NFL News & Analysis

IND-NYJ grades: Luck dominant against lackluster Jets defense

during their game at MetLife Stadium on December 5, 2016 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Indianapolis Colts 41, New York Jets 10

Here are the highest-graded players and top takeaways from the Colts' win over the Jets on Monday.

Indianapolis Colts

Quarterback grade: Andrew Luck, 92.4

Luck dominant against lackluster Jets defense

Andrew Luck had an outstanding first half hitting 13 of his 15 passes for 193 yards and three TDs, which could have been 4fourif Jack Doyle had not fumbled inches shy of the goal line. He exploited busted coverages early on and his finest throw of the night was a perfectly-placed back shoulder throw to Dwayne Allen for a touchdown that put the Colts up 21 before the half. Luck came out and led three more scoring drives to put his team up 41-3 before he was taken out for backup Scott Tolzien. Luck’s most impressive numbers on the night were his throws under pressure, where he had a 108.3 QB rating on his nine drop backs under pressure.

Top offensive grades:

WR T.Y. Hilton, 83.7
TE Dwayne Allen, 82.6
WR Donte Moncrief 78.3
T Joe Reitz, 77.2
T Anthony Castonzo, 76.8

Hilton and Allen combine to ground the Jets early

T.Y. Hilton was Luck’s most reliable target in the middle parts of the field, catching nine of his 10 targets for 146 yards and moving the ball down the field where Dwayne Allen took over. Allen caught only four passes on the night, but three went for scores, including the well-contested back shoulder throw when draped by Darron Lee. Hilton and Allen’s grades of 83.7 and 82.5 respectively were the next-best grades on the Colts offense, which had no trouble attacking the Jets' defense through the air.

Top defensive grades:

S Mike C. Adams, 87.6
CB Darryl Morris, 84.2
CB Darius Butler, 83.5
LB D’Qwell Jackson, 76.8
ED Trent Cole, 76.7

Colts secondary shuts things down

With only 13 rush attempts the Colts run defense wasn’t challenged, and some might say with the play of the Jets quarterbacks neither was their secondary. The Colts' secondary was targeted 26 (out of the 35 passes) and allowed 10 catches and either intercepted or knocked down seven passes and only allowed 125 yards as they refused to let the Jets have any success on offense.

New York Jets

Quarterback grade: Ryan Fitzpatrick, 40.3; Bryce Petty, 41.8

Neither QB excels against Colts

The Jets managed to play both Ryan Fitzpatrick and backup QB Bryce Petty for a half each. While Petty managed to throw a 40-yard touchdown pass when the game was long past being a tight contest, neither QB shined — in fact, quite the opposite. When Fitzpatrick was pressured (six dropbacks of 13) he had a QB rating of 0.0. Petty performed better under pressure, although with a much smaller sample size — five dropbacks under pressure with a QB rating of 40.6. He was also below par when he had time in the pocket, only completing 46.7 percent of his passes with a QB rating of 42.3.

Top offensive grades:

G Brian Winters, 73.7
T Ben Ijalana, 73.1
G James Carpenter, 72.5
T Breno Giacomini, 69.8
TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins, 68.1

Entire offense struggles to move the ball

When there are only 10 points on the board and you struggle to move the ball, it's safe to say the entire offense struggled. The Robby Anderson bandwagon has been growing over the past few weeks, and while the QB play did not help, he struggled to get anything going outside of the touchdown pass in the fourth  quarter. Anderson was targeted 11 times but only caught four passes for 61 yards (21 yards outside of the TD pass) and two balls were picked off when he was targeted. Over the next few weeks it will be interesting to see if the Jets can determine what kind of workload Anderson is capable of shouldering next year.

Top defensive grades:

DI Leonard Williams, 84.0
S Rontez Miles, 76.9
ED Jordan Jenkins, 76.6
DI Deon Simon 76.3
CB Darrelle Revis, 55.2

Williams Stands out in awful team performance

While there’s not much that stands out on defense when you allow 41 points at home in primetime, Leonard Williams did his best with a sack, hit and three hurries. That was good enough for a 76.9 pass rush grade. He was much better in run defense with seven stops on the night and a 81.4 run defense grade.

PFF Game-Ball Winner: Indianapolis Colts QB Andrew Luck

PFF’s player grading process includes multiple reviews, which may change the grade initially published in order to increase its accuracy. Learn more about how we grade and access grades for every player through each week of the NFL season by subscribing to Player Grades.

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