Three on O: Tomlinson, Seferian-Jenkins, Anderson
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 offense:
Robby Burns
Sunday was a huge game for Robby Anderson who had the first 100-yard game of his career and his third touchdown of the season. Midway through the season, he leads the team with 435 yards and, if he can stay healthy and have a few more games like Sunday's performance, he might have a shot at a thousand-yard season.
Anderson's most spectacular moment was his diving over-the-shoulder catch for a 32-yard gain that would have been a tough play even in dry conditions. However, the play that will really get people's attention was his touchdown. Excellent technique at the line and outstanding acceleration over the first five yards lead him to easily beat Desmond Trufant for the simple pitch-and-catch touchdown:
Trufant is no slouch. The former pro bowler is currently under contract for almost $14 million per season and seeing Anderson produce against players of this caliber is exciting to say the least.
Anderson also picked up 24 yards on a short dump-off which is good to see because he hasn't been generating many yards after the catch. If they can hit him in stride more often, he will be able to build on his eight 20+ yard plays which is more than twice as many as anyone else on the team.
Another good sign is that Anderson, whose catch rate for the season has been hovering at around 50 percent, caught all six of his targets.
In addition to his 104 receiving yards, Anderson also earned the Jets 20 more when he beat his man to draw a pass interference penalty. However, he was unable to get around the edge on an end around on second and short. That's about the only thing he didn't do right though. Let's see if he can build on this.
Eric Cool Man
Aside from Anderson, it was also a memorable day for Eric Tomlinson, who scored his first NFL touchdown to open the scoring. This was basically a blown coverage, but Tomlinson benefits from the fact that he's such a good blocker that defensive players are geared up to deal with that.
He didn't get many chances to show off his blocking on Sunday, but he was the one who made it happen on the first play of the day, driving his man well off the line to enable Bilal Powell to run untouched around the outside:
Curiously, the Jets opted not to run outside very much with Anderson's end-around being the only run outside the hashmarks on the right side.
Tomlinson also hasn't given up any pressure as a pass blocker so far this year, but he didn't make his block cleanly on a rare power play as both he and Brian Winters pulled to the left.
He also had some contributions on special teams this week with one good block, one missed block and a missed tackle in coverage as he overpursued on the negated touchdown return.
Austin T.E. Party
Austin Seferian-Jenkins caught five passes on five targets this week but it wasn't a very good game for him on the whole.
None of his first four catches went for more than five yards or picked up a first down. He finally got a first down right at the end of the game, but then wasn't set as the Jets tried to spike the ball, ending the game:
Right before that catch, there was a blown coverage where he was wide open going over the middle. Josh McCown passed it to Matt Forté in the flat instead and he barely got out of bounds. It looked like Seferian-Jenkins could have picked up more yardage and still got out of bounds with about the same amount of time on the clock.
There was one unsuccessful throw to Seferian-Jenkins, as he was called for offensive pass interference as he made a downfield attempt to bring in a wayward throw. The call seemed harsh and effectively forced the Jets' drive to stall with five minutes left.
Seferian-Jenkins didn't achieve much as a blocker either. On Powell's run in the gif above, he allowed penetration, forcing Powell to take a slightly wider route around the edge, for example.
So far this season, Seferian-Jenkins is averaging over five catches per game. He's received 6.5 targets per game, but also only averaged 6.5 yards per catch with just one 20+ yard catch. As good as he's been, it would be nice to see him used as more than just a safety valve as the season progresses.
PREVIOUSLY: Three on D: Nelson, Wilkerson, Roberts