After each game, we’ll be highlighting three defensive and three offensive players and looking in detail at their performance. We’ll start today with the defense:
The Cisco Kid
One player who didn’t let the Jets’ defense down on Sunday was safety Andre Cisco. He had six tackles and a pass defensed in a solid performance with three of those stops coming within four yards of the line of scrimmage.
Cisco’s best play was this excellent pass breakup in man coverage just before halftime. In all, he was targeted just twice and gave up one catch for three yards.
However, he also showed good physicality on this run stuff near the line of scrimmage.
In terms of negatives, Cisco did have two missed tackles, one of which was at the goal line as Elijah Moore ducked inside him to break the plane. However, it would have been a tough play to prevent him from scoring in space in that situation. Ultimately, most of the Bills’ most successful plays went away from him.
Cisco can hopefully build on this performance, although it’s not ideal that Tony Adams got hurt so now he has to play alongside the rookie Malachi Moore. Hopefully Moore develops well alongside him, though.
Brigged Erection
Of course, Jowon Briggs got a lot of headlines for being the “lone bright spot” from Sunday’s loss, which perhaps isn’t entirely fair to Cisco. However, it’s worth noting that while Briggs made noise with an impressive sack, and a forced fumble on a run stop near the line, this wasn’t just a situation where a guy came off the bench and made two plays.
Instead, Briggs played 36 snaps – four short of his career high – and was a true handful the entire time. He ended up with five tackles, four of which were at or near the line of scrimmage, and added another quarterback hit to his sack on this play.
He was also able to fight around a block to get in on a stop near the line of scrimmage on this read option play.
Considering how Briggs came in with a reputation as a one-dimensional rotational run plugger, it’s exciting to see a well-rounded performance from him that suggests he’s developing well. Right now, he looks like a future starter.
McCrary-Ball don’t lie
Marcelino McCrary-Ball has basically been a special teamer in his career so far. He had played just 14 defensive snaps in his career before Sunday’s game. However, he’s LB3 at the moment and with the Bills having a solid running game and the players to use 12 and 21 personnel packages a lot, this forced the Jets to play a lot of base packages with three linebackers on the field. Kiko Mauigoa only played a handful of snaps in obvious run situations, but McCrary-Ball was forced to play 28 snaps, doubling his previous snap count for his entire career.
The results were not pretty as McCrary-Ball had three tackles, all of which were at least eight yards downfield, and gave up two first downs in coverage.
Perhaps his best defensive play saw him get in on a stop near the line of scrimmage but there was a holding penalty on the play anyway so it didn’t count.
This was his biggest negative as he initially got caught on a block and then overpursued to the inside rather than maintaining his gap once he got off it. Moore and Brandon Stephens both also overpursued badly though as any one of them probably would have made the stop if they played home.
We’ve seen the Jets burned by over-aggressive play from their linebackers at times in recent years with Quincy Williams being an occasional culprit. The Jets need a rotational contributor like McCrary-Ball to come in and play with more discipline.
McCrary-Ball’s main role is on special teams and he’s always in the middle of the action there. He had two more special teams tackles to give him a team-high five on the season, made a couple of good blocks, generated pressure on two punt rushes and drew a hold. However, he also had a couple of negatives missing blocks and tackles.
While he’s definitely good in that role, his defensive contributions should probably be kept to a minimum and guys like Cam Jones and Mykal Walker could be better options in a game like this where base packages are used a lot, or if a starter goes down.
Three-on-O will follow tomorrow.