Special Teams Review: Jets-Broncos

We've been breaking down this week's game against the Patriots. We conclude today's postgame analysis with a look at the special teams.

Let's review the key contributions...

Kicking game - Laying a Greg

As frustrating as many aspects of this game were, none of it would have mattered if Greg Zuerlein had won the game with his last minute 50-yard field goal attempt. The miss had been coming though. In tough conditions with Will Lutz having just missed a field goal of his own from the exact same distance, Zuerlein sliced his kick wide...and this came after his previous two field goals had been hooked and were only just inside the uprights.

Zuerlein also had three touchbacks in addition to his three made field goals but he's paid to make those clutch kicks in the moment and, after a shaky preseason, he needs to get it together.

Both Jeremy Ruckert and Tyler Conklin allowed pressure off the edge on Zuerlein field goal attempts, with Conklin's coming on his decisive miss. Brandin Echols put pressure on one Broncos kick but there was no rush on the one Lutz missed.

Thomas Morstead had a good game statistically, as he allowed just five return yards on his seven punts, three of which were inside the 20, although one of these came on a friendly roll. The Jets perhaps should have trusted him to pin the Broncos deep when New York still had three timeouts with a couple of minutes to go.

Ruckert and Marcelino McCrary-Ball allowed pressure on punts while Solomon Thomas and Irv Charles created pressure to cause punts to be shanked.

Return game - Qwan' with the wind

There was a minor change on the punt return unit this week. Usually when there's a punt either near midfield or on a 4th-and-short, the Jets leave their starting cornerbacks in the game to play the vice role. However, this usually sees neither of them make much of an effort so the Jets are effectively conceding the chance of a return.

This week, they instead opted to leave one of the starters in when these situations arose and then put a "real" vice on the other side.

On the punt which the Broncos downed at the goal line Sauce Gardner actually did a really good job of blocking Marvin Mims off so Xavier Gipson could potentially have fielded it at about the 8-yard line. Unfortunately, Echols let the other gunner blow by him so Gipson had to bail and then Gardner's man had an angle to get to the ball.

Echols, Qwan'tez Stiggers and DJ Reed all also got beaten once by the gunner. Stiggers had a rough day as he was also called for a hold and then Gipson ran right into him at the 25 on a kickoff return.

Gipson returned five punts for 31 yards, including one where he definitely should have taken a fair catch but slipped the first two tacklers. Echols, Stiggers and Charles each made good blocks to enable Gipson to make positive yardage.

Other than the one where he ran into Stiggers, Gipson only returned one kickoff as he came out of the end zone and was stopped at the 27 as McCray-Ball missed his block.

Kick coverage - Having a McCrary-Ball

Denver only actually had one return with McCrary-Ball making the stop so he was the only Jets player credited with a special teams tackle on the day. This was a five-yard punt return on which there were good contributions from Echols and Ruckert. Echols got downfield well and, although he was sealed off, this forced the return man to go to his left. Ruckert then missed a diving tackle attempt but it helped stretch the return out towards the sideline where McCrary-Ball cleaned up.

The gunners, Charles and Echols did an excellent job this week as they both got downfield to force multiple fair catches. Charles also got downfield well on another punt which rolled downfield. He did make one mistake though, with his big hit drawing a fair catch interference flag because he obviously didn't see the fair catch signal.

We'll be back with the 3-on-D and 3-on-O over the next few days...