Alright so if you watched the Jets-Browns game week 2 the first thing you would notice was how terrible the Jets offensive line played. The same things they struggled with in Week 1 continued into this match up with the Browns. There were free rushers, constant penetration in both the run and pass game, and there were times where players looked lost. Before we get into the offensive line breakdown, a quick thought on the Jets. I just want to be the first to say, I fucked up, I ate the cheese. I believed in the Jets hype, I believed this year was going to be different but it’s just the same old story. We have a corner who is making 72 million guaranteed and he can’t get onto the field. We have our best player getting pulled at the end of a game because he can’t stop jumping offside. We are onto our 3rd sting quarterback because our backup no longer has an ankle and our starter has mono. We are down our two starting MLB’s, and an outside linebacker due to injury, and our would be starting TE is also suspended. Our RB appeared to be crying on the sideline on MNF, and we have to travel to Foxboro this week to play the Patriots as 22 point underdogs. I’d love to know the largest point spread in NFL history because I’m sure the Jets-Patriots is getting close.

Having said all that, I’m loving the Jets money line in this weeks game in a defensive battle. Jets go into the bye 1-2, Darnold comes back, rejuvenates the offense and the Jets split with the Eagles and Cowboys. They then beat the Patriots at home to sweep the season series. Then comes the easy part of their schedule. They go 8-2 to finish out the season. Holding the tie breaker over the Patriots the Jets win the AFC East at 11-5. They get the 3 seed, and meet the Patriots in the AFC Championship. The Jets beat the Patriots for the 3rd time on the season and go on to win their 2nd Super Bowl in franchise history. Tom Brady retires knowing the AFC East has it’s new leader in Sam Darnold. The Jets go on to win 8 Super Bowls in 15 years, solidifying themselves as the greatest franchise in the history of organized sports. Jamal Adams, Sam Darnold, and Adam Gase all retire on the same day, a day which becomes a national holiday. All three enter the Hall of Fame their first year of eligibility and give a three man speech. Darnold and Adams then go on to impressive political campaigns eventually becoming president and vice president. While serving their second term of office congress repeals the 22nd amendment and Darnold and Adams become supreme rulers of the United States and everyone lives happily ever after. Now onto the breakdown.

Rather than going quarter by quarter like I did last time I’m just gonna give some general observations, pull some gifs and pictures and grade each lineman.

The first drive was a pretty good indication of how the game was going to turn out. If you were like me, you knew it was going to be a long night. The second play from scrimmage for the Jets they decide to leave Myles Garrett unblocked. Now maybe the Jets thought putting Siemian and Garrett in a one on one situation would favor the Jets. This wasn’t the only time they did this so maybe Gase thinks Trevor is the most elusive QB in the league. Maybe the Jets just don’t think All-Pro Myles Garrett is that good, or maybe the Jets play calling was shit and their line is also shit. No one can be sure if which one of those scenarios is true, there is just no way of knowing.

A few things on this play, obviously it’s a play action so every linemen is trying to sell the run, blocking down hard to the right. You then have the tight end coming across the formation and he’s most likely charged with blocking the last man on the LOS. If this is the case then in theory the play could work with Griffen blocking Garrett. However there’s only one problem, the Browns have a member of their secondary coming to blitz outside Garrett who would normally be the last man on the line. So they have one TE to block 2 defenders, one of them being an All-Pro defensive end. Siemian could have been able to recognize the blitz and get the ball out early, only problem was Brian Winters opens a completely free lane to the quarterback. Winters flips so he is facing the quarterback and allows his defender the shortest distance possible to get the pressure. First and foremost this is a terrible play call, couple that with not seeing a blitzing corner/safety, poor form by many members of the line, and you get an easy sack for the Browns. If you look at the end of the GIF, only Shell and Kalil are engaged with or near their defenders. On third and 12, the Browns presnap look is shown below.

I’d like to now include a paragraph from my week 1 breakdown:

“Look for the Browns to crowd the line, like the Bills did to try and confuse the Jets about who is blitzing. Also if I have to watch the Jets fail to pick up a DT/DE stunt one more time I am going to go crazy. The Browns have a fierce line and if the communication isn’t better it will get ugly fast.”

Same play as above but post snap, presented without comment. (If it’s not clear Oliver Vernon is rushing free off the left side of the photo)

The Jets offensive line may just hate their quarterbacks. I mean there are 3 Jets lineman for one DT while Oliver Vernon just runs free.

Jets broke out a wild cat on their second drive and I didn’t hate it.

I have to admit when the Jets signed Kalil I was one of the people who loved the signing. I guess I didn’t take into account that he was coming off the streets, didn’t do any football activities since retiring and wasn’t that great his last year with the Panthers. I just saw the Jets signing a former pro bowl Center and I was here for it. Through two games, he has looked lost, he has been thrown to the side more times than I can count and he has been downright shitty. At the end of the Browns game the Jets brought in Harrison, and it would’t surprise me if he started against the Patriots.

The Jets were lucky to get a first down on this drive after they decided to let Myles Garrett run free off the edge and light up Siemian. Lucky for them a roughing the passer was called.

Looking at that screen grab you have to feel bad for Siemian. That is a 6’4″ 270 lbs physical specimen coming at him unblocked.

The Jets are talking about having Darnold back Week 5 but how can we put him behind this offensive line coming off mono. Even if his spleen is back to original size, it may burst just from getting hit so hard by one of the 10 free rushers per game.

Beachum struggled all night against Vernon and Garrett after having an okay game week one. He couldn’t handle their speed and strength combo and got beat in one on one situations a few times. The Jets, getting beat by the Browns aggressive defensive line did exactly what they needed to and threw a screen on a 1st and 20. All Keleme had to do is make his block on the linebacker and the Jets have big yards just take a look at the screen shot below.

I mean look at that room to run, its setting up to be a big gain. Spoiler, he missed the block and they got a yard gain.

It’s never a good sign when one of your offensive linemen is facing the wrong direction(ie: the quarterback or their own goal line), it usually means they were beat.

On this particular play the Jets had 4 players facing the wrong direction after they were beat by their defender. I mean look at Beachm, labeled #1 in the picture. How does a tackle get behind their defender. Also this picture was taken at the top of the drop. What is Siemian supposed to do on this play. On the Jets first drive of the second quarter they had a 3rd and 33. That is comically bad. The play where Siemian gets injuried, the Jets chip Garrett with a RB, use both Winters and Shell to try and block him, and he still gets free for a shot on the QB.

Bell leads the league in yards after contact and it’s because of plays like this. Bell has looked incredibly good besides the fumble but there is only so much he can do with an offensive line this bad.

Also how many delay of games are the Jets gonna get, I understand it is a back up QB but 2 in the second quarter alone is pretty pitiful. As if the first half wasn’t shitty enough, the Jets get a wide open, Jeremy Bellamy and he drops a pass that hits him square in his penis. Why is Jeremy Bellamy on the team anyway, he stinks.

First play of the second half the Browns run the old ‘Meet at the Quarterback Play’. Just a great play call by their defensive coordinator.

Garrett on this play does a good job of pushing up field and then bending and getting underneath Beachums pads. This basically puts Beachum on skates back to the QB. Same thing on the other side with Vernon. I mean he looks like he is bench pressing Shell. Even when the Jets get a hat on every rusher, their not good enough to keep the QB upright.

On the Jets first possession of the 3rd, Adam Gase goes back to his bread and butter and runs a nice running back swing pass for 7 yards. Maybe Adam Gase is a big time Madden player, because the running back into the flat is a deadly Madden play. But if you get the Jets into a 3rd and over 5, it’s about a 50% chance Bell is getting the ball in the flat.

Like I said above, Beachum, looked bad on Monday and it can be clearly seen in the Gif below.

Beachum just doesn’t use his hands to engage Garrett, who is able to get underneath Kelvin and just walk him back to the quarterback. I’m really not sure what Beachum is doing with his left hand, but it looks like he’s lining it up for a choke slam. If you watched wrestling growing up it reminds me of the Undertaker raising his hand waiting for his opponent to turn around to be choke slammed into oblivion. Obviously if Beachum executed a choke slam the momentum would have completely changed in this one. Instead he just allows an easy sack. Realizing now it’s tough to see what I’m describing in the gif so below is a screen grab.

I thought the Tackles both played okay against the Bills but they had a bad game Monday night. They were both allowed defenders to gain leverage and it allowed the Browns to collapse the pocket to easily. I mean just look at the two sacks shown above. The tackles lose leverage and when that happens you lose that play.

All things considered I think it was a solid game from Bob Anderson. He was able to get open on a few plays and had a nice back shoulder catch on the sideline. He was only target 6 times, but look for that to move closer to double digits against the Patriots this week. With Herndon out the Jets don’t have any TE’s who can be productive in the pass game so look for the majority of targets to go to Bell, Crowder and Anderson. Adam Gase’s refusal to use two running backs in conjunction is kinda infuriating. They have both Bell and Montgomery who are great pass catching backs but they have only been on the field together a handful of times. It’s not like the Jets are ripe with WR talent with Enunwa out, so I’m hoping to see more of Ty and Bell together moving forward, or at least until Herndon comes back.

Also another note, enough with the 11 personnel Gase, its’ like the only personnel grouping he runs. When watching the preseason I went through and he basically only ran 11 personnel but I thought it was just cause it was preseason. I guess it’s just because he’s not creative enough to run different groupings. Hopefully when Herndon comes back we might see some 21 personnel, with maybe a TE as a FB. However in the mean time give me some 12 personnel with Ty and Bell together.

The Jets offensive line may be the most ineffective offensive line in the league when it comes to double teams. Not only do they not move them off the line, they often time get split and allow the guy who was being double teamed to get in on the play.

Yet again the Jets set up a nice screen, that has the potential to be a good play if the linemen can make their blocks.

Jets are on the CLV 12, down 13, and it’s 4th and 2. This is basically for the game, and where do the Jets go? Bell in the flat for a gain of 1. Turnover on downs, next play OBJ 89 yards to the house. Brian Winters turned a bad game around in the second half. Obviously no one played well on Monday Night but I’ve been presently surprised watching the film with Winters performance. (Relative to how poorly he played last week)

At the end of the 3rd quarter the Jets took out Kalil in favor of Harrison. I’m not sure if it was an injury or just performance related. (I just read Gase said it’s cause the game was out of hand. Why take out the person who has played and practiced the least in training camp though. Why not let him get some reps to work off some rust. Something smells fishy.) When they took Kalil out the game he currently had a Big Dog Grade of 53.33%. That’s terrible and he was at the time of his benching the worst graded linemen for the Jets.

I talked about Winters playing better in the second half and on the first play of the 4th he gets a nice little pancake block.

I read the following sentence from a NY Post article about Beachum on Sunday:

” Left tackle Kelvin Beachum had two holding penalties, a hands to the face penalty on a fourth down and allowed three sacks by Browns outside linebacker Myles Garrett.” link

I think when people see the grades at the bottom they will be semi surprised because some players won’t be as low as they might expect. Tackles generally have an advantage when it comes to the Big Dog Grading system because they almost always get a “plus” on running plays away from their side. When the Jets run the ball to the right side of the line all Beachum has to do is not let his defender sprint past him to make a play. So while the grades at the end may be deceiving when it comes to who played the worst, but I’m here to tell you it was Beachum.

Watching the game back I’m confident the Jets won’t have a Minsew situation on their hands with Falk. There were some times where he had a clean pocket but got the ball out too quickly when there was better options. Below is just one example.

He threw it to where I put the X. As you can see he had Bellamy and Anderson open at the top of their routes but chose to check it down to Crowder who has two linebackers converging on him.

It should be noted that at this point in the game the Browns are running a conservative defense which could explain the clean pockets late in the game.

I don’t have each guys breakdown by quarter like I did last week but below is how they all graded on the Big Dog scale.

Beachum Keleme Kalil Winters Shell Harrison 66.13% 61.29% 53.33% 72.58% 72.58% 76.47%

You can see that the left side of the line played much worse than the right. While Keleme and Kalil graded lower then Beachum, just based on the eye test you could see Beachum had the worst performance. As for Keleme, I didn’t really talk about him but he struggled again this week. He looked weak and continued to get thrown to the side in the run. He hasn’t looked good up to this point. When the Jets got him they hoped he could return to his pro bowl form but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Over the first two weeks the Jets line has been terrible and for good reason. The Jets haven’t used a first or second round pick on a linemen since 2010 when they drafted Vlad Duccasse in the second. They haven’t taken a first round linemen since they picked up Mangold and Ferguson in the same 2006 class. Joe Douglas came in and his main mission was to fix the offensive line. You can’t blame him for past GMs failing to address the issue in the draft but you can put some blame on Kalil not living up to expectations. The problem with the Jets strategy of taking players who were once pro bowlers and hoping they can return to form is that if they were going to return to pro bowl form they wouldn’t have been on the market. Here’s to hoping the Jets line can improve at least slightly so we don’t lose another QB against the Pats.

-Big Dog