We recently broke down the details of what Steve Wilks and Tanner Engstrand’s schemes may look like with the New York Jets.
How would each scheme affect the current players on New York’s roster?
That is a question we will unpack in various ways throughout the offseason. Today, let’s focus on three particular players who project to benefit from playing in Wilks and Engstrand’s respective schemes.
RB Breece Hall
Breece Hall had his share of struggles in 2024, but the Jets rarely gave him the chance to build a rhythm.
The Jets had the fourth-lowest called run play rate in the NFL (34.1%), per NFL Next Gen Stats. This caused Hall to average only 13.1 rush attempts per game, identical to his mark from a 2023 season when he was coming off an ACL tear and started the year on a pitch count.
If Engstrand holds true to the Detroit Lions’ philosophies, the Jets will be a far more run-heavy team in 2025. The Lions had a 46.3% called run play rate in 2024, ranking fourth-highest in the league. They were fifth in 2023.
So, Hall should enjoy the benefit of more carries. Additionally, he should become more dangerous in the passing game.
Hall has already established himself as one of the NFL’s most involved pass catchers at the running back position, recording 133 receptions for 1,074 yards and seven touchdowns across the last two seasons.
This makes him a great fit in a Detroit-style offense, as the Lions did an incredible job of scheming up favorable pass-catching opportunities for their running backs.
Over the last three seasons, Detroit’s running backs produced 2,070 receiving yards, fifth-most in the NFL. The Lions reached new heights in 2024, as their running backs produced 904 receiving yards, the most by a running back unit since 2020.
While Hall has already racked up high-volume receiving numbers in New York, Engstrand can design ways to make Hall’s targets more impactful.
Since 2022, the Jets rank 18th in EPA (Expected Points Added) per attempt when throwing to running backs, with a mark of -0.09. This suggests that, although Hall has racked up plenty of receptions, they were often checkdowns that did not make a significant impact on the Jets’ ability to score points. Conversely, Detroit ranks fifth-best with 0.07 EPA per attempt when targeting running backs since 2022. Their running backs’ receptions made a positive impact when it came to extending drives and putting points on the board.
Detroit frequently made Jahmyr Gibbs one of the primary reads on the play, especially in key situations, such as in the red zone.
We know Hall has elite skills in the passing game, but the Jets have relegated him to a checkdown-magnet role without giving him enough chances to be featured on higher-upside plays, whether it’s a screen, wheel route, angle route, or flexing him out wide. Using what he learned in Detroit, Engstrand can ensure Hall’s receiving abilities are utilized in a more meaningful way.
LB Quincy Williams
While we don’t know yet whether the Jets will look more like Aaron Glenn‘s Lions defense or Steve Wilks’ typical style, one thing seems certain: New York will be blitzing very often.
Detroit had a 38.4% blitz rate under Glenn in 2024, third-highest in the NFL. If you exclude Wilks’ one season in San Francisco (where was running the 49ers’ established scheme), Wilks’ previous four teams had an average blitz rate of 39.9%.
The likely spike in blitzing is great news for Quincy Williams. New York’s explosive linebacker showed tremendous potential as a blitzer in his sporadic opportunities for the Jets’ light-blitzing defense under Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich.
In four seasons with the Jets, Williams has gotten home for 10 total sacks (8 full, 2 half) and 44 total pressures on just 201 pass-rush snaps. That gives him a sack rate of 5% and a pressure rate of 21.9%; the 2024 league averages for linebackers were 3.1% and 17.6%, respectively (per PFF).
Williams’ impact as a blitzer has been muted since he was sent into the backfield so infrequently. But in a blitz-heavy defense, the off-ball linebackers become core pieces of the pass rush. If Williams can maintain his stellar efficiency on a higher volume of blitz opportunities, he would make an incredible pass-rush impact.
For instance, Detroit’s Jack Campbell recorded 118 pass-rush snaps in 2024, sixth-most among linebackers and more than double Williams’ yearly average with the Jets (50.3). With those 118 pass-rush snaps, Campbell recorded just two sacks (1.9%) and 12 total pressures (10.2%). There is ample room for improvement here with a player like Williams in the same role. If Williams maintained his 5% and 21.9% rates over 118 pass-rush snaps, he’d have recorded approximately six sacks and 26 total pressures.
There are a handful of linebackers from blitz-heavy defenses who posted similar stat lines. Under blitz maestro Brian Flores, Minnesota’s Blake Cashman posted five sacks and 28 total pressures on 168 pass-rush snaps (second-most among LB). Veteran star Lavonte David is still going strong, recording six sacks and 142 pass-rush snaps for another notorious blitz-heavy coach in Todd Bowles.
Williams has a chance to join his brother among the top sack producers on the team.
CB Michael Carter II
One of the trademarks of Wilks’ defenses is the reliance on nickel packages (5 DBs). Wilks’ past five teams had an average nickel usage rate of 74.4%, and an average ranking of seventh in that category. Two of Wilks’ teams led the NFL in nickel usage.
This is tremendous news for Michael Carter II, the Jets’ resident nickel cornerback.
The Jets were already a fairly nickel-heavy team under Saleh and Ulbrich, using it 71.8% of the time across the past four years. Wilks, though, exceeded 80% at three of his past four stops. This means Carter II could be in the mix to become the most heavily-utilized nickel in the league this season.
Frequent injuries muddied Carter II’s snap count in 2024, but over his first three seasons, Carter II’s average snap percentage per game ranged from 64% (2022) to 74% (2021), with a 68% mark in 2023. These are relatively high numbers for the position, although Carter II never came close to 80% in a full season; in fact, he has only played 80% of the Jets’ snaps in 11 of his 60 career games. The last time it happened was Week 8 of the 2023 season.
However, as one of the most productive and well-paid slot corners in football, Carter II should be more than ready for the challenge, and it should make the Jets a better team. Giving more snaps to their acclaimed slot corner while deducting snaps from a third linebacker is a net positive for the unit’s overall productivity.
Carter II projects to thrive on a high snap count in Wilks’ defense, as he is a shoo-in fit for Wilks’ style.
Wilks is a zone-heavy coach, with his four most recent teams employing an average zone-man split of 74%/26%. Each of his last two teams used zone over 77% of the time.
This is excellent news for Carter II, who excels in zone coverage. Over the last three seasons, Carter II has allowed 59-of-86 passing for 407 yards, zero touchdowns, and one interception when targeted in zone coverage.
The zero-touchdown number jumps off the page, but so does the paltry 4.7 yards per target, indicating that Carter II excels at keeping things in front of him in zone coverage. He rarely allows the ball to go over his head and does a great job of rallying to make tackles underneath.
In order to handle a high snap count as a nickel corner, you must be able to hold up against the run. Carter II is capable of doing that. A fundamentally sound tackler with tremendous instincts, Carter II can fill in against the run almost as effectively as a linebacker or safety would.
Carter II has a composite run defense grade of 69.9 at PFF over the last three seasons. For perspective, that would have ranked 36th out of 101 qualified cornerbacks in 2024 (65th percentile).
Typically, the cost of going nickel-heavy is leaving yourself vulnerable against the run. But when your nickel corner is solid in that phase, it mitigates the negative impact against the run, making it worthwhile to leave him on the field for a high snap count and reap the benefits of having him out there for more coverage reps.
For much of his Jets career, Carter II’s high-level impact has been subtle. This year, expect him to become more of a featured character.
