The New York Jets are putting on their pads during practice to address their tackling problems.
Interim coach Jeff Ulbrich said the players will wear pads for individual drills on Wednesday and again on Thursday for the entire practice. This comes after the Jets missed 20 tackles, according to Next Gen Stats, in their 31-6 loss to Arizona last Sunday.
“Like, if there’s 15 minutes in (individual drills), it’s going to be 14 1/2 minutes of tackling,” Ulbrich said. “We’re going to get back to fundamentals and basics.”
Ulbrich, who called the Jets’ missed tackles “an egregious, criminal amount” on Monday, gave a tackling presentation for the entire team on Wednesday morning. This wasn’t just for the defense; the whole team attended as they prepare to face Indianapolis at home on Sunday.
“So everybody knows exactly what we’re doing, how we’re attacking it, how we’re going to get it fixed,” Ulbrich said.
Missed tackles have been a major issue for the defense this season, often allowing opponents to gain extra yards and extend drives. This has contributed to New York’s disappointing 3-7 record.
“We know how to tackle,” said cornerback Sauce Gardner, who missed a key tackle against Arizona. “We’ve got to make the tackles. That’s really it. We’ve been doing it. It’s simple. We really don’t need any presentation.
I know where he was coming from when he did it, but us as professional athletes, we’ve got to be able to make tackles, me included, for sure.”
The Cardinals had three straight 70-yard touchdown drives to start the game against the Jets, and there were missed opportunities to stop them during each one.
“I mean, tackling’s one of the basic fundamentals of this game,” said defensive lineman Solomon Thomas. “No matter your position or your technique, especially on defense, you have to know how to tackle and how to tackle well, and correctly. There’s a science to it, just like anything else in football.”
Ulbrich, a former NFL linebacker and special teams player, said on Monday that many players come out of college without fully understanding what’s needed to be an effective tackler. He mentioned that there is a lack of understanding of leverage, players often leave their feet too soon, and they don’t always commit to wrapping up ball carriers.
He also said each player has their own tackling style, often based on their physical attributes, so there are individual plans to improve each player’s technique.
However, the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement limits teams to only 14 padded practices during the regular season, with 11 in the first 11 weeks and just three in the final six weeks.
“It may be a little bit more challenging from the standpoint that you’re just not able to have pads on as often and really simulate the physicality of tackling,” Ulbrich said Wednesday.
“But you can still work on trapping, you can work on wrapping, you can work on targeting and the strike zone, where we tackle. All the fundamentals that we speak on on a daily basis, we can still work on all of that.”
“That is something we can improve and we will improve.” But Ulbrich also pointed out the challenge of keeping players safe from injury during practice.
“It’s hard and we try our best where we give our guys opportunities to simulate as close as we can to full-speed tackling, but at the same time, there’s a safety element that’s real,” Ulbrich said.
“When you start going to the ground, especially at practice, that could become a problem because you could lose a lot of people — both the people getting tackled and the people doing the tackling.”
“It is finding a balance and we’ve got to continue to try to find the best balance of that.”
