Lack of sacks a sore point
CONVENTIONAL statistics are far less telling in football than they are in most other sports, particularly when discussing defense.
Still, the absence of such stats, and thus the absence of tangible production, can be a reason for concern, and that is currently the case at One Jets Drive. Muhammad Wilkerson, by far the Jets’ highest paid payer, and Leonard Williams, a sixth overall pick coming off his first Pro Bowl appearance, have combined for zero sacks and just one tackle for loss in six games.
Todd Bowles, though, isn’t very interested in discussing the defensive line duo’s slow start.
“Nobody is playing great when you’re 3-3. You’re playing average football,” a prickly Bowles said Wednesday in Florham Park, when asked if he’s satisfied with Williams and Wilkerson’s combined sack total. “It has nothing to do with Mo or Leonard. It has to do with our entire team. I’m not going to sit here and make excuses about two guys when we’ve got 11 guys on each side of the ball. So if you want to nitpick, go for it.”
Earlier in the news conference, Bowles gave a more direct endorsement of both Williams and Wilkerson.
“They’re playing hard and they’re playing well and they’re doing everything we ask them to do,” he said. “I’m not disappointed in those two at all.”
When pressed on what the Jets are specifically asking Williams and Wilkerson to do, Bowles quipped sarcastically.
“Just play football, specifically,” he said.
In a sense, Bowles is correct. Wilkerson and Williams are simply two parts of a teamwide struggle to pressure the quarterback.
The Jets have seven sacks in six games. Only the Bucs have fewer. None of those seven sacks have come from defensive lineman, and the secondary has accounted for two (Jamal Adams and Buster Skrine).
And yet when asked if he feels his team is pressuring the quarterback enough, Bowles said, “At times, yeah. I’m fine.”
“You don’t worry about it too much,” Bowles added of the pass rush. “We’re trying to win ball games. We’re not trying to pad stats.”
Wilkerson, who signed a fiveyear, $86 million contract before the 2016 season, conveyed the same message. “Everything is about one team, one goal,” he said. “So the goal behind that is not to worry about my personal stats, it’s try to do the best I can to help the team win games.”
On Monday, Williams said the Jets’ porous run defense has prevented the unit from getting into “true rushing downs” — i.e. third-and-long situations. Bowles said the same.
But a closer look at the film from Sunday’s loss to the Patriots shows the Jets put themselves in those scenarios and still did not get to the quarterback.
The Patriots had at least seven yards to go on nine of their 13 third downs. The Jets touched Tom Brady on just one of those nine plays, when Terrence Brooks came on a safety blitz late in the fourth quarter. Brooks hit Brady and forced an incompletion.
The Jets caused some havoc on three other plays, but on two of them, Brady was able to step up and make a play.
On a third-and-10 in the second quarter, DE Kony Ealy batted down Brady’s pass while standing about five yards away.
On a third-and-13 during the Pats’ opening drive of the second half, Williams broke free and nearly corralled Brady, but he stepped up in the pocket and delivered a pinpoint throw to Brandin Cooks for a gain of 19.
“We got a whole bunch of guys up front that can get after the quarterback,” Wilkerson said. “It’s a long season, and I told you last week, you can ask any guy, sacks come in bunches. …There’s no need to panic about sacks.”