Steelers QB Jones' passes targeting mostly 1st reads
By Chris Adamski
Monday, Nov. 9, 2015, 11:00 p.m.
Updated 10 hours ago
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Just like some major league pitchers, Landry Jones has been better in relief than he has as a starter so far in his brief NFL career.
Jones has two wins out of the proverbial bullpen over the past four weeks, both times leading a late scoring drive that was necessary for victory. A 4 of 6, 79-yard passing line during Sunday's win against the Oakland Raiders made Jones 12 for 18 for 247 yards in his two outings off the bench this season.
But beyond the raw numbers and their small sample size, how did Jones acquit himself in his throws Sunday?
Of the 12 offensive plays Jones was in for, he threw seven passes (one was called back because of penalty) of mixed quality.
Let's start with his two incompletions. One was inexcusable. He missed a wide open DeAngelo Williams standing less than 10 yards away, directly in front of him in a situation where the Steelers needed the clock to keep running.
His other incompletion was an accurately thrown ball 60 yards in the air downfield to Martavis Bryant. However, the decision to throw it could be questioned because it was thrown into double coverage.
Of the five balls Jones threw that were caught, two were slightly off-target to Brown, who made nice catches on them. Two others were easy tosses into the flat.
Notably, all but one appeared to be Jones' first read, simple three-step drops in which he knew exactly where he was going with the ball and delivered it confidently, albeit somewhat telegraphed.
Be it by intentional play design to keep things simple for him, a tendency for Jones to gravitate toward his first read or because his first option was that adept at getting open, Jones only appeared to check down once on a dump off to Heath Miller that gained 5 yards.
Twice Jones had to deal with pressure on him. Once, it seemed to fluster him on the missed pitch-and-catch with Williams. The other time, he had a nice, subtle evasion of a pass rusher as he went through his reads to find Miller.
Jones showed the look of being poised and confident while under center, in the shotgun and usually while in the pocket. It will be interesting to follow how many times he goes through his progressions if, as expected, he starts this Sunday.
