Three on O: Hall, Fashanu, Ruckert

After each game, we'll be highlighting three defensive and three offensive players and looking in detail at their performance. We'll wrap up today with the offense:

Breece and Desist

Breece Hall had another productive outing as he racked up 121 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns, on an 18-yard run to the pylon and this catch and run for 29 yards:

Hall ran the ball well, averaging just under five yards per carry. Although only a five-yard gain, this might have been one of his best reps.

Perhaps more interesting to discuss than his performance in Sunday's game is the reversal of a trend from last year.

In 2023, it was evident that the Jets' success was largely tied to whether or not Hall was productive. He averaged 148 yards from scrimmage in their seven wins and only 52 in their 10 losses. They were 7-1 if he had over 85 yards from scrimmage and 0-9 if he didn't.

The lone exception to that 85-yard rule was their final loss of the season in Cleveland where he had 93 yards from scrimmage in a game where the defense gave up 37 points.

2022 was similar. The Jets were 5-2 when he got injured, with him having averaged 106 yards from scrimmage in the five wins and only 76 in the two losses. And of course they went 2-8 without him to end the season. At least they did find a way to win a couple of games when he had less than 85 yards from scrimmage that year though.

Now, let's turn to this year. In 2024, he's averaging 94 yards from scrimmage per game in wins and ... 94 yards in losses. The correlation between Hall's success and wins has gone, as they are 1-5 when he has more than 85 yards from scrimmage and 2-3 when he doesn't.

In a way, this could be viewed as a good thing because it means your success or otherwise isn't tied so closely to one player. However, the reality is that the defense has regressed so far that now Hall producing well isn't enough to get a win on its own.

It's clear Hall is a talented player. How valuable he is and how the Jets should approach his extension negotiation in a year or two is still up in the air though...especially if it comes in the middle of a rebuild.

Olu starts anew

It was always going to be intriguing to see how Olu Fashanu would fare at his more natural left tackle position and he did a decent job there.

While Fashanu gave up a sack to Laiatu Latu, he actually had him blocked before losing leverage and letting him get around him on the outside. Had Aaron Rodgers pulled the trigger on his first option, there wouldn't have even been a pressure. And, in fact, Rodgers still had time to check it down to Hall but instead tried to step up and escape the pocket to extend the play, which was when Latu was able to bring him down.

There was one play late in the game where Latu got around Fashanu again on a similar move. However, it was pressure from the other side that got to him first as Rodgers tried to lateral the ball.

Otherwise, Fashanu wasn't really troubled. Here's one of his best pass protection reps where he benefits from a Tyler Conklin chip to completely control his man and give Rodgers plenty of extra time to find someone on 3rd-and-long.

In the running game, Fashanu didn't have a major impact (and was called for a costly late holding call as he climbed to the second level on the outside), but the line as a unit was functional, he limited any negatives and did have a few good blocks including this kick-out.

This was encouraging stuff from Fashanu and, now that the Jets are truly out of it, there's no reason why he shouldn't remain at left tackle for the rest of the season, even if Tyron Smith can return.

Drop the Ruck

Jeremy Ruckert is one player who was widely expected to play a bigger role this year. However, that hasn't really worked out.

Ruckert averaged 21 snaps per game last year and that has only increased to 22 in 2024. He was only in the game for 15 snaps on Sunday so that's showing no obvious signs of increasing, despite the fact that Conklin hasn't been productive recently (only one game with more than 10 receiving yards since Robert Saleh was fired and the playcaller changed).

Ruckert will probably end up with more catches than the 16 he had last year - he has 13 right now. However, he's generated just 73 yards on those catches, which is less than six yards per catch and is yet to achieve 20 yards in a game this year.

On Sunday, he had one catch for a third down conversion in traffic:

Of course, he also should have had a first down catch on the Jets' first possession when Rodgers threw him a screen and he inexplicably dropped it with nobody around him. That looked like an easy 10 yards, if not more, and came right in the middle of the Jets' three 3-and-outs in a row to start the game. At least it was a drop and not a fumble for a touchdown as the officials initially ruled - that would have been catastrophic.

As a blocker, Ruckert was expected to have a positive impact with an increased workload but that hasn't really happened either. He's grading out poorly as he's too inconsistent and doesn't make many impact blocks within that role.

On Sunday he did a good job on a couple of runs but they only went for a short gain and he otherwise struggled to sustain blocks to the whistle.

Ruckert has been a very disappointing third round pick. If anything, maybe they should give up on him and try to give Kenny Yeboah a bigger role. Or even give Zack Kuntz another chance.

Previously: Three on D: Gardner, Taylor, Watts