Three on D: Hector, Adams, Oliver

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:

We on Award (Hec)tor

Bruce Hector was active for the fifth time this season and saw action on a season-high 27 snaps despite the fact that the Jets rotated five defensive tackles this week instead of the usual four.

Part of this was that the Jets have recently started mixing in some different fronts, with occasionally three interior linemen and two edges in the game on running downs to essentially give a 3-4 base look.

This tactic has actually been paying off and you may be shocked to learn that the Jets' oft-criticized run defense has soared all the way up to FOURTH BEST in the league in terms of yards per carry allowed. They held the Bills under three yards per carry this week.

To his credit, Hector has done a decent job when called upon this season. He's basically been this year's Tanzel Smart since Jalyn Holmes was claimed by the Commanders, operating as someone who can sit on the practice squad and be elevated or temporarily signed to the active roster when the Jets are a man down. Smart played this role for three years and was more inconsistent than Hector has been in the same role over the past few years.

Hector was in on three run stops near or behind the line of scrimmage in Sunday's game, including two on back-to-back plays. Here was the first, which saw him beat a block to free himself up to blow it up in the backfield:

The other saw him maintain outside leverage so he could prevent the run from getting upfield and then getting in on the tackle as the runner was bottled up.

Hector, who has also played on the edge in the past, has bulked up nicely to become a solid rotational interior option against the run.

On the face of things, he doesn't offer anything in the pass rush as his last pressure in a regular season game was all the way back in 2019. He's rushed the passer 89 times with no pressures since then. However, he did show some flashes as a pass rusher in preseason action in the past few years, including one multi-sack game, so he may have unrealized potential in that area too.

Hector will most likely get offered a futures deal after the season, if he's not signed to the active roster this week on a deal that extends through 2025 anyway. He could opt not to sign, though, if he feels like he's put enough on tape for someone else to take a flyer on him. He is 30 now, though, so his options may be limited.

Setting the Tone

Tony Adams became a big story when he was benched for seemingly no reason about a month ago, with reports indicating that this was Woody Johnson's decision, perhaps based on intel that his son read on a website that produces most of their analysis based on someone else's data.

He's gradually worked his way back into the rotation and was back in a full-time role on Sunday, although it took injuries to Jalen Mills and Deuce Carter for this to happen. Chuck Clark is now also on injured reserve so Adams will start on Sunday.

In Sunday's game, Adams gave up a couple of first downs on dump-off passes and got called for illegal contact, but he was in position on one incompletion and did a solid job against the run with this run stop among his four tackles on the day.

One possible reason for Adams' benching was the fact that he missed three tackles in the loss to Arizona - a game where the team had 20 missed tackles with multiple culprits. In addition, if that was the reason, it was based on a complete outlier because Adams has only missed one other tackle in the past nine games.

Adams also made a key special teams tackle, potentially saving a tackle, when Ty Johnson broke a long return to midfield. He did get dragged for about 10 extra yards before bringing him down though.

Although he was a nice undrafted free agent signing, Adams is now a restricted free agent and the Jets may be reluctant to bring him back if ownership still believes (arguably incorrectly) that he's a big part of the problem.

Given what happened with the benching, Adams might not be too keen to re-sign here anyway.

Oliver but the shouting

Isaiah Oliver has had an interesting season. He was largely considered an afterthought when he was signed during the offseason and even in training camp, where the Jets announced he was moving from cornerback to safety, presumably to open up playing time opportunities for youngsters Jarrick Bernard-Converse and Qwan'tez Stiggers.

With the season now almost complete, Oliver has actually played over 500 snaps; the fifth highest snap count in the secondary. He's played both safety and cornerback with Bernard-Converse and Stiggers hardly having played and both healthy scratches on Sunday.

On Sunday's game, Oliver had three tackles and a couple of pressures as a pass rusher. He was also credited with a pass defensed, although that didn't come in coverage - it was actually from disrupting Josh Allen's release on this blitz.

Oliver's coverage numbers in this game were not very good because he was deemed to have been targeted on a couple of screen passes that went for good gains, including Tyrell Shavers' long touchdown on which he was blocked off on the outside.

He also gave up this first down as he gave Mack Hollins too much room in zone coverage to enable him to break over the middle for the catch.

On the whole, Oliver has been extremely reliable but he did just sign a one-year deal and probably got more opportunities than he otherwise would have got because of the trust in him Jeff Ulbrich has having previously coached him in Atlanta. Nevertheless, he's shown to be a valuable rotational piece who could be a valuable pickup for someone next year and with Ulbrich presumably on his way out, there's not much reason to believe that the Jets would have the inside track.

Three-on-O will follow tomorrow.