The New York Jets’ defense played a minimal role in the team’s humiliating Week 4 defeat against the Denver Broncos. While there were a handful of plays they would like to have back, the defense ultimately allowed 10 points and 60 passing yards. That type of performance is good enough to nearly guarantee a win. Over the previous 30 seasons (1995-2023), NFL teams were 101-4 (.962) when allowing ≤10 points and ≤60 passing yards.
This was a rare case in which that caliber of defensive performance was not enough. The Jets’ offense wasted a defensive beatdown of Bo Nix and the Denver passing attack, scoring just 9 points as they failed to find the end zone across 13 possessions.
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The defense does not deserve much flack in the press right now. Most of the ire should be directed at the offense.
However, that does not mean the defense is immune to criticism. While the overall output of the defense was phenomenal, one of the defense’s main issues quietly persisted. It was fortunately masked by the Jets’ incredible success in another area.
The issue in question is the Jets’ pass rush.
Despite holding Denver to 60 passing yards on 27 dropbacks, New York’s pass rush was almost non-existent. Nix was never sacked and took only two hits. He was pressured on 19.4% of his dropbacks, per Pro Football Focus, which was the fourth-lowest mark among quarterbacks in Week 4.
It’s not even as if Nix neutralized the Jets’ pass rush by getting the ball out quickly. He averaged 2.84 seconds from snap to throw, which ranked 11th-highest among the 28 quarterbacks to play in Week 4 prior to Monday night. Nix stood around in the pocket and the Jets flat-out struggled to get home.
Yet, the Jets’ pass defense was completely dominant. It only takes simple math to figure out how they pulled it off. Without any semblance of a pass rush, it was the Jets’ sublime coverage that led to the successful afternoon.
All over the field, the Jets’ defenders were sticking to Denver’s receivers like gum on a shoe. Cornerback D.J. Reed was the star of the show, allowing 1-of-6 passing in his direction for -4 yards. He earned a 90.6 coverage grade at PFF, leading all cornerbacks in Week 4 pre-MNF.
Linebacker Quincy Williams was similarly dominant, allowing only 22 yards and 1 first down throughout the game despite being targeted 4 times. Williams added a forced fumble on a play where he was responsible for covering the flat. He earned a 92.4 coverage grade from PFF for his performance, ranking second-best among linebackers this week behind only Fred Warner.
In his second consecutive start filling in for C.J. Mosley, linebacker Jamien Sherwood continued his fantastic start to the season in coverage. The 3 passes thrown into Sherwood’s coverage resulted in 6 yards and no first down. His 80.4 coverage grade at PFF ranked seventh-best among linebackers in Week 4.
Reed’s partners in crime at the cornerback position were also excellent. Sauce Gardner allowed one 29-yard catch but wasn’t targeted otherwise. Michael Carter II was targeted 5 times and yielded no catches. At safety, Chuck Clark allowed no catches on 2 targets.
The only hiccup belonged to safety Tony Adams, who appeared to be the culprit for a blown coverage that yielded a wide-open Courtland Sutton touchdown. Overall, though, the Jets’ coverage performed incredibly well when considering the lack of pressure that was applied on Nix.
Yes, it was against Bo Nix and a Broncos receiving room that isn’t the greatest. Nonetheless, it is extremely tough to cover any NFL offense when the quarterback is allowed to stand in a clean pocket all day. In this game, the Jets’ coverage proved it can step up and bail out a lackluster pass rush that has become quite thin since the end of the 2023 season.
Through four games, the Jets have the NFL’s No. 1 pass defense based on passing yards per game allowed (128.0). With the pass rush being inconsistent, this No. 1 ranking is entirely thanks to the coverage. Multiple metrics prove how sticky the Jets’ coverage has been this year:
- League-low 38% of opposing targets considered “open” (3+ yards of separation from nearest defender upon ball’s arrival)
- League-low average of 2.9 yards of separation between the targeted receiver and nearest defender
- 2nd-ranked 21.3% of opposing targets considered “tight window” (Less than 1 yard of separation from nearest defender upon ball’s arrival)
- 2nd-ranked 87.4 team PFF coverage grade
Data via NFL Next Gen Stats and Pro Football Focus
Meanwhile, New York’s depleted pass rush continues to be an issue. Save for a blitz-fueled sack explosion against a banged-up Patriots offensive line in Week 3, the Jets’ pass rush was a net negative in the team’s other three games. They barely laid a finger on Brock Purdy in Week 1, could only touch Will Levis when he foolishly held the ball too long, and did nothing of note against Nix.
The Jets’ pass rush looks barren after absorbing some big losses that were not matched with additions of equal talent. The Jets had four players with 50+ total pressures in the 2023 season – a quartet that accounted for 70.6% of all pressures on the roster – and three of those four players (save for Quinnen Williams) are out of the picture. Those players are Bryce Huff (67 pressures), Jermaine Johnson (56 pressures), and John Franklin-Myers (50 pressures). Huff, Johnson, and Franklin-Myers combined for precisely 50% of the Jets’ pressures last season (173 of 346).
The only addition of equal caliber to any of those three players was Haason Reddick, who is M.I.A. Outside of that, the Jets have been counting on a Will McDonald leap and a bunch of fringe players who were competing for roster spots in the preseason.
It’s not going too great. McDonald is the only positive, recording 5.0 sacks and 13 total pressures so far. While the torrid sack pace will not be sustained, he can realistically be expected to maintain his pace for 55 total pressures over 17 games, which would be approximately enough to replicate the loss of Johnson. But there’s still Huff’s 67 pressures and Franklin-Myers’ 50 pressures, and nobody on the team has shown they are capable of coming even remotely close to those numbers.
Outside of McDonald and Javon Kinlaw, every other Jets defensive lineman has a PFF pass-rush grade of 62.0 or worse this season. For perspective on how low of a bar that is, it would have placed you outside of the top 145 among the 223 defensive linemen who played at least 300 snaps in the 2023 season. Basically, nobody is consistently winning outside of McDonald and Kinlaw.
You probably noticed that Quinnen Williams was not included in the list of exceptions. He is not playing anywhere close to his usual standards, owning a pass-rush grade of 61.4 that is miles behind his previous two outputs: 84.5 in 2023 and 84.1 in 2022.
After posting no pressures on 24 pass-rush snaps against Denver, Williams has just 9 pressures in 4 games, an average of 2.25 per game. That puts him on pace for 38 pressures over 17 games, barely more than half of the 70 he had in 17 games last season (4.12 per game). Yes, Williams is getting double-teamed frequently, but that was the case over the last two seasons, too, and it did not stop him. The Jets’ highest-paid defensive player needs to step it up.
With all of these issues in the pass rush, the Jets found a momentary solution in Week 3 by utilizing an unusually high blitz rate. In their first game without Johnson, they blitzed the Patriots on 40% of their dropbacks, the highest rate in the Robert Saleh–Jeff Ulbrich era. It is more than double the league-low blitz rate of 17.4% that New York had in 2023. This worked against a porous New England offensive line, resulting in seven sacks.
Going into the Denver game, I was fascinated to see whether the Jets would continue to rely on the blitz as a way of working around their lack of pass-rush talent. As it turns out, the Jets continued to utilize a blitz rate that is higher than their typical standards. New York blitzed Nix on 33.3% of his dropbacks. While that does not quite reach the 40% rate they hit against New England, it is still their second-highest blitz rate across 38 games since 2022, more than 8% higher than the Jets’ next-highest rate.
Unfortunately, the high blitz rate was not enough to get the job done this time because the Jets’ blitzes were not as successful as the ones they sent against New England. Across 9 blitzed dropbacks, Nix was never sacked and pressured just once (11.1% pressure rate). Compare this to the previous game, when the Jets generated a 64.3% pressure rate and 3 sacks across 14 blitzes.
With the blitz not getting home, the Jets needed their four-man rush to step up, and it did not. Nix was only pressured 4 times on 18 non-blitzed dropbacks (22.2% pressure rate).
The Jets got away with their lack of pressure in this game, as their coverage was so darn good that it did not matter Nix was throwing from a clean pocket. Nix went 4-of-8 for 9 yards when blitzed and 8-of-17 for 51 yards when not blitzed.
This was Bo Nix and the Broncos, though. Against better opponents, such as the red-hot Sam Darnold-to-Justin Jefferson combo and Josh Allen’s high-octane Bills, the Jets will likely not be as fortunate if they fail to generate a consistent pass rush.
Even New York’s run defense was not all that great against Denver. Sans two kneeldowns, the Broncos ran for 130 yards on 29 attempts (4.5 yards per attempt). There were points in the second half where the Jets allowed Denver to amass chunks of yardage at will despite the passing game being a non-threat.
Given the inconsistency of their pass rush and their run defense, the Jets’ defensive success against Denver was almost solely due to their elite coverage. That is a microcosm of their season so far. Four weeks in, it feels like the Jets’ pass rush and run defense have been problems more often than they have been assets, yet the Jets sit here ranked high in most defensive categories, and it is all because of how incredible their coverage is.
New York’s elite coverage is an immense positive going forward (although they must prove it can be maintained against better opponents), but it cannot mask the other issues that remain on the defensive side of the ball. While it is easy to look at the Broncos game and simply evaluate it as “Defense = Great, Offense = Bad,” it is not that simple. The coverage was great. Everything else on defense… not so much. And if it is not fixed, it will be exposed by better opponents.
