By Adam Hoge-

Geno Smith had a sense of defiance in explaining the play call.

Down 24-13 with 1:22 left in the third quarter, the Jets were faced with a 3rd-and-goal at the Bears’ 2-yard-line. It was a huge play in the game and Jets offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg opted to keep the ball in the hands of his second-year quarterback instead of handing it off to bruising running back Chris Ivory.

“We felt like no matter what they gave us, we had a good play on so we ran it and they did a good job of stopping it,” Smith said after the game.

It was a disaster for the Jets. Bears defensive coordinator Mel Tucker came up with the perfect counter call, dialing up two outside blitzes and a defensive line stunt, something you rarely see at the goal line.

Smith had nowhere to go.

Here’s how both teams lined up, with the Bears’ in nickel personnel with man coverage. Jets wide receiver David Nelson goes in motion, taking Isaiah Frey with him, which actually removes an extra defender away from where Smith wants to run the ball.

Tucker really had a great call on here. He blitzes both safety Danny McCray and linebacker Lance Briggs from opposite sides, then runs a perfect stunt right where the Jets run the ball. Defensive end Lamarr Houston and defensive tackle Will Sutton crash to the inside gaps with safety Brock Vereen and linebacker Jon Bostic scraping over the top.

The execution is excellent. Houston and Sutton both get great jumps off the line of scrimmage and catch their blockers off guard with their inside motion. In fact, Jets right tackle Breno Giacomini (circled in blue) falls on top of right guard Willie Colon as Sutton blows right by them. At this point, the Bears have the Jets out-numbered 4-to-2, and that doesn’t even include Bostic waiting to clean up behind the line of scrimmage. Ivory is left to block both McCray and Vereen on the outside, while left guard Brian Winters, who pulled from the left side, has to choose to block either Houston or Sutton:

Winters chooses Houston, leaving Sutton unblocked. Meanwhile, McCray gets by Ivory and the Bears have Smith completely surrounded.

The Jets lost two yards on this play and settled for a field goal, making it 24-16. Here’s how it all played out, with a special emphasis on Sutton’s quick burst off the line of scrimmage, which left Giacomini falling on his own teammate:

https://vine.co/v/OZz2zKjeYL3

On Second Thought

Bears left guard Michael Ola did not have a particularly strong game, but I blamed him for something live that I shouldn’t have.

Two plays after Ola’s illegal use of hands penalty nullified a 12-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Marshall, the Bears ran a screen pass to Matt Forte and it looked like it was going to be an easy touchdown. Jets cornerback Antonio Allen was the only defender between Forte and the end zone and Ola was there to block him:

Allen slips Ola’s block, however, and is just barely able to take Forte down with a shoe-string tackle. Watching live, it looked like Ola had cost the Bears two touchdowns in three plays.

But the end zone angle allows us to see a lot more than we can see from the sideline angle, especially when you are sitting in a press box. If we rewind a few frames and see how Ola’s block was set up, you can see that if Forte cuts inside, he’s likely gone, especially with Martellus Bennett there to clean up the safety entering the picture at the top.

The bottom-line is that Ola had the inside block and this would have been a touchdown if Forte had gone inside. Fortunately for the Bears, Jay Cutler hit Bennett for a 13-yard touchdown on 3rd-and-11 to score anyway.

Five Highest Grades

Note: Throughout the season I keep my own grades on players to track their progress. Take them with a grain of salt, as I don’t know every assignment on every play. That said, at the end of the year, these grades are a pretty good indicator of how the season went. Of the 13 players who graded out negatively last season, nine of them are no longer on the team and the other four are Jon Bostic, Chris Conte, Shea McClellin and Jordan Mills, all of whom have valid reasons for being brought back. For reference, 0.00 is the baseline and Alshon Jeffery and Brandon Marshall tied for the highest cumulative grade on the team last year with a 3.97.

DE Lamarr Houston (Grade: 8.0) – As shown in the play previously broken down, Houston was devastatingly quick off the line of scrimmage and strong against the run. He added two more quarterback disruptions and is second only to Willie Young in that category (according to STATS), despite having not registered a sack yet this season.

DE Jared Allen (7.0) – We reporters get annoyed when coaches and players constantly say “I’ll have to watch the film” immediately following a game, but Allen’s game was a good reminder why watching the coaches’ film is so important. Watching live, it looked like Allen was missing for the first three quarters before coming alive in the fourth with three quarterback disruptions. As it turns out, Allen was more effective early on than it appeared, as he made a number of nice plays against the run. That’s why he was credited with seven tackles in the stat book. In fact, I had him with a grade of 4.0 going into the fourth quarter.

DT Will Sutton (6.0) – Sensing a theme here? It was a pretty good night for the defensive line and you can understand the improvement on defense when the top three grades go to two free agent signings and a third-round draft pick. It’s only been three games, but Sutton looks like the electric Arizona State junior that many thought would go in the first round, not the heavy, slower senior who cast doubts and ultimately fell to the third round.

WR Alshon Jeffery (6.0) – Let’s not forget about the offense. Jeffery is still nursing that hamstring injury, but he looked a ton better Monday night in New Jersey. He finished the night with eight catches on 13 targets for 105 yards. He looked like his normal self, hauling in a 42-yard catch down the sideline and snatching a key third-down completion at the high-point with Cutler lobbing it up under pressure.

LB D.J. Williams (5.0) – Jon Bostic had a really good night, but the dropped interception on the Jets’ final drive ultimately dropped him below Williams, who had one his best games as a Bear. He was better in coverage and really strong against the run. If Williams can keep playing like that then the Bears have a pretty good trio at linebacker while Shea McClellin recovers from his broken hand.

Five Lowest Grades

LG Michael Ola (Grade: -3.0) – It’s the second straight week Ola has posted a -3.0 as his inexperience in the NFL is showing. Can the Bears get by with Ola until Matt Slauson gets healthy? Sure, but they miss Slauson a lot, especially in the running game.

LT Jermon Bushrod (-2.0) – It was not a particularly strong night for Bushrod, who allowed a sack, three pressures and was also guilty of a false start.

CB Isaiah Frey (-2.0) – Frey made a couple nice plays, but was also targeted frequently by the Jets in his return to the nickelback position.

RT Jordan Mills (-2.0) – Through three games, Mills looks a lot like the player the Bears saw last year: An sufficient, but not dominate right tackle.

OT Eben Britton (-2.0) – Britton received 17 snaps on offense as the Bears went back to some of those six-linemen sets that were successful last year. He had a couple missed blocks, however, which is why he ended up on the negative side of things.

Other Observations

– Cornerback Kyle Fuller had another good game, but there are still some rookie mistakes that need to be worked out. He was still beat a few times, including on Greg Salas’ 51-yard catch and run on the Jets’ final drive, when Fuller also missed the tackle after allowing the catch. The rookie rebounded nicely, however, playing really well the rest of that series to seal the win.

– On Terrell Manning’s unnecessary roughness penalty, I’m not convinced Jeremy Kerley signaled fair catch. I never saw it after watching both the All-22 sideline angle and the end zone angle. If Kerley did signal, it wasn’t easy to see, which was probably why Manning showed some confusion as he made contact with him.

– You might be surprised that Cutler only graded out with a 2.0, but for the second straight week, he made some nice plays and missed some others, but the importantly things is that the misses didn’t end up in the hands of the other team. The fumble and the wide open miss to Jeffery in the end zone were what brought his grade down a little lower, but it was still a nice night for the Bears’ quarterback.

Adam Hoge covers the Bears for 87.7 The Game and TheGameChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamHoge.