Chicago Bears Week 8: Attack Jets in the slot

The New York Jets have been susceptible in the slot this season. The Chicago Bears need to continue to expose that matchup

The New York Jets defense has been a slightly above average bunch so far this season. However, they have had one major issue. The slot. All year the New York Jets have got torched over the middle of the field regardless of who it is.

The team started with Buster Skrine in the slot. He saw Golden Tate in Week One, and it did not go his way. Tate finished the seven receptions for 79 yards and a touchdown.

Danny Amendola only had four receptions for 32 yards, but they all came against Skrine.

In Week Three, Skrine left the game after just 15 snaps. This led to Jarvis Landry matching up against a rookie sixth-round pick in Parry Nickerson. You can see the damage done here.

The Cleveland Browns relentlessly picked on this matchup.

Buster Skrine came back the very next week against the Jacksonville Jaguars. However, it was quite apparent that Skrine was not ready for the NFL field. Dede Westbrook made that quite evident as you can see, Westbrook consistently worked Skrine with crossing routes.

Skrine played 15 snaps the next week against Denver, where Emmanuel Sanders began his nine catch, 72-yard performance.  Nickerson finished the game but did not play well either as Sanders and Demaryius Thomas beat him from the slot.

Even Chester Rogers caught a touchdown from the slot. Rogers has two touchdowns over three years and 117 targets. One of those is against Parry Nickerson.

Of course, against the Minnesota Vikings, the game plan was simple. Line Adam Thielen up in the slot and reap the benefits. Thielen did just that catching nine balls for 110 yards and a touchdown.

Buster Skrine tried to practice last week and was close to being a game-time decision. Still, the quant edge shows that Buster Skrine loss has not even shown a discrepancy in their passing stats.

They give up a successful pass play 52% of the time with Skrine in and just 50% of the time without him. With Skrine, the Jets allow an explosive pass 17.3% of the time and 17.2% of the time without him.

They allow 7.77 yards per attempt with Skrine in and 7.36 without him. Whether they get Skrine back or not, they are getting torched in the slot.

Pick your poison

One thing that has been nice about Matt Nagy is that he has been able to move his receivers around a lot. Allen Robinson has run 33.9% of his routes from the slot. Taylor Gabriel has run 37% of his routes from the slot. Anthony Miller has 75% of his routes from there but is only playing 48% of the snaps.

The fact of the matter is that they can choose which receivers get a shot at Parry Nickerson. They can use motion to isolate these specific receivers against him and relentlessly attack this position.

Whether it be Nickerson or Buster Skrine, the Jets are getting torched in the slot. The Bears have a good chance to get the confidence of Trubisky going against what looks to be a mismatch for the offense.