Three on D: Williams, Davis, Roberts
After each game, we're going to highlight three defensive and three offensive players and look in detail at their performance. We'll wrap up today with the defense:
Leo has rocked, for a long, long time
Muhammad Wilkerson's resurgence received a lot of attention over the last few weeks, but Leonard Williams has really raised his level of play too.
After getting on the board with a half-sack in the Bills game, Williams got his first full sack of the year early in Sunday's game:
However, Williams' play shouldn't be judged on sack numbers. It's more important that he can be more consistently disruptive, both in the running game and the pass rush and that's what we've been seeing from him lately.
In addition to his sack on Sunday, Williams was also credited with three quarterback hits, although one didn't officially count due to a defensive penalty. He also had another pressure, forced the quarterback to step up once by getting upfield and had a play where he almost picked up another clean-up sack but missed the tackle in the pocket. He also made a tackle on Ryan Fitzpatrick to stop him short of the end zone when he tried to step up and run for a two-point conversion in the fourth quarter.
Williams has been racking up the hits over the past few weeks and is now among the league leaders at all positions with only DeForest Buckner having more.
He's also been more consistent against the run lately and he was in on three tackles on runs that went for three yards or less on Sunday. However, he was blocked to the ground once and handled at the point of attack a couple more times.
As noted yesterday, Williams actually played a season-low 70% of the snaps against the Bucs and has been listed with a back injury in recent weeks. He'll probably benefit from the extra week off and could be in good shape to build on his recent improved play after the bye.
Daylight Roberts-y
Darryl Roberts came up big in the first half on Sunday, jumping in front of Chris Godwin for a nice interception. This highlighted an active game for Roberts, who began the game on the bench but ultimately missed just seven snaps due to Morris Claiborne leaving the game.
Roberts led the Jets in tackles with eight and was also credited with a pass defensed as he disrupted a throw to the outside.
In coverage, Roberts gave up three first downs, including two third down conversions, and there was another play where he covered the same receiver as Buster Skrine, leaving DeSean Jackson uncovered for another first down. Here was one of them, as he was too far off Jackson on 3rd-and-long:
However, he also mixed in some good coverage plays, as he was in a good position on another incompletion in addition to his interception and pass defensed and made a tackle short of the marker on third down on another completion and a good tackle in the flat on a wide receiver screen. He was half-beaten on another incompletion that was overthrown, though.
Roberts also came up and made contributions in run support as he was credited with four tackles on running plays, including three stops late in the game. He was blocked to the ground on one run, though, and had a missed tackle.
Roberts also had a costly pass interference penalty to keep the Bucs' touchdown drive alive on 3rd-and-long. Many felt this was a harsh call because Darron Lee clearly tipped the pass, although it's possible Roberts made contact with Jackson before the ball was tipped, in which case the call would have been correct. It probably wasn't clear enough when the contact occurred to overturn the call on replay, although it seemed like a ticky-tack call even without the tip aspect.
Double D Trouble
Demario Davis was second on the team with seven tackles, including two for a loss, and added a quarterback hit, a batted pass at the line and this terrific third-down pass breakup:
Davis also had a pretty consistent game in terms of keeping blockers off him in the running game and was in on three run stuffs. He had two missed tackles, but one of these was in the flat after a dump-off pass and the other was in the pocket.
Despite his consistent performance, Davis was on the wrong end of a key play when he was beaten into the flat by Charles Sims for the decisive touchdown. Davis seemed to get caught peeking into the backfield for half a beat and that was enough that he was unable to recover back to Sims.
Aside from that touchdown and his pass breakup, Davis was only targeted one other time in coverage, on a dump-off to the back for no gain. He mostly continues to be employed as a spy, or in underneath zone, rather than matched up man-to-man and that's probably a big reason why he's having perhaps the best season of his career. However, the Bucs were still able to show you can exploit him in coverage so you can't hide him completely.
PREVIOUSLY: Three on O: Shell, Winters, Hansen