Breaking Down How the Jets Used Chris Johnson to Spark Offense

Week 1 of the NFL season always has an extra edge of excitement and discovery to it, but this year's season opener for the New York Jets is particularly intriguing because of the star power injected into the Jets offense over the offseason. 

Just a few years removed from being one of the biggest names in the spot, Chris Johnson has a ton of potential as (one of) the Jets' primary backs. Chris Ivory's presence implied that he was not going to be used in the heavy-workload role he was in with the Tennessee Titans, leaving us all to ponder just how Johnson's skill set would fit.

Based on how he was used against the Oakland Raiders, Jets fans can expect a little of everything from Johnson this year. He was spotted as both a runner and a pass-catcher, providing a different yet similarly effective skill set.

Johnson will be pegged by many as a "third-down" back, but he is much more than a faster, more nimble version of Ivory. While certainly faster than Ivory, Johnson has proven to be more than a capable three-down runner in his career, adding to the intrigue of how offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg was going to use him.

Screen Game

A trademark of a Mornhinweg offense is the use of screen passes to the point of nausea. In the past, Mornhinweg had a good excuse to get his running backs out in space with Brian Westbrook and LeSean McCoy under his management—a role that Johnson has assumed. 

This simple screen pass from the first quarter of the game was only effective because the Jets had someone with Johnson's skill set to execute it.

Johnson is lined up in the pistol behind Smith—making it impossible for the defense to tell which way he is going to run. After the snap, he sells the block to sink the two blitzing Raiders after Geno Smith.

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Johnson slips out, and Smith is able to find him in time—with a trailing Tyvon Branch, a safety, right on his ankles. Johnson is able to accelerate just in time to pull away and get a good chunk of yards out of the play. 

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Ivory and Bilal Powell are certainly more than capable of running a screen play, but had they been in Johnson's shoes for this particular play, there was no way either one was going to get away from Branch's grasp in time. Johnson's the only runner on the Jets roster with the ability to get away from a defensive back with such a short amount of time to accelerate.

A simple personnel change turned what could have been a drive-killing loss into a positive gain.

Inside Runner

I won't say that pegging Johnson is lazy analysis, but it certainly is stereotyping all smaller runners as strictly perimeter players. While certainly smaller than Ivory, Johnson can be effective between the tackles because of his elusiveness and great ability to gain "hidden" yards after contact. 

On this play, Ivory is faced with a defender as soon as he gets the ball from Smith out of the pistol. In an extremely small amount of space, he finds a way to elude defenders with agility and quickness as opposed to power. 

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One of Johnson's most underrated attributes (and an underrated attribute for running backs as a whole) is his tendency to fall forward after making contact, gaining these "hidden" yards after the contact. While a small detail, these hidden yards add up during the course of a game and even a season. 

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By simply falling "properly," Johnson turns what would have been a solid four-yard gain into a great six-yard gain. When trying to establish a running game, every inch counts toward making this aspect of the game as threatening as possible. 

While Johnson is still capable of being an effective inside runner, he is not nearly as effective as Ivory in this area—so why bother putting him in this role?

Using Johnson occasionally keeps a defense honest, forcing it to cover the entire field when Johnson is in the game and slowing its reaction times in the process. If Johnson is effective enough, he can create wide-open lanes for other players to make plays. 

Decoy

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He may not answer to "CJ2K" as quickly as he used to, but Johnson still commands a ton of attention and respect from opposing defenses with his threat to score from anywhere on the field from just about any formation. 

In a league where youth and upside are so highly coveted over older, slower veterans, Johnson is one of the few players whose name has a tangible, on-field value. Johnson has a deserved reputation for making big plays in the most unlikely scenarios that must be respected—even if the frequency of those plays has diminished. 

After gashing the Raiders on both inside runs and screen games all afternoon, Johnson is able to set up Eric Decker for a long gain just by being on the field.

Here, Smith executes a convincing play-action pass to Johnson, forcing the linebackers to react. The two Raider linebackers take just a few costly steps in Johnson's direction, leaving Decker wide open on the other side of the field. 

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An easy pitch-and-catch to Decker generates an easy big play, all thanks to Johnson's threat to score. 

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The Raider linebackers did not travel far out of position, but all the Jets needed to do was freeze them for a few precious seconds to deem them useless when trying to defend plays on the other side of the field. 

While he led all running backs with 34 offensive snaps on Sunday, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Johnson was never meant to carry the Jets offense on his back. Johnson is the joker card the Jets can keep in their back pocket, able to play him whenever they need to get an opposing defense to play a little slower. 

This game is just a petri dish's worth of potential of Johnson in Mornhinweg's offense. The Jets were able to find a perfect balance in the season opener in terms of carry distribution, generating over 170 combined yards on the ground. 

However, maintaining this balance over the course of a 16-game season will be the true challenge. If Mornhinweg can maintain this level of efficiency with Johnson over the long term, Johnson can be the difference between the Jets fielding an average offense and a top-tier offense in 2014. 

Advanced statistics provided by ProFootballFocus.com (subscription required).