Since we have reached the one-quarter mark of the Jets' season, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of Gang Green's passing metrics up to this point.
These metrics are derived from game tape breakdowns I do using a system that has been developed over the past seven years. The specifics of this system are too detailed to review in a forum of this nature, but the general overview is that it designed to segment individual player performance in a wide variety of areas.
For today's review we will be looking at cornerbacks. Each player is listed below along with the number of times he has been targeted (i.e. the number of passes thrown at the cornerback, including penalty plays), how many incompletions/interceptions/offensive pass interference (OPI) penalties occurred, the success rate (defined as incompletions/interceptions/OPI penalties divided by targets), yards allowed (both from completions and penalties) and yards per pass attempt (YPA).
Kyle Wilson -- 28 targets, 11 I/I/OPI, 39.3% success rate, 258 yards, 9.2 YPA
Darrelle Revis -- 8 targets, 6 I/I/OPI, 75.0% success rate, 38 yards, 4.8 YPA
Dwight Lowery -- 7 targets, 2 I/I/OPI, 28.6% success rate, 104 yards, 14.9 YPA
Antonio Cromartie -- 38 targets, 19 I/I/OPI, 50.0% success rate, 275 yards, 7.2 YPA
Drew Coleman -- 5 targets, 4 I/I/OPI, 80.0% success rate, 17 yards, 3.4 YPA
To put some of these totals into perspective, consider the following rules of thumb for the success rate and YPA categories:
Success rate -- A season-ending mark of 50% is very good, 40% is solid and anything below that is considered subpar
YPA - A season-ending YPA below the 7.0 mark would normally rank a cornerback in the top 1/3 of the league. A YPA mark of 7-9 yards would rank in the middle 1/3 of the league. Anything higher than 9 YPA will typically rank in the bottom 1/3 of the league.
It usually takes at least 25-30 targets to end up as a qualifier at year's end, so Coleman and Lowery's target figures are probably too low to read much into.
It might seem hard to accentuate the positive for Wilson, but his 39.3% success rate actually isn't that bad. If he could move that up by a few points while getting his YPA down by a couple of yards, his coverage totals would be adequate.
Cromartie's 38 targets are an incredibly high number. To get an idea of just how high, consider that there are normally only 1-2 cornerbacks that end up being targeted 100 or more times in a season. Cromartie is currently on pace to be thrown at 152 times this year, so getting Revis back will not only help the overall coverage prowess -- it will also keep Cromartie from wearing out due to the overwhelming target volume.
It is also notable that Cromartie is holding up YPA-wise. His YPA history has generally been in the 6-8 YPA range and his 7.2 mark this year indicates that hasn't changed. He truly is the glue that is holding this coverage unit together right now.