New York Jets running back Breece Hall was hyped up as the NFL’s potential RB1 going into 2024, and with Christian McCaffrey sidelined, the throne has been there for the taking. Instead, Hall is averaging 43.5 rushing yards per game on 3.1 yards per rush attempt, both career-lows.
If you thought I accidentally listed Frank Gore’s 2020 stats with the Jets, you’d be forgiven. In 2020, a 37-year-old Gore – who looked infamously slow at this stage of his career – averaged 43.5 rushing yards per game on 3.5 yards per attempt for a 2-win Jets team that featured players like Alex Lewis and Greg Van Roten up front.
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Things screeched to a new low for Hall in Sunday’s loss to Denver, as he ran for only 4 yards on 10 carries. His performance was especially alarming when compared to his teammate, Braelon Allen, who ran for 34 yards on 8 carries. On the year, Allen is now averaging 4.8 yards per attempt compared to Hall’s 3.1, a startling difference.
Simply put, Hall has looked nowhere close to the dynamic rusher New York expected him to be after he managed to run for 58.5 yards per game on 4.5 yards per attempt in a much worse situation last season. Hall was running behind a makeshift offensive line, faced stacked boxes due to poor quarterback play, and was coming off a torn ACL, yet he still was an efficient rusher. Considering what he did in 2023 with those limitations, his ceiling was immensely high going into 2024, as he was poised to have an improved offensive line, better quarterback play to lighten the box, and better health.
Somehow, Hall is performing substantially worse despite the apparent improvements to his situation. What gives?
A few different parties can share the blame.
For one, Hall is not receiving anything remotely close to adequate blocking. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Hall is averaging 3.2 expected yards per carry (xYPC) on his rush attempts; i.e. the amount of yards he is expected to gain based on the blocking (using GPS tracking). That is the lowest mark in the NFL among 47 running backs with at least 25 rush attempts. Compare that to Allen, whose xYPC is 4.5, ranked 10th.
So, in a small four-game sample to start the year, it does appear that the Jets are blocking much better on Allen’s plays than Hall’s. While there could be an explanation for this, it is more likely a random occurrence over a small sample of data. Simply put, the Jets’ rebuilt offensive line has been wildly disappointing, failing to perform any better than the carousel of fringe-level players who blocked for Hall last year. In fact, the blocking Hall is receiving is substantially worse than last year, which is saying something.
Hall ranked 41st out of 49 qualified running backs (100+ carries) with an xYPC of 3.8 last year. The worst mark among those qualifiers was 3.4 (Dameon Pierce), still 0.2 yards above Hall’s 3.2 mark in 2024 so far. Not only was Pierce’s mark the worst of 2023, but it was the worst single-season mark by a running back with 100+ carries since NGS started tracking the data in 2018, which means Hall’s xYPC is on track to be the worst single-season mark of the past seven seasons if it does not improve.
More so than poor 1v1 execution, a lot of the Jets' bad run blocking is miscommunication. So many stuffs on plays where guys are just running through unblocked. Here you have Simpson & Ruckert going for the same guy, leaving LB unblocked. Unit does not look cohesive pic.twitter.com/eDKRPElSLo
— Michael Nania (@Michael_Nania) September 30, 2024
Another example of Jets' bad run blocking being more a lack of cohesion than guys getting dominated. Tyron way late off the ball here and just lets his guy go. Jets look like they have no idea what their assignments are on a good chunk of the run plays. So many unblocked tackles pic.twitter.com/Ujg1xxNXAQ
— Michael Nania (@Michael_Nania) September 30, 2024
Jets OL again just letting people in unblocked. It's all about communication and chemistry to fix this run blocking, it's not a talent or man-to-man execution issue pic.twitter.com/VRhgUG0ipc
— Michael Nania (@Michael_Nania) September 30, 2024
As expected coming into this year, Olu's run blocking – particularly his strength/power – remains a work in progress. Gets shed here with the swim move, leading to goal-line stuff on Hall
At least for this one game, Jets missed the sheer power of Moses in the run game pic.twitter.com/GN0EEbLxJD
— Michael Nania (@Michael_Nania) September 30, 2024
The main reason for Hall’s lack of success is the obscenely poor blocking in front of him. To say anything otherwise would be incorrect. These numbers are completely unacceptable for any NFL team, let alone one that invested as much into the offensive line as the Jets have.
Still, when the results are this bad, the blocking cannot explain everything.
While Hall is not completely at fault for his poor numbers, he should take some of the blame. The primary appeal of Hall’s game over his first two seasons was his ability to consistently make something out of hopeless situations. In the same hopeless situations this year, Hall is going down with the ship rather than making the magical plays that he made over his first two seasons.
In 2023, Hall accumulated 146 rushing yards over expectation (RYOE), per NGS, tying him with Kyren Williams for the sixth-most among running backs. So far in 2024, Hall has -4 RYOE, which ranks 29th among the 47 running backs with at least 25 carries. On 29 fewer carries, Allen has 9 RYOE (23rd of 47).
Hall’s RYOE number isn’t terrible. He has only cost his team 4 yards compared to what he should have been expected to gain based on the blocking. Eighteen of the 47 qualified running backs have been worse.
But this is nowhere close to the incredible level of creation that Hall displayed over his first two seasons. Every once in a while, he turned a busted play into an electric home run that an average running back would not have created in the same predicament. We have not seen those plays so far this year.
The blocking needs to be a lot better, yes. At the same time, Hall needs to be better. No matter how bad the blocking is, Hall has the talent to make things happen.
Allen has been better in this area, showing that it’s not just the blocking that makes him look better. According to Pro Football Focus’ tracking, Allen has forced 5 missed tackles on 27 carries (0.185 per carry) compared to Hall’s 7 forced missed tackles on 56 carries (0.125 per carry), meaning Allen is 48% more likely to force a missed tackle than Hall right now.
Allen’s success at forcing missed tackles is very close to Hall’s rate from 2023, when he forced 46 missed tackles on 223 carries (0.206 per carry). At his current rate, Hall is on pace to force only 28 missed tackles on the same volume of 223 carries, 18 fewer than a year ago. 28 MTF would have ranked 36th in the NFL last season, a steep drop from 14th, which is where his 46 MTF actually ranked.
The Jets’ run-blocking deserves more blame than Hall at this point. Through four games, having Hall ranked dead-last in xYPC – with a mark that is on pace to be a record low – is nothing short of hideous. It all starts there for New York to get Hall going again. At the same time, Hall is capable of cooking up far more self-created yardage than he has so far.
