Three on D: Luvu, Shepherd, Roberts

After each game, we're going to highlight three defensive and three offensive players and look in detail at their performance. We'll start today with the defense:

Guess how much I Luvu

One adjustment the Jets made was to give rookie outside linebacker Frankie Luvu a lot of extra work. Luvu played almost 50 snaps having entered the game averaging just 25.5 snaps in his first eight appearances.

Luvu was officially credited with three tackles and one quarterback hit. He also added one pressure. Luvu blew past replacement tackle LaAdrian Waddle for this hit on Tom Brady, but the pass was completed for a first down anyway:

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Two of Luvu's tackles saw him get on the assist near the line of scrimmage - one on a run stuff where he set the edge and the other on a crossing route where he dropped into coverage.

However, there were also some negatives from the rookie, including a couple of missed tackles, one of which led to a big run. He was also blocked out of a few plays including one other big run.

Luvu also flashed for the first time on special teams, throwing a good block on Andre Roberts' best return of the day.

You can expect the Jets to continue to take a long look at Luvu and players like him, but he's probably at least a year away from developing into a potential starter. He has a good chance to establish himself as a low-cost high-energy rotational guy for next year's team though.

Roberts does the safety dance

The Jets pulled a fast one on everyone by putting Darryl Roberts in as the free safety with Marcus Maye out. The assumption had been that Rontez Miles or Terrence Brooks would start, but they ended up playing just three defensive snaps between them.

Roberts was playing deep over 80 percent of the time and only one of his eight tackles came within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. He also wasn't really employed directly in coverage, simply ranging deep so he didn't get targeted in the passing game.

It's difficult to point to any obvious negatives that Roberts had, although the fact he was making his first start there can't have helped the communication in the defensive backfield, which was a problem all game.

Earlier in this season, Roberts was guilty of some sloppy tackling but he has been a lot more consistent over the past few games. (Four missed tackles in his first six games, none in the last four). Roberts was in on the tackle on four of the plays that went for over 20 yards, so those plays could have been much bigger gains if he missed the tackle as the last line of defense. He upended Julian Edelman nicely on this hit:

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Now that the top three cornerbacks are healthy, Roberts isn't going to get any regular playing time unless there's an injury. Trying him in other roles therefore makes sense and Roberts seems to have the range and ball skills to handle the deep role. Whether he could improve upon his positioning and anticipation in that role remains to be seen. That's assuming that this experiment wasn't a one-off.

Nate expectations

Nathan Shepherd made a couple of plays in this game, moving well laterally to make a goal line stop and coming up with this hit on Tom Brady on the first drive:

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On the play, Shepherd uses his hands well to prevent Marcus Cannon from getting a grip on him and leverages his way around him for a knockdown.

Aside from those two plays and some penetration here and there, it was a quiet game for Shepherd, whose illegal hands to the face penalty gave the Patriots a first down in the second quarter.

Shepherd was blocked out of a few running plays, including one where he was driven off the line by Trent Brown and Sony Michel cut back for 31 yards. However, it would be difficult to place too much blame on Shepherd for the Jets struggles in the running game as he wasn't even on the field for their other three runs of more than 20 yards. In all, they gained just 11 yards on the other 10 carries with Shepherd in the game, although there was also a 16-yard run called back due to a penalty.

Shepherd's having some ups and downs in his rookie year but his overall impact seems positive and the team should feel good about him being a contributor next year.

We'll be back with the 3-on-O tomorrow.