Week 5 Defensive Analysis from an Inexperienced Film Analyzer

For today’s article I strictly analyzed each play off of the youtube highlights, which was about 15 minutes of the entire game. I know that my sample size was not very large, but I will tell you in detail what I noticed from every player while watching.

*Side note before we hop into this: If you have a link or way I can access the entire game please email us at buffalosportschatter1@gmail.com or DM us on twitter @ChatterBuffalo *

So, I had a little grading system for each type of position. For the defensive lineman, I gave them 1 point per pressure and took away a point for each time they broke contain or was just man-handled by the offensive lineman (no points lost if double teamed). For anyone in coverage, I gave them a point if I noticed they were in tight coverage on their man and took away a point per time they got burned on the route, and when it was zone, I analyzed how well they covered that zone. I’m just going to give a very brief description of what I noticed from each player. Now, let’s hop into it.

Jerry Hughes: -1

Jerry started off the game very well. He was getting pressure consistently but started to slow down as the game went on. He started breaking contains, allowing Tannehill to scramble and have nobody around him, which he took advantage of many times, including the rushing touchdown at the end of the first half. Jerry was also being dominated towards the end of the game, not being able to get any pressure and not getting through the line once.

Harrison Phillips: +1

Harrison did not play much last game, or at least in the youtube highlight version, but he played relatively well. Shockingly enough, this was probably his best game all season. He got two very solid pressures on Tannehill, one of which forced him to throw the ball away. Not much more to say on Harry besides the fact that he stepped up his game, just didn’t play enough for everyone to notice.

Mario Addison: +2

Mario Addison has been one of the very few consistently great players on our defensive line. He’s been the only guy who can generate pressure throughout the entire game. He got chop blocked a lot, which took him out of plays, and he never really was motivated to get up quickly from them, he pretty much took his time getting up from it. He never broke contains and he was rarely manhandled by the OL in 1 on 1s. He has been far and away our best DL all season, and once we play against a QB that takes more time to get the ball out, he’ll have a huge week.

Quinton Jefferson: +1

Jefferson was playing very poor in the first 3 weeks of the season. He pretty much looked lost out there. However, last week vs Vegas was his turnaround game, in which he generated pressure on a consistent basis and forced a fumble on a strip sack. He did not cool down this game. He was the DT I saw this week generating the most pressure. The roughing the passer call definitely hurt a lot (I took -2 for how much of a negative impact that made), and he also had another penalty at the line (offsides or neutral zone infraction cannot remember which one), so that was another -1, but he got a lot of pressure in his snaps this week, and I expect him to do that moving forward. He should see an increase in playing time.

Vernon Butler: -4

Where do I even begin? This was one of THE MOST pathetic performances from a defensive tackle in my life. They started off double teaming him, which I can’t blame him for not being able to do anything there. Then, the Titans realized their efforts were better off spent doubling someone else, which left him in 1 on 1 scenarios with one of their IOL. He was just getting absolutely dominated all game. He would try and bull rush his matchup, then that wouldn’t work so he would try to literally just speed rush around them after that, to which the O-lineman would catch up with him every time. Then, once he actually got his hands on the O-lineman again, the ball would already be out. I haven’t been watching Vernon the other weeks, but this definitely makes me want to look and see if this was a fluke game or if this was actually how he’s been playing all year because if it is, we should totally cut him and bring Zimmer up from the practice squad or sign Damon “Snacks” Harrison off the Seahawks practice squad.

Trent Murphy: -1

There’s not much to say about Trent from last game. He got a few pressures and also broke contains a lot, allowing Tannehill to scramble for an easy gain or scramble out and have a lot of time to find the open man. Inconsistency is his big thing, as it is with most of our DL.

Ed Oliver: +1

Ed Oliver has been good but not great every week so far this year. He hasn’t made that year 2 jump that everyone was expecting him to. He’s been getting pressure, but he hasn’t really disrupted the QB. He’s been serviceable in run defense. Basically, the perfect summary of Ed is good, not great.

AJ Epenesa: -1

Epenesa has been streaky as well, but that is expected for a rookie. Not every rookie DE comes straight onto the scene, like Josh Allen of the Jaguars, Khalil Mack, or the Watt and Bosa brothers, and that’s okay. That being said though, he has not been playing very well. He had that one great tackle on Henry in the backfield, and he had a solid pressure, but other than that, he did not do much. Joe Buscaglia of The Athletic said he was making a case for himself being inactive, which I think is a bit of a reach, but he does need to step up if game, and if he doesn’t, he could lose a significant amount of snaps.

Darryl Johnson: +1

Not to sound like Chris Collinsworth, but here’s a guy who is criminally underutilized. Darryl Johnson has been phenomenal in his very limited number of snaps. He got 9 snaps vs Vegas last week and had two very solid pressures. This week was no different. He didn’t see a lot of snaps, but he made the most of them. He should see an increase in snaps next week, maybe get AJ Epenesa’s workload and see if he flourishes, and if he does, give him the starting role alongside Addison because Jerry Hughes is better in limited snaps, as, likely due to his age, he slows down significantly throughout the course of the game.

Tremaine Edmunds: 0

There was a lot of good and a lot of bad from Edmunds last week. One thing I see people saying is that he has been terrible in coverage, which is an over-exaggeration. He was not bad at all in coverage last week with the exception of a couple plays. One main thing I did notice was his missed tackles or assignments. He had a few straight up whiffs on Derrick Henry where he could’ve had him for a loss or modest gain and it turned out to be more. Also, on Tannehill’s big run towards the end of the game, he was assigned as a spy, and he started to creep up slowly and Tannehill started to notice it, so he took advantage of it and faked him out like he was going to scramble one way and went the other, which Edmunds started to trip up over then Tannehill beat him to the sideline and took off from there for a big gain.

Tyrel Dodson: +3

Dodson last week was average in pass coverage, but he was unbelievable on the plays where he was assigned to pass-rush. He created pressure almost every time he did and almost batted a couple balls down. He really surprised me with that and he looked like a dominant pass rusher last week. It was honestly incredible. There’s not much else to say besides wow.

AJ Klein: -1

I’m still baffled at the fact that we gave this guy a 3 year 18 million dollar contract. What a waste of money. He’s not terribly bad, but he’s pretty damn bad at football. Probably the worst LB I’ve watched step foot on the field for us on a consistent basis. The fact that when Milano is healthy and he gets snaps over Dodson blows my mind. Hopefully this game can change McDermott and Frazier’s minds. Ugh.

Josh Norman: -1

He played better than most people thought. He was on AJ Brown tight pretty frequently. There were also plays where he was lost. Those are the only ones most fans notice. Oh…and the stiff arm that I’ve seen trending on twitter for a full three days now, which is a rarity for something to be trending that long. Anyways, he wasn’t terrible, but it was not his best game. He got burned a few times, had a couple PI penalties, but he’s getting older now and definitely is not capable of being a CB1 anymore. He should be back to playing well once he gets back to his CB2 role.

Taron Johnson: +1

Taron is the streakiest player on our entire team. He could look like an All-Pro CB for a few plays then look like an XFL player for another few plays. He had a lot of pluses and minuses this week, so it was no different.

Cam Lewis: +3

Cam Lewis was easily our best player in the secondary last night. Easily. He had a great game and stayed tight on his receiver all game or stayed in the perfect spot in his zone. He gave up one big catch, but he was just about a half of a step behind his guy. He was incredible.

Micah Hyde: -2

Micah looked lost. He abandoned his zone countless times, failed to step up when a ball was thrown underneath him and over the top of a LB. He looked lost in the first half (Maybe it’s due to no sleep due to the baby lol), but anyways it was not the Micah we’re used to seeing over the past 3 and a quarter years as bills fans.

Jordan Poyer: 0

This was not the Poyer we’ve seen either. His girlfriend did tweet out that he had a groin injury, which would make sense as to why he was unnoticeable, but there was nothing on the injury report for him this week so I’m a bit skeptical of that. Usually, we see Poyer all over the field making incredible play after incredible play, which is how he earned his big extension this offseason. However, last week he was invisible. Not a lot of good, not a lot of bad, which isn’t the worst thing as a safety, but he’s definitely had his better games

Dean Marlowe: +2

We used Marlowe a lot more than we typically do this week and he made some impact plays. He did give up that TD, but Tannehill got rid of that ball so quickly I don’t even think I can fault him for that. He had a couple solid plays, one of which being a great pressure on Tannehill on a blitz playcall where he smoked Jonnu Smith.

-Dave (co-founder of Buffalo Sports Chatter)