KC Joyner provided another scientific analysis on the NY Times, this time of the Jets’ big man in the middle. He studied Kris Jenkins’ efficiency throughout the season, and if his injury impacted his play down the stretch. Make sure to check out the link, too. Joyner follows up on his offensive line article from Friday.

Jenkins was quite deservedly named to the Pro Bowl last year and was a dominant run stuffer for most of the season, but his play did fall off because of a herniated disk in his back.

His metrics offer an interesting view of how the injury affected the Jets’ run D. From Weeks 1-12 (i.e. through the big win at Tennessee), Jenkins faced 62 POA runs in 11 games. He gave up just 153 yards on those plays (2.5 YPA) and won 25.8% of his POA blocks. Those are all tremendous totals for a nose tackle.

Now look at his metrics from Weeks 13-17. Jenkins faced 53 POA run attempts, gave up 189 yards (3.6 YPA) and won 17.0% of those blocks. The YPA and POA success rate aren’t as good as before but they are still solid, so that isn’t the news here.

The notable item is that opposing teams were a lot more willing to try running at Jenkins. He faced an average of 5.6 POA runs in the Jets’ first 11 games and then saw over 10 POA runs per game down the stretch. That wasn’t an anomaly of a couple of games throwing off the total, either, as the minimum number of POA runs he faced in a single game in Weeks 13-17 was nine.

What this says is that the Jenkins injury didn’t hurt the Jets because his play fell off, as his metrics show that he was still a solid NT. The impact it did have was that teams were now willing to run inside much more often. That meant the Jet defense could no longer overplay the edges of the running game, and that limited the unit’s overall effectiveness.

Am I alone in being concerned about Jenkins’ injury? I have two herniated disks that cause me plenty of pain and discomfort, and I’m not a 360-pound NFL player. I can’t begin to imagine what Jenks is going through.

On the football end of this, I like what Joyner is compiling with the stats. But I can’t shake the notion that the drop in productivity was directly related to uninspired coaching and gameplanning. If a new trend was forming and plays were coming directly inside more often, what does that say about Mangini’s inability to adjust?

It makes me even more excited about Ryan and his commitment to creating a devastating defense.

But Jenkins is going to need someone who can spell him and make the transition as seamless as possible. Howard Green was signed to provide that complement, and hopefully he can do it well. Because as we learned often last year, Sione Pouha does not fill the void. When Jenkins was out, the defense felt it.

From thejetsblog.com. Please read the complete article and let us know what you think below.