In the final minute of their Week 3 loss to the Lions, the Jets had the ball in Detroit territory attempting to put up a game-tying (or perhaps with a two point conversion game-winning) touchdown. Unfortunately for them, former Jets safety Chuck Clark blitzed, and became a free runner. He was able to get a strip sack on Geno Smith that Detroit recovered, effectively ending the game.
What went wrong? How did Clark get free?
As always, I wasn’t in the huddle. I didn’t call the play, and I don’t have
access to the Jets’ playbook so all I can do is my best to reverse engineer.
In addition to the standard two edges and two interior linemen, the Lions have stuck off ball linebacker Jack Campbell right in the A gap at the line of scrimmage and Clark close to the line of scrimmage threatening a blitz.
It looks to me like the Jets put on a three man slide (to the left from the offense’s perspective and to the right from the defense’s and our perspective.
This will put the Jets in solid position to block the two defensive linemen (yellow circles) and one of Clark or linebacker (55) Derrick Barnes (blue circles) if either of them blitzes.
On the other side, you always want to block defensive linemen with offensive linemen.
This leaves Braelon Allen to pick up Campbell if the linebacker blitzes.
I would also imagine that Allen would have either Clark or Barnes in a world where Campbell drops into coverage, and both Barnes and Clark blitz. Remember, even with their three man slide, the Jets have four potential Lions blitzers on that side of the defensive formation. If Allen is freed of his responsibility to take Campbell, he can help.
Off the snap, you will see that Myers is sliding to his left (our right). Backup left guard Jordan Meredith who came on for an injured Dylan Parham has defensive tackle Alim McNeill, but seems to be sliding with the defensive tackle towards Myers. Braelon Allen meanwhile is moving over to pick up the blitzing Campbell.
Based on the protection, my guess is that Meredith was supposed to pass McNeill off to Myers, and then jump out to get the blitzing Clark.
Instead, Clark gets home as a free runner and gets the strip sack that clinches the game.
It’s easy to pin this on some miscommunication with a backup offensive lineman who just entered the game missing his assignment. And that is a big part of the story here.
Still, I think Geno Smith and Josh Myers have to take an appreciable share of the blame for this play. It’s tough for me to look at this front, and think the Jets were in the optimal protection scheme.
If my read on this play is correct, the Jets were sliding away from a linebacker threatening the A gap and asking Braelon Allen to go across the formation to pick him up. Then they were asking a newly inserted guard to pass off a defensive tackle aligned to his outside to the lineman on his inside and pick up a blitzing safety in short order.
This strikes me as a much easier protection to execute if the Jets just slide Myers to the linebacker threatening the A gap and let Allen pick up the blitzing safety to his side.
I know it isn’t always easy to tell who is blitzing, but we are just talking about the ease of these blocks based on the alignment here. I think you’d rather have the center protecting the A gap with a linebacker mugging the line of scrimmage as a potential blitzer than force a running back to go across the formation to pick that up.
My guess is the Jets thought number 55 Derrick Barnes was a more likely blitzer than Clark. In that case, Myers would likely get him, and the slide to the offense’s left/defense’s right could have worked.
In any event, I strongly suspect Smith and Myers should have reset the protection here.
What I can say with 100 percent confidence is this play ended the Jets’ chances at an upset victory.
