Brock Purdy can run, George Kittle can block, and Kyle Juszczyk can do everything. Kyle Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers feature players who frequently showcase all-around abilities that provide plenty of production beyond the box score.
In short, general manager John Lynch and company seek and value the best genuine football players — the guys who can win on the field in a multitude of ways.
While never perfect, this idea is often overlooked by the media and fans alike. By no means is that typed in any accusatory tone, either; it’s instead logically the way of the football world.
When watching the broadcast or from inside the press box or stadium, it’s the splash plays that get the play. After all, “splash” plays would be labeled as something completely different if that weren’t the case.
Yet, within the league and in every team structure — whether it’s the coaching staff or the locker room — everybody understands the deal. At least to some degree, the truth of the football production matter is realized and understood once a large enough sample allows a fair shake.
What’s realized is one’s actual on-field value and how it compares to the current public viewpoint, which is largely shaped by splash plays and box-score stats. This is where the critical idea of “specialization” comes into play.
For the New York Jets, player specialization is a major problem.
Player specialization is often hidden
In the Jets’ 31-24 loss to the Detroit Lions back in Week 3, a tight end star was born. Rookie Kenyon Sadiq went for 105 yards and a score on 7 receptions (8 targets), and Jets fans appropriately believed that Frank Reich had unleashed the rookie tight end for the long haul.
Unfortunately, Sadiq’s 21 yards on 4 receptions (11 targets) in the four games since Week 3 have hardly inspired confidence. While Reich deserves the standard offensive coordinator criticism, there’s a major personnel issue involved.
How does an offensive architect get a tight end involved in the passing game when he’s struggling to run block?
It was spotted early in the season, even early in the Jets’ Week 1 win over the Tennessee Titans — the same game and drive Sadiq opened the scoring for the team’s season. He completely whiffed on an inline assignment.
Hey, by no means is such a thing unforgivable; it’s instead meant to be a revelation.
Braelon Allen’s breakout, along with the offensive line’s recent run-blocking resurgence, perfectly aligns with Mason Taylor’s return to the lineup. Those who watch Taylor closely on Sunday will notice an athletic tight end who has both improved his ground blocking game and makes a considerable difference, especially in the open field.
Ok, so why not line up Sadiq out wide as a receiver?
Sure, that can be done, but all the matchup advantages a Sadiq prototype provides instantly vanish when a play designer takes that route.
His vertical threat and athletic nature are mind-boggling when compared to other tight ends, and when strong safeties and linebackers are tasked with the coverage. Put him in the power slot, and suddenly, a much quicker nickel back nullifies those advantages.
The box score never portrays that angle of the strategy.
Defense requires less specialization
Defensively, especially these days, specialization is more crippling than ever. In a time when quarterbacks release the ball quicker than ever, pass rushers must be more versatile and football intelligent than ever.
David Bailey is — and could be — a legitimate defensive weapon in the National Football League. His quickness off the edge is elite, and his get-off (timing of the snap) continues to be overlooked by the masses. As was obsessively detailed this past spring, however, he doesn’t bring all-around ability to the table.
The folks using Pro Football Focus run grades as evidence will either find themselves confused or led astray, as those numbers only mesh with the aforementioned “box score.” As Michael Nania detailed earlier this week, Bailey’s positive rush game statistics should commonly be viewed as relatively empty, considering how far downfield they occur.
Bailey’s positives against the run come in backside pursuit, chasedown, and gamed-up defensive designs that allow him to use his quickness to the inside while another defender replaces him off the edge. Bailey even has the ability to string out a run and make a pop on a ball-carrier when matched up with a tight end in a Wide-9 look:
In the case of Bailey, it was never about his perceived “weakness against the run,” but rather his weakness at the point of attack. A football player’s specialization tag most often comes from play style.
When asked to knock back blockers as the force defender or hold up in a pinched front, Bailey just isn’t the defender a coach wants on the field. It simply isn’t his game, nor is it fair to ask him to carry those tasks out on a regular basis.
By no means is that a crime, either. But when a team constructs a defensive front in this manner and asks its No. 2 overall pick to handle these responsibilities, the idea of player specialization comes into play.
David Bailey is a pass rusher, pure and simple.
His football mind is so geared towards pass rushing that he, along with many others along the Jets’ front, has greatly contributed to the defense’s horrific pass-rush lane integrity all season.
His instincts are so rabid while en route to the quarterback that very little else is considered and/or felt along the way.
How does a coach alter those instincts? Can a coach alter those instincts? If so, at what point is it reasonable to expect alteration?
As crazy as it may sound, Aaron Glenn and Karl Dunbar have already done a tremendous job with Bailey in the all-around area, as it relates to improvement from last year to now. But that very realistic learning curve was always much greater than commonly portrayed in the media, and, more importantly, it’s a matter of football instincts.
Compounding matters is the nature of today’s sport compared to yesteryear. Never has the passing attack been this quick. Three-step drops rule the roost, meaning offenses can replace actual rush concepts with quick, designed passing concepts that serve as run plays.
The maddening uptick in completion percentage has created new, frustrating ways for the offense to keep a defense off balance. Thus, when a defense cannot stop the run (and/or quick, designed passing concepts), it will never even have a chance to rush the passer.
Never. The quarterback will never hold the ball long enough for it to even become a factor. Just watch every Jets loss this season for evidence of that very notion.
The Jets’ configuration is askew
John Harbaugh knew precisely what happened on the night of April 29, 2026: His New York Giants found themselves in a fortunate and unexpected place to draft a player who impacts the game far beyond the box score.
Arvell Reese may never tally the sacks others do, yet his down-to-down production and football intelligence are invaluable. Unlike the Jets’ first pick in the draft, the Giants’ defender features a play style that includes finesse, violence, and football IQ from an all-around, all-purpose degree.
Bailey surely has the finesse, but the physicality area isn’t his game, and the football IQ only shows up en route to a sack, pressure, or QB hit. His motor is so geared up to attack the quarterback that the pass-rush discipline is still very much a work in progress.
Yet, Bailey is the last individual Jets fans should think about. Instead, it’s the organization’s duty not to add another finesse/pass-rushing prototype to a defensive front that was already loaded with them.
Will McDonald is as similar to Bailey in nature as possible. While Bailey holds up better at the point of attack than McDonald, the veteran is far ahead of Bailey in terms of attempting to do the right thing as the force player and/or in reading his run-game/balanced-down keys.
Making matters worse is the idea that Bailey is being asked to do things, in his rookie season, that he never did in college. While, on one hand, I understand why Aaron Glenn envisioned him as a 3-4 OLB — mainly because he probably cannot hold up as a 4-3 DE on a full-time basis, since it’s too heavy at times, when not in a Wide-9 — but to see him in coverage so often makes little sense.
Repeated coverage busts against New England happened on Bailey’s side, and Josh McDaniels clearly targeted that flat-to-curl area, along with highlighting the late-release game (i.e., the third-and-13 back-breaking completion to Hunter Henry in the fourth quarter).
Again, it boils down to player specialization, and how far too many of the Jets’ offseason moves tripped into and far too deep into this rabbit hole.
At this point, Geno Smith, the wily vet, doesn’t have much mobility; we all understand this. Yet, while we shouldn’t criticize that acquisition, it’s more than fair to point out how Smith’s lack of mobility has cost them this season (i.e., the failed QB sneak in New England).
Dane Belton could also be considered a specialized player, since his sideline-to-sideline moveability and pass coverage are hardly ideal. Still, Belton represents one of the Jets’ best signings of the offseason at this point, and he’s the only man keeping the Jets’ rush defense away from all-time horrendous status.
Jamien Sherwood is also highly specialized. As a converted safety, the Jets’ linebacker makes plays in the open field, but the lack of heaviness from a spill and fill perspective is alarming.
And then there’s Jowon Briggs, a man whose gap-shooting talents are apparent, but he often gets washed away when the opposing players have already sent him out to sea. Unfortunately for Briggs, who also possesses a pass-rush-first mindset, failing to lock into his keys and often flowing with the backfield movement places him in horrific situations.
We haven’t even reached the stage of adding T’Vondre Sweat and Darrell Jackson Jr. to an interior that already employed Briggs and Harrison Phillips, but how many words can one read?
At the end of the day, Glenn’s interior directly contrasts with his force players. The interior defenders are big, heavy players who lack sideline-to-sideline ability, whereas his edge players possess an extreme pass-rushing, finesse mindset.
The Jets’ interior does the edge players no favors in the pass-rushing game, while the edge players never make the defensive tackle’s life easier by squeezing the tackle box down and eliminating tackle-to-tackle space. I say all this, of course, with apologies to Kingsley Enagbare and Braiden McGregor, whose injury has quietly flown under the radar, particularly as it relates to the Jets’ run defense dropping to new lows.
Yes, indeed, the New York Jets have a player specialization problem. By no means should that excuse the team’s coaching woes, either; it should instead serve as a further indictment — thanks to how this team was conceived this past offseason.
