Weapons Check: Quincy Enunwa Week 2 (Bills)

Quincy Enunwa makes a repeat performance in our Weapons Check article.  Enunwa showed promise in the first game, and took it to another level against the Bills on Thursday night.  The Jets have two stud WRs in Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker, so the development of Enunwa could have drastically positive effects on the team.  Let’s see how he performed last week:

Blocking:

1) 

On this play, Enunwa is in the slot to the right of the formation.  It’s a run play, and Enunwa is tasked with blocking, and he fails badly.  Enunwa miscalculates the distance between him and the LB, falsely taking a step as if he’s running the route before looking to block.  Unfortunately, this gives the LB extra time to get to the line of scrimmage before Enunwa could block him, blowing up the play.  The presence of the LB causes Forte to cut back inside, causing him to be tackled from behind.  This is bad blocking from Enunwa, which is odd since he was widely regarded as a good blocker coming out of the draft.

2) 

Another example of bad blocking from Enunwa, which was again surprising.  On this play, Enunwa is lined up in the slot to the left of the formation, which is where this running play is going to.  Once again, Enunwa makes a bad read on the block, and allows the LB to get past him.  He misjudges the path of the LB in this case, and has to essentially hold him to block him.  You can clearly see his arm wrapped around the LB as he’s past him, but the referees miss this hold, so there was no harm done.  However, Enunwa needs to get better at blocking from the slot position, especially if the Jets go to more 3 WR formations later in the year.

3) 

Enunwa makes up for the bad blocking in previous plays, with a great block on this play.  Enunwa goes in motion on the play, and then doubles back to seal off the lane for Forte to run through.  Enunwa’s block allows the RB to hit the hole without the threat of the blitzing LB hitting from the side.  This shows excellent timing as well on the offense, and a creative blocking scheme as well.  Enunwa takes out the LB on this play, which was probably had the biggest impact on this play, although the announcers fawned over Fitzpatrick running down the field looking to block.

Catching:

1) 

This play was already discussed in our Passing Offense Film Breakdown article, but we’ll look at this from just Enunwa’s angle.  He is lined up on the outside, left of the formation, facing one on one coverage.  He makes a slight bounce stutter step off the line of scrimmage to get outside of the CB, and then shows off his speed by getting in front of the CB.  To highlight the impressive speed, the CB on Enunwa is Stephon Gilmore, who ran a 4.40 forty yard dash at the combine, so this isn’t a slow footed third CB that he gets in front of.  He does’t get great separation here, but makes an absolutely wonderful catch, high-pointing the ball and converting a big third down.  Enunwa achieved good position on a talented CB, and then made a wonderful catch at it’s highest point.

2) 

Another play that was already covered in the Passing Offense article.  On this play, Enunwa is lined up in the slot to the right of the formation, with a LB lined up over him, and a deep safety.  However, at the snap the LB bites on the play action, giving Enunwa a free release off the line of scrimmage.  He makes a decent cut in the middle in front of the safety, but makes a great catch on this ball.  It might not be evident with this angle, but this ball is clearly thrown behind him.  He makes a great adjustment at the last second, reaches back, and secures this ball.   This is not a catch he would have made last year.

3) 

Enunwa faces man coverage again, and he makes the catch again.  He starts off with the stutter step again to go outside on the CB, and then runs up the sideline.  This looks like a curl route most likely, but it’s well covered on this play.  Enunwa gets decent separation on the route, but the ball isn’t there on time.  However, Enunwa comes back towards the ball to help maintain some of the distance between him and the CB, and makes another hands catch.  Sometimes you see young players that struggle with route concepts stay back on passes, which allow defenders to get back on this play.  If Enunwa had stayed back where he made his cut, this would have been an incomplete pass at best.  However, he does a good job of coming back for the ball on this play.

Route Running:

1) 

This is a play he is not involved in, as the play goes to the other side of the field.  Enunwa is lined up on the outside to the left of the formation.  The CB is shading him to the inside, which indicates that the defense wasn’t to take away the inside route and force the WR outside.  Enunwa reads this, and runs to the outside and up, before cutting inside.  Notice the inside stutter at the line of scrimmage, it throws off the balance for the CB slightly from the start.  Second, because of Enunwa’s speed, when he makes the cut inside, the CB is in no position to go inside because his hip is turned the other way.  If the Jets were looking at Enunwa during this play, he would have been open or at least gotten a holding call because the CB was beat on the coverage, mainly through the route running and speed of the receiver.

Run After Catch:

1) 

A play that should have been stopped for a 4 yard gain, ends up gaining 10 yards and a first down.  This is a simple play, somewhat safe, but Jalin Marshall gets blocked off from his blocking assignment, which is the outside CB.  Marshal recovers and blocks the inside safety, but the outside CB has a direct shot at Enunwa.  However, Enunwa makes a good cut inside of the CB and runs down the field for the first down.  He’s not going to vow people with elite elusiveness like a Tavon Austin, but he can make one cut moves like this in the open field for runs after the catch.

Conclusion:

Quincy Enunwa showed excellent skills for the second straight week, and it looks like a full blown break out is underway.  He showed some bad blocking in this game, but is widely regarded as a good blocker, so it’s most likely an aberration.  He’s made great strides in his route running as well as his ability to catch passes, and should add an extra gear to the Jets offense as they move forward this year.

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