We have now seen four games of Todd Downing as the New York Jets’ quasi-offensive coordinator. It’s a large enough sample to begin answering the question everyone asked when the move was initially made: Has promoting Downing done anything to change the Jets’ offense?
In short: Yes.
Visit our New York Jets Analytics page to learn the advanced football numbers.
By now, it has become clear that Downing is not just a new voice running the same offense. Downing stepped right into Hackett’s shoes and quickly made significant changes. In multiple key areas, Downing has altered the Jets’ offensive identity for the better.
Most notably, Downing has done three things:
- Increase the Jets’ usage of pre-snap motion
- Increase the Jets’ usage of 3-WR sets
- Decrease the Jets’ usage of 2-TE sets
Compare the Jets’ rankings in the aforementioned three categories from Weeks 1-5 (under Hackett) to Weeks 6-9 (under Downing):
Weeks 1-5:
- 11 personnel (1 RB/1 TE/3 WR) usage rate: 64.6% (14th)
- 12 personnel (1 RB/2 TE/2 WR) usage rate: 26.6% (8th)
- Pre-snap motion usage rate: 46.5% (31st)
Weeks 6-9:
- 11 personnel (1 RB/1 TE/3 WR) usage rate: 70.4% (9th)
- 12 personnel (1 RB/2 TE/2 WR) usage rate: 19.9% (20th)
- Pre-snap motion usage rate: 62.2% (17th)
Downing is doing a good job of altering the things he can realistically control as a new offensive (coordinator) play-caller who was promoted in-season. It is unrealistic to expect him to create an entirely new playbook or scheme; he has to roll with the plays that were installed throughout the summer. What he can do is call less of what doesn’t work and more of what does work. That is a simple way to optimize the team’s offensive efficiency overnight without making enormous changes to the playbook or scheme.
When Hackett was in charge, he was commonly criticized for his egregiously infrequent usage of pre-snap motion and his over-reliance on 12 personnel when considering the Jets’ lack of talent at tight end. Downing has fixed these things. The Jets are finally using motion at a normal rate for an NFL offense in 2024, and they are no longer using multi-tight end sets to a stubborn degree.
These changes played a key role in the Jets’ win over Houston.
11 personnel
On Thursday night, New York used 11 personnel on 76.4% of its plays, a new season-high. The heavy reliance on three-receiver sets paid major dividends for Aaron Rodgers. With 11 personnel on the field, Rodgers completed 18-of-26 passes for 185 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. It was just the fifth single-game performance of the 2024 season in which a quarterback threw for 180+ yards, 3+ touchdowns, and no interceptions on plays with 11 personnel.
Using more 11 personnel is important for the Jets because it is the best match for the talent on their roster. Let’s face it: The Jets don’t have two good tight ends. Tyler Conklin is a solid starter, but after him, the unit has been mired by poor blocking and non-existent receiving impact.
Meanwhile, the Jets are stacked at receiver. Even with Allen Lazard out, their trio of Garrett Wilson, Davante Adams, and Mike Williams is about as good as it gets. Adams wasn’t in New York yet when Hackett was calling plays, but even then, it rarely made sense to have Lazard off the field in favor of Jeremy Ruckert or another backup tight end. Now that Adams is here, it makes even less sense to remove a WR in favor of a TE, unless the Jets are in an obvious running situation.
The more often the Jets use 11 personnel, the more talented of a team they are. It’s that simple. Hackett was not optimizing the roster by trying to make the Jets a gritty, pound-it-down-your-throat team.
Pre-snap motion
The Jets used pre-snap motion on 61.1% of their plays against Houston, their third-highest rate of the season so far. It was the third time in Downing’s four games that he used a motion rate at least 14% higher than Hackett’s previous season average (46.5%).
This is an encouraging trend. However, the Jets actually did not perform well on their motion plays against Houston. They averaged 3.8 yards per play when using motion, compared to 8.0 yards per play without motion. They had a 33.3% success rate on motion plays versus a 52.4% success rate on non-motion plays.
Still, pre-snap motion contributed to the Jets’ first touchdown of the game.
Davante Adams motions from the right side to the left, forcing a shift in the Texans’ coverage. The cornerback across from Adams follows him, which signals that it’s man coverage. Since there is already an outside CB on the left side, the CB who followed Adams switches onto the tight end (Jeremy Ruckert), while the outside CB switches onto Adams. Knowing that he has man coverage before the ball is snapped, Rodgers already knows where the defense’s weakness will likely be.
Ruckert takes his man into the middle of the field while Adams runs an out-and-up to take his man into the end zone. These two routes clear plenty of space for Garrett Wilson’s crosser. He’s one-on-one with nobody else in the area. Thanks to the space created by Ruckert and Adams’ routes, Wilson is not only open for the (insane) catch, but has a sea of green grass to get the touchdown.
Theoretically, the Jets could have just lined up and run the same concept without motion and gotten the same result. However, motioning into the concept provides Rodgers with extra information that allows him to make a quicker decision post-snap. If the Jets just lined up and ran the same play, Rodgers would have to spend time post-snap deciphering the coverage to identify where the weakness would be. By sending Adams in pre-snap motion, Rodgers already knew what type of coverage he’d be facing, which decreased the amount of processing he had to do after the snap. Considering the amount of pressure he ended up facing on this rep, if Rodgers had to hold the ball for one more fraction of a second, he would have gotten sacked. Pre-snap motion turned a sack into a touchdown.
Pre-snap motion is a cheat code for NFL offenses. It gives you an advantage for essentially no cost. Teams that do not use pre-snap motion at a high rate are only hurting themselves.
To be clear, motion plays are not necessarily better than non-motion plays in a vacuum. In 2024, the league averages are 5.5 yards per play with motion and 5.6 yards per play without motion. The league-average success rates are 42.4% with motion and 44.4% without motion.
The Jets are no different. This season, they average 5.0 yards per play with a 40.9% success rate when using motion, versus 5.4 yards per play and a 42.7% success rate without motion.
Using motion more frequently is not important because motion plays are better. It is important because using motion more frequently tends to correlate with better offensive production overall.
The top seven teams in pre-snap motion this year (all using it more than 75% of the time) are the Rams, Dolphins, 49ers, Packers, Bills, Chiefs, and Lions. That group is a who’s who of respected offensive coaches, featuring Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel, Kyle Shanahan, Matt LaFleur, Joe Brady, Andy Reid, and Ben Johnson. Five of those seven teams rank top-10 in points per game, while the Rams and Dolphins would likely be up there if not for injuries. If these coaches/teams are using a lot of motion, it’s probably a smart thing to do.
Go to the bottom of the list, and you mostly see teams that you do not want to be around when it comes to offense. The bottom eight teams (all below 54%) are the Broncos, Jaguars, Browns, Cardinals, Commanders, Jets, Colts, and Bears. Outside of the massive outlier that is the Commanders’ shockingly elite offense, six of the other seven teams rank in the bottom half of points per game, save for the 15th-ranked Bears.
There’s something to the idea that using motion at a higher rate gives defenses more to think about, creating more confusion on a down-to-down basis whether you utilize motion or not on a given play. If I were to guess, that seems to be the reason why elite offensive teams tend to rely more heavily on motion, even if they are not necessarily more efficient on those exact plays.
Downing raises the Jets’ offensive floor
The Jets’ offensive identity has undoubtedly changed since Hackett took over—for the better. Downing is putting the offense in a far better position to succeed than it would have been if the Jets had left Hackett in charge.
Of course, the players have to execute for Downing’s changes to matter. For the majority of Downing’s stint, the execution has not been much different than it was under Hackett. For two dazzling quarters, though, the execution was as pristine as it was always supposed to be with this cast of A-listers, and when combined with an optimal offensive philosophy, it led to victory.
Thursday night showed what the Jets’ offense can look like when you combine a competent offensive coach with the high-level execution of a star-studded roster. Going forward, Downing can be trusted to give the Jets’ offense a reasonable chance to succeed each week. He is no genius by any stretch of the imagination, but he has proven over a four-game sample that he can mold the offense to the strengths of its personnel and use motion at a normal rate for a modern-day NFL team. With the talent the Jets have, that’s all they can ask for from an interim offensive play-caller.
Now it’s up to the players to continue executing as well as they did in the second half on Halloween.
