Jets Passing Offense Film Review – Week 10 (Rams) Petty Crimes

Bryce Petty made his debut for the Jets, and led them to a grand six points.  While he had some good throws, there were a fair share of terrible throws from Petty as well.  Let’s examine some of these bad throws:

Petty Crime:

1) 

This is a 2nd and 6 play in the second quarter, with the Rams operating in a single high safety look.  On the pre-snap look, the receivers to the right side of the formation is playing well off the line, indicating that there is a good chance of Marshall being open on the comeback route.  Since, this is a single high safety look, it’s usually the case that the defender doesn’t take an aggressive reaction to curl routes because they have to protect over the top.  However, the Rams’ CB makes a great read on this play, and he’s running towards Marshall even before Petty throws this pass.  This is just a horrible pass by Petty, and comes right from the Ryan Fitzpatrick school of predetermined throws based on pre-snap reads.  The pre-snap read indicated that Marshall should be open, and when Petty decides to throw this pass, Marshall was still slated to be open.  However, the defender has this pass perfectly read and makes a great run at the ball, which is lucky it wasn’t intercepted.  This type of play is one of the biggest reasons why the Jets need to take more shots down the field, because teams have to respect receivers running down the field.

2) 

A 2nd and 8 play late in the second quarter, with the Rams in a single high safety look.  The pre-snap read indicates that the defender playing Enunwa in the slot is the furthest back and has the best chance to be open on this play.  The big problem here is the risk aversion from Petty because he’s looking at Enunwa on the play, but he’s not quite as open as he expected.  This is one of the biggest issues with transitioning from a spread system to a pro system, because QBs are trained to go for receivers that are open by at least a couple of yards.  Enunwa had the inside position on this play down the middle, so Petty should have taken the shot here.  However, Petty pump fakes, and then resets, trying to hit Robby Anderson running the underneath route, but gets sacked before he could restart the throwing motion.  The ability to take more risks, especially in such cases, is going to go a long way in determining if Petty is going to be a starter in this league.  He had the pre-snap read right, but the receiver wasn’t as open as he expected, but he has to take the shot because his guy still had the inside option.  On the other hand, we have been harping on Fitzpatrick for his lack of progressions, and in this case, Petty was going to his second read when he got sacked, thus part of the blame has to go on the offensive line.

3) 

This is of course the most famous missed throw of the game, with Petty missing a wide open Robby Anderson on this play.   The pre-snap recognition on this play is great, because Petty notices that the defender on Anderson is playing off the line.  However, the defender runs back towards the safety spot, which indicates that Anderson has a free release and should be wide open.  Petty aces this test, right up until this point.  Then he completely flushes it down the toilet with a horrible throw.  Robby Anderson is wide open for the pass, but Petty tries to lead him too much to hit him in stride, but Anderson slows down a bit, and Petty throws it high and ahead of him.  This is a great play design by Chan Gailey as well, so it’s a shame that it fails.  The whole key of this play is the corner back playing Robby Anderson.  If the defender stays on Anderson, then Jalin Marshall in the slot next to Anderson has a shot to be open down the middle with no safety help.  When the defender on Anderson runs back to play safety, the defender crossing over from Jalin Marshall is too far away, leaving Anderson wide open.  If in any case, the middle safety comes over to this side, the Jets have a deep route on the other side of the field.  This play design is built to be an absolute monster of a play, but Petty’s bad throw makes it all for not.  Once again, Petty shows good awareness on the field, noticing the late movement and coverage, but just a terrible throw.

4) 

Another play late in the 2nd quarter with the Rams playing single high safety again.  This one is hard to call because all the evidence suggests a miscommunication.  The read on this play is Robby Anderson, with his defender backing up as Anderson is starting his route.  Petty correctly deducts that Anderson should be open on this play, but he expects Anderson to move towards the middle of the field, instead of running the out route.  Petty begins his throwing motion assuming Anderson is about to turn towards the middle of the field, and correctly seeing that he’d be wide open.  However,  Anderson turns outside, and Petty tries his hardest to hold back the throw, but fails and throws it to the ground.  Most likely, this was a misunderstanding on the part of Petty because the tiered route from Enunwa and Anderson is something that’s seen fairly often from Chan Gailey, so it’s more likely that Petty was the one who didn’t know the route tree on this play.  This is one reason why the Jets need to declare him a starter early, and let him get some much needed practice time so he can gel with the receivers.

5) 

On this play, Bryce Petty tries too hard to hold the safety with his eyes.  He is eyeing the safety down the middle on this throw, and then tries to make this throw before he even looks at the crossing Enunwa.  He had already begun his throwing motion when he looks over at Enunwa, and just airmails the throw.  This is another case of correct read, but bad throw.  Instead of leading Enunwa, Petty throws this pass high and a bit behind his receiver, and is lucky that there were no defenders directly in the path.  It’s just a bad throw, as Petty was trying too hard to hold the safety and didn’t set himself up correctly before making this throw.  During the draft, you heard much about foot mechanics with Christian Hackenberg.  When it boils down to it, the ball travels to where your lead foot points towards, to state it simply.  In this case, Petty was so enthralled with keeping the safety deep (which prevents the outside CB from dropping down) that he doesn’t set his feet properly for this throw.  This is just a terrible throw, caused by bad mechanics on this throw.  For the correct form, Petty needed to make up his mind a bit early, and then set his foot towards Enunwa.

6) 

This play is why the Rams are an elite defense, as they are in a single high safety look with man coverage across the board and a blitz.  Petty realizes that he doesn’t have much time to make a play here, so he goes with the pre-snap read, which indicated that Anderson may have a chance at gaining inside leverage.  This was the safest option in the pre-snap reads in the face of a blitz, knowing that the middle of the field would be vacated.  However, the defender on Anderson sticks to him like glue and makes a great play on the ball, swatting the ball away.  While there are other options open later on the play, Marshall in the slot and the outside receiver to the left of the formation gains a bit of separation down the field, Petty couldn’t take the chance of that being his first read since it would take too long to develop.  This play happens on a 3rd and short, so Petty correctly goes for the pass to Anderson to get the conversion, but it’s foiled by the defender.  Another reason why the Jets need to take more shots down the field, because as the game goes on, the Rams were hedging their bets on the short passes.

7) 

The Rams are in a two safety look, with the Jets in a four receiver set.   Petty’s first read is Quincy Enunwa on this play because his defender is playing off the receiver.  However, the middle linebacker also drops back into coverage, which throws off Petty.  He quickly looks at Brandon Marshall running down the field, but he’s well covered.  This turn in the progression is unfortunate because Charone Peake runs wide open down the field, but Petty is too busy trying to escape the pocket.  It’s a bad timing for the Jets because Peake becomes open just as Petty decides to run to the left of the formation.  Petty then makes a bad throw while running to the left, and throws the ball to the turf.  This is a tough throw for a right handed QB, because his momentum and body positioning is away from his desired target, so almost all QBs have trouble with these types of throws.  Only a handful of QBs can make this kind of throws on a consistent basis.  This was another situation where Petty could have helped himself by running a bit more vertical.

8) 

This is just a bad read by Petty, and a great play by Alec Ogletree for the Rams.  Petty correctly reads the defense on the pre-snap read and looks towards the left of the formation.  From his pre-snap read, he determines that his read is the defender on Enunwa, so when that defender backs up, he figures this is a wide open pass.  Bryce Petty doesn’t see Ogletree at all because he’s locked in on Enunwa, who he figured he would be wide open.  If Ogletree had not run back from the defensive line, this is a great read and pass.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case and this is almost an interception.  Petty has to do a better job at recognizing coverage, and seeing players drop back from the line of scrimmage.

9) 

This play is very similar to an earlier play in this article.  The Jets are driving down the field, and on third down, they need to convert.  The Rams are playing back, so Bryce Petty looks to the left of the formation on this play to start.  However, he shows an inability to make a decision on this pass, which ends up being a deflected pass.  His first and second read from the left side of the formation is covered, which causes Petty to pump fake, and by the time he sees a crossing Robby Anderson, the ball is batted.  The misfortune for the Jets is that Bilal Powell is wide open for a screen pass to the right of the formation, but Petty had made the pre-snap read to read from left to right.  Bryce Petty needed to make a decision on this pass a bit earlier, and move through his progressions faster.  This pass needs to go to Anderson earlier, and hope that he can run for the first down.

10) 

The final throw of the game for Bryce Petty, and it ends in tragedy.  The pre-snap read shows the Rams in a 2 deep safety look, and Petty sees that Enunwa should have had a chance for a catch.  Unfortunately, the ball is placed to the inside of Enunwa, which allows for Alec Ogletree to make a play on the ball, and rip it away from Enunwa.  Replays show that Quincy Enunwa actually caught the ball, but Ogletree just makes a great play on the ball.  Unfortunately, for the Jets, the coverage on Brandon Marshall was deceptive because the defender hedges his bet against a short pass (same as the first play of this article) so Marshall runs right by him.  However, on the pre-snap read, Petty figures out that Enunwa has a better match up, lined up against a linebacker.  It’s just bad ball placement on the ball, and a bad break that it was intercepted away from a receiver that actually made the catch.  Petty has to do a better job with the placement of the ball.

Conclusion:

Bryce Petty made his debut for the Jets, and he did make his fair share of good throws.  However, he did also make some bad reads and then some terrible throws.  The missed TD pass to Robby Anderson was probably the biggest miss of the game for Petty.   Petty seemed much more comfortable in the first half, but the Jets seemed overly committed to running the ball against the Rams.  There were a few occasions where it felt like Petty couldn’t establish a rhythm because he was only allowed to pass on obvious passing downs.  Petty did show a penchant for making good pre-snap reads, so it looks like the pre-snap mental aspect of the game is up to speed with him.  He now needs to improve his progressions during the play, which he can only do with game time.  The Jets need to take more chances with a deep passing game, which they would have to do against the Patriots if they want to stay in the game.  One thing to consider, Ryan Fitzpatrick was hurt last week and may not have been ready to go in the game.  If that was the case, it would explain why he was unwillingly to run during this game.  Petty showed enough promise against a very good defense, but he also showed plenty of flaws.  The Jets need to let him start the rest of the season to find out if he’s a possible starter in the future, or if the Jets need to look elsewhere.  Fitzpatrick isn’t going to be here next year, so there is no point in starting him this year.

Petty Grade:  C

Forum Questions:

A)  How do you feel about Petty’s debut?

B)  What are the areas of the game that needs to be improved?

C)  How would you help Petty assimilate into the game?

Thank you for reading our Film Review series again once again.  With the Jets on a bye-week, we won’t have a Film Review article next week.  

Alvin

I write film reviews for the Tennessee Titans as well as here on JetNation. I'm a realtor in Nashville as my day job (So if you are ever looking to move to the Music City - let me know), but I like to break down film as a hobby. My Titans Website: http://anatomyoftitans.com/

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