight end (Patrick Ricard) is fully assigned to pass protection, while the outer tight end makes sure to get a good chip on Bosa before releasing into his route. Moses stays home and is dedicated to Bosa as well, although Ricard does such a good job that Moses doesn’t even have to touch him. The right guard momentarily gets involved as well. At one point, you can pause the video and see four Ravens players focused on Bosa.
Allocating so many players to one guy is generally a risky proposition because of the unfavorable matchups that are yielded elsewhere. However, on this particular play, Baltimore still gave Lamar Jackson an immense amount of time and space, leading to a wide-open downfield throw that should have been completed.
How was Baltimore able to create such a fantastic pocket despite all of those bodies dedicated to one man? The two one-on-one victories on the left side.
When you allocate extra resources toward blocking a particular player, the cost is that you leave other linemen on islands with no help. On this play, left tackle Ronnie Stanley and left guard John Simpson were forced to handle their matchups one-on-one for a long period of time with little to no assistance. Outside of Stanley getting a slight chip from the running back, these two guys were all alone. There were no fellow linemen in the area to provide a double team or bail them out if they got beat. Plus, their opponents had ample room to utilize whatever moves they wanted.
Nonetheless, Simpson and Stanley rose to the occasion with dominant reps, allowing Baltimore to not only survive but thrive in a situation where they momentarily had four blockers on one defender. We’ve broken down Simpson’s one-on-one pass-blocking skills before – it’s something that will make a huge positive impact for the Jets this season.
But the No. 1 key is Stanley. He’s on an island at left tackle – unanimously considered the most valuable position on the line – and by the time Jackson throws the ball, Stanley’s man is, by my guess, somewhere from 7-8 yards away from Jackson. In pass-rush terms, that distance is equivalent to the circumference of the Earth.
It’s taken us a long time to get to the man whose name graced the title of this article, but this is where he comes in.
Why Tyron Smith is the key to all of this
Having a left tackle of Tyron Smith’s caliber is what will allow the Jets to mimic the Ravens’ aggressive approach toward stopping Bosa (and other similarly great edge rushers throughout the season). Baltimore was able to utilize this strategy successfully because Ronnie Stanley held up incredibly well on his own while the Ravens sent all of the help to Moses’s side.
A former top-10 pick and a 2019 first-team All-Pro, Stanley is extremely talented, although his play is a bit more inconsistent at this stage of his career following multiple injuries. On that particular night, though, his stellar performance was integral to Baltimore’s plan. Stanley finished the game allowing zero pressures on 38 pass-blocking snaps, making him the only left tackle to allow zero pressures against San Francisco in the 2023 season. He did it while being asked to block one-on-one on 80% of his pass-blocking snaps, per NFL Next Gen Stats.
Widely regarded as the best pass-blocking left tackle of his generation, Smith can be fully trusted to handle this same role on a weekly basis. On Monday night, New York will count on Smith to take care of business on his own while the Jets send extra help to Moses’s side against Bosa. It is an advantage he provided for many years in Dallas and should continue to provide at 33 years old.
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Smith went one-on-one on 84.5% of his pass-blocking snaps in 2023, the third-highest rate among left tackles (min. 250 pass-blocking snaps). This is the advantage of having a left tackle of Smith’s caliber. You rarely have to worry about helping him out, allowing you to comfortably dedicate more resources to the rest of the line.
That can be seen on this play from last year’s Cowboys-49ers game.
Backed up in their own end zone on first-and-10, the Cowboys have the confidence to drop back and take a deep shot solely because they have Tyron Smith. Of the seven Cowboys who participate in the protection scheme on this play, Smith is the only one who receives no help.
Smith dominates his one-on-one against Clelin Ferrell to keep Dak Prescott’s blindside safe. With Smith trusted to win on his own, the Cowboys are able to motion the tight end across the formation to provide a hard chip on Bosa. The right guard also helps out, making it three players who engage with Bosa. All of this attention on Bosa comes at the cost of having only one player protecting the QB’s blindside in his own end zone, which is incredibly risky, but with a star like Smith, you can pull it off.
On Monday, Smith will probably have a handful of reps against Bosa, but they will likely be sparse. In recent matchups against Dallas, it seemed as if the 49ers were trying to keep Bosa away from Smith.
Over the past three seasons, Bosa has played 63% of his defensive snaps on the left side of the line (RT’s side). However, across three matchups against the Cowboys over this span, Bosa played 77% of his snaps on the left side. Bosa only logged 17 pass-rush snaps on the right side (LT’s side) across the three games, giving him an average of 5.7 pass-rush snaps per game against Smith.
In last year’s Week 5 matchup between Dallas and San Francisco, Bosa played 82% of his snaps on the left side (above his 2023 season average of 71%) and finished the game with only 5 pass-rush snaps on the right side. So, it seems likely that San Francisco will do this again on Monday night.
In that case, Smith’s primary matchup will likely be Leonard Floyd, a new addition to San Francisco’s defense. Floyd has developed into a reliable pass rusher, recording at least 9 sacks in four consecutive seasons with a total of 39.5 over that span.
Floyd is a solid finisher who can get his share of sacks, but on a play-to-play basis, Smith is an immensely better player. In 2023, Floyd created pressure on 10.5% of his pass-rush snaps (per Pro Football Focus), ranking just 52nd out of 80 qualified edge defenders. Meanwhile, Smith allowed pressure on a measly 3.4% of his pass-blocking snaps, ranking third-best among offensive tackles. Smith should be able to stymie Floyd in the vast majority of their battles without any help.
New York’s plan in pass protection is obvious: Let Smith do his thing against Floyd and send the house at Bosa.
Now, let’s be clear. As shown by the tally that was displayed earlier in this article, it is not as if Baltimore was allocating four guys to Bosa on every play. That particular rep was rare. Usually, it was something more modest, but effective nonetheless.
This play is a great example of something the Jets can take out of Baltimore’s playbook.
The Ravens have a tight end on Bosa’s side here, but a blitzing DB forces him to leave Bosa one-on-one with Moses. No worries, though. To help sell the Ravens’ play fake, Simpson pulls across the formation, putting him in a position to double-team Bosa with Moses.
Meanwhile, with the left guard and a tight end out on Bosa’s side, Stanley is left on an island against Chase Young – and he totally dominates, allowing this concept to succeed in keeping Jackson clean. The center and right guard hold up one-on-one, too. While the left tackle’s success is the most important, it’s vital for every lineman outside of Moses to perform well in one-on-one situations if the Jets are going to send frequent doubles at Bosa.
This particular play may have been harder for the Jets to sell in past seasons, but they will be equipped to do it in 2024.
The Ravens are a known power-running team. They love to pull their linemen. So when they show something like the play above, the defense will buy that it’s a run. New York hasn’t called these types of run plays very often in recent years, so it would be less convincing if those Jets teams pulled a lineman just as a method to double-team Bosa.
However, with the Jets planning to become more of a gap-blocking team in 2024 (especially in this game against a 49ers defense that is susceptible to gap runs), they will be pulling their linemen very often. They could easily sell a similar fake in which Simpson pulls to Bosa’s side, as he will actually be doing that as part of some run concepts. Therefore, this type of concept helps to sell a convincing play fake while also allocating an extra blocker to Bosa.
Tyron Smith creates new possibilities for the Jets
When talking about the Jets, people love to highlight the ripple effect that Aaron Rodgers provides. He will lighten the box for Breece Hall, allow the defense to play with more leads, and so on.
But after Rodgers, the Jets player with the next-greatest ripple effect might be Tyron Smith. A superstar left tackle does more than just win his individual matchups. His talent changes how the entire offense operates. He adds options that would not exist if an average left tackle were in his shoes.
On Monday night, as the Jets aim to protect Rodgers’s 40-year-old body from the wrath of Nick Bosa, they will get their first glimpse of how valuable it is to have a blindside protector like Smith. Because of Smith’s presence, New York will have a real chance to keep Bosa relatively quiet – and Smith won’t even be blocking him for most of the game.
