Gang Green Nation
James Cook’s 44 yard touchdown run was not a thing of beauty for the Jets or their fans. It in many ways was what finished the Week 2 game between the Jets and the Bills off. It gave the Bills a three score lead. On a day where the Jets offense couldn’t do much, that was going to be too big of a hole to overcome.
So let’s discuss what happened.
The first thing to note is the Jets start this play with two safeties deep. When a safety is not in the box, it means the offense has one blocker for each defender. It’s advantage offense on a run play.
On the defensive side of the ball, run plays are defended by assigning a defender one or two gaps. The gap is an area between blockers. When a safety drops into the box, there is one gap for each defender. When two safeties are back, one defender must be responsible for two gaps. On this play the two gapper is Leonard Taylor.
You can see how Taylor gets moved.
I mean just compare with where Taylor starts in the first picture with where he finishes in the third. At the snap, he’s close to the 45 yard line on the logo in the middle of the field. At the end, he’s blocked to the 42 outside the hash. He gets bulldozed.
This opens up a huge hoel.
Now the Jets are in trouble. Quincy Williams gets off his block and has a shot at Cook but whiffs diving for his legs.
From there, Marcelino McCrary-Ball, Andre Cisco, and Brandon Stephens all overpursue, leaving Cook a huge lane to the left of the defense.
From there, Cook finished his run, and the Jets were finished.
