Lost in all of the anger and frustration among Jets fans following the team’s loss to the Cleveland Browns last Thursday was the fact that with their five sacks of Tyrod Taylor, the team has tallied eight sacks through three games, a pace that would put them at just over 40 on the year. This, after picking up just 28 all of last season.
We pointed out the need for Jets head coach Todd Bowels to find a way to get to the quarterback this season, with one of those ways being the use of safety Jamal Adams as an edge rusher. We’ve seen some of that early on from Adams, and if the early results are any indication of the impact Adams can have, the Jets would be foolish not to use the former sixth overall pick off the edge more often.
On film, Adams comes around the corner with the speed and quickness of an elite edge rusher and the numbers bear that out. According to pro football focus, Adams has been asked to get after the quarterback on 14 pass plays thus far. On those 14 snaps, Adams has 2 quarterback hurries, two quarterback hits and a sack. Basically, Adams is affecting the quarterback 33 % of the time when used as a blitzer, earning himself a grade of 93.2 from PFF.
You wouldn’t really need PFF to tell you that either if you watch Adams, but with five safeties on the roster, will Todd Bowles take advantage of Adams’ presence by deploying him as a rusher in obvious passing situations while allowing Marcus Maye, Doug Middleton, JJ Wilcox and Terrence Brooks to man the safety positions? If he does, it would go a long way in filling a gaping hole on the defense that has existed since the departure of John Abraham over ten years ago.