Inside the Jets vs. Texans Film Room: Defense

JETSerious will bring you inside the defensive film room and dissect plays from the beginning to end…. each and every week.  We’ll look at what the Jets defense did right and wrong for each play.

The Texans escaped out of Metlife Stadium on Monday night, but the Jets have good and bad to take away from the game… What looked good? What went wrong? JETSerious will bring you into the defensive film room, and show you what’s good!

Enjoy!

Let’s start with the end first touchdown of the game… a “gimme”, as Rex calls it— a play-action touchdown pass to TE Owen Daniels.

Houston is lined up in a run-heavy formation, which they often run a RB sweep out of. The run-fake is going to cause the Jet defenders to over-pursue here.

DB’s Antonio Cromartie (top), LaRon Landry (middle), and Kyle Wilson (bottom), are all circled yellow in the image above. They are each responsible for a 1/3 portion of the field. Each 1/3 is separated by a yellow line along the hash marks. As the play develops, you’ll see that LaRon Landry bites on the play action, neglecting his responsibility of the middle 1/3.

QB Matt Schaub does a great job selling the play-fake, but there’s no excuse for Bryan Thomas to get played that badly. He is responsible for containing the outside, where Schaub is rolling out towards. LaRon Landry is totally out of position. You can tell that he’s planting his left foot, in attempt to recover. Also, by the time Byan Thomas realizes that Schaub has the ball, Schaub is a good 5-10 yards away. That’ll give the QB more time to let the play develop and extend the play, if necessary. It’s easier said than done, but it’s crucial that the players stay true to their responsibilities… especially in a Rex Ryan system.

Schaub has plenty of room ahead of him, but the play is not over. Bryan Thomas can still recover and try his best to initiate pressure.

The fact that LaRon Landry bit on the play-fake was bad enough… but now he’s attacking on a poor angle. Once he realized it’s a play-action pass, he should’ve sprinted to his area of responsibility– the deep-middle 1/3 of the field.

From this angle, you can really tell how bad Landry (circled above) is out of position. Yeah, he got beat. But it’s one play. It happens, right?

OK… he got beat pretty bad. Just look at how much open field is left. Schaub has (about) a 30-yard window to place the ball within.

Not good.

Again, it’s easier said than done, but this was an important play to start the game. It gave Houston a 7-0 lead early on.

Now that we’ve got the bad out of the way, please turn the page, and join JETSerious as he breaks down a more encouraging defensive play from Monday night’s matchup.

This next play is a positive one.

It showed us three things:

• Antonio Cromartie can take on one of the leagues best, and a physical #1 receiver in Andre Johnson.
• The Jets defensive backfield is capable of creating turnovers, even without Darrelle Revis.
• Rex didn’t lose his touch, and can still cause headaches for opposing QB’s.

The Texans ran WR Andre Johnson in motion across the line of scrimmage, which indicated to Schaub that Johnson was in man-to-man coverage with Antonio Cromartie. Schaub likes his chances… but I’m liking Cro’s chances as well.

Matt Schaub has a very clean pocket, which is rather concerning, because the Jets need to get a pass-rush going. But Cromartie is able to run step-for-step with Andre Johnson.

With a post-route like this one, undercutting the WR is an aggressive move. If Johnson turns to the outside on a corner route, and Cro goes inside to pick the post, it could be costly for the Jets… but Cromartie made a great play on the ball.

The yellow dotted line represents the ball and its path. If you look at the red circle above, you can see that Cromartie undercuts Johnson at about the 45 yard-line… a great play by Cro.

From the endzone angle, you can tell that Cromartie just cuts in front of Andre Johnson at the last second. Cromartie had an excellent break on the route and undercut it beautifully.

I know it’s easy to get pumped when dissecting the “Good Cro” because the “Bad Cro” is inevitable… but it’s difficult to argue against his skill-set.

At 6 foot 2, Cro has the tools to take on a #1 receiver, and the speed to take it to the house on any given touch.

Call me crazy… but I think Cromartie is one of, if not the best CB’s in the NFL. I believe he is up there with Champ Bailey, Patrick Peterson, and others.

I guess we’ll have to let the season unfold, so we can analyze his play over a longer period of time. That will truly test the “Good Cro” and his consistency.

That’s going to be all for this week’s defensive film breakdown.

Thanks for reading!

Be sure to check back next week, where JETSerious will bring you inside the Jets vs. Colts defensive film room.

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