The New York Jets finally got their preseason underway over the weekend. There were some interesting trends that became apparent.
We’ve all been wondering what offensive system the New York Jets will run this season. It’s been highly suggested that the west coast offense will reign supreme yet that’s never been stated in stone.With that in mind, I wanted a sneak peek of what will happen this season.
(Let me preface this by saying if the Jets would show us in the preseason what they’d do in the regular season, the other 31 teams would send scouts to do what I did over the weekend.)
While a lot of the schemes are vanilla both offensively and defensively, it’s not all hocus pocus. They don’t have the Madden or NFL Blitz play package.
So with that being considered, here are my findings from the Jets’ 7-3 victory over the Tennessee Titans.
Formation Breakdown
The Jets predominantly played two wide receiver sets throughout the game. Unofficially, over 50 percent of the snaps were run with only two wide receivers on the field. But by the time the second half rolled around, the Jets leaned on three wide receiver sets. That’s another 37 percent of the snap count.
While I’m not sure what this tells us, most of those snaps came in the first half with Josh McCown and Christian Hackenberg playing quarterback.
These are interesting trends heading towards the regular season.
There are a few philosophies of the West Coast Offense. Namely, it’s about establishing a running game to draw defenses in to attack the passing lanes. From there, it’s highlighted by a short passing game that stretches a defense out and maximizes the 53-and-a-half yard width of the field. This thins out the defense and opens up the door for deeper passes and longer run opportunities.
Preseason Game 1 Report
Josh McCown: 3-of-4 for 72 yards and a touchdown pass
The bare stats on his lone drive of the game are efficient and promising. McCown chewed up underneath and took the long shot to Robby Anderson. This was as close to a perfect drive as you can get, albeit a small sample size.
Christian Hackenberg: 18-of-25 for 127 yards
My takeaways from Hackenberg’s first performance since last preseason was positive. He played the majority of the game, including most of the first quarter, all of the second quarter, and nearly all of the third quarter.
Head coach Todd Bowles said that he’d get a lot of playing time and he didn’t lie. Hackenberg needs as much live game action as the Jets can squeeze in. He showed solid poise and went through his progressions and reads like a pro.
The young quarterback’s most impressive play came in the second quarter. Hackenberg saw the pocket collapsing around him and could’ve fallen and taken a sack. Instead, he showed great awareness by bouncing out of the pocket, staying calm and scrambling out of bounds for a gain of three yards.
This was the first preseason game and it’s an extremely small sample size, so take all of this with a grain of salt. But there were several positives.
The Jets will travel to Detroit to play the Lions for their second preseason game this upcoming Saturday.
