The Colts pesky defense is No. 6 in the league with 17 takeaways (8 interceptions and 9 fumble recoveries), but in their last 3 games (all losses), the Colts have yielded an average of 24.7 points per. The Jets have reached 24 points only twice this season and failed to score a TD last week at Arizona.
"The thing that jumps off the tape, much like you see with our defense, is just a great discipline of their scheme," said Todd Downing, the Jets' play-caller on offense. "They understand the ins and outs of their system, and they do a great job of trying to take away the things that you would try to design to beat it. So we're going to have to be our p's and q's. We're going to have to be on our timing and spacing. They do a great job in the run game, taking you off of double teams. They do a great job of taking away windows in the play pass game. So we're going to have to be on our details to be successful."
Against the Cardinals, the Jets put together several long drives but failed to convert other than a pair of field goals. Along those lines, the Green & White did not have a play in the game of more than 15 yards.
"I think there can be just the natural human instinct that if things aren't going your way, that you have a little bit of a lull in your attitude or approach," he said. "And so, we're always fighting that thing. The guys would tell you, I'm obnoxiously enthusiastic and positive throughout the week. I really believe that you can talk yourself into some success, and we certainly have the talent. We just need to get out there and have the mindset that things will eventually go our way and not have that feeling of here we go again. Or, man, we're snakebitten or cursed or something like that. We just need to go out there with the joy of a kid playing this game and believe that it's going to turn on."
The Jets' inability to make big plays against Arizona, was a mild aberration. The Jets have 35 plays of 20-plus yards this season, 31 receptions and 4 rushes. For the first time this season, the Jets (who were averaging 4 big plays a game) had no explosives against Arizona.
"A couple things," Downing said. "One, I don't think we were effectively able to get them [the Cardinals] out of their soft zone coverages by making them pay with some underneath stuff that would have produced some catchy runs and things of that nature. So, they were really playing an umbrella defense. And then second, we did a decent job, I would say, on first and second down, of sustaining the early part of drives, but we didn't make them pay for it. And so it became a recipe for them that the bend don't break was effective, and we've got to chase them out of that."
'Tackling Not a Problem Until You Don't Make It'
Marquand Manuel, the Jets' defensive backs/safeties coach, played in the NFL for eight years with six different teams as a safety who said he "used to be all jacked up, like hitting people was a thing." To him and many others, tackling is the "first form of football."
So it should not come as a surprise that when Manuel took to the podium on Thursday for his weekly encounter with the news media that the main topic was tackling. One of the game's most fundamental skills was thrust to the forefront after last week's 31-6 loss at Arizona in which the Jets missed 20 tackles, according to Next Gen Stats, allowing the Cardinals to rack up 91 extra yards rushing.
"I think the effort and intent of understanding what tackling is not a problem until you don't make it," Manuel said. So it's not a technique to it. When you get a guy down, that's all that counts. But when you miss it, everybody is exploited."
While tackling is certainly the bread and butter for any defense, the ability to force turnovers is often the difference between winning and losing. Through 10 games, the Jets have 2 interceptions (both by reserve CB Brandin Echols); only two teams (the Giants and the Browns) have fewer, 1 each.
"A lot of teams have come in and the mindset is ball control," Manuel said. "The shots that they try to take are not as many as they need to anymore, and as they come out, it's dink and dunk. And the ones that we do get our chances on, we got to make, but the ability to go out and now create them we have to do that a little bit more, too."
As Manuel and his group of players get ready to face the Colts on Sunday at MetLife Stadium, Indianapolis HC Shane Steichen has decided to go back to quarterback Anthony Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Richardson is vastly more mobile than Joe Flacco and presents the Jets' defense with a unique challenge.
"He's a pure, true athlete," Manuel said. "It's not by accident that he's the number four overall pick, and he's probably learned a lot, so we expect the best part of him now he's learned a lot. So we're getting ready, and we're preparing for exactly the guy to come out and do what they're asking and be a phenomenal athlete at the position that can make throws all across the field and get the ball moving down the field and get the offense going,"
