There is not a whole lot to say about Jarvis Jones at this point. For the moment, it doesn’t appear as though he is poised to make any more significant developments, either in his game or in his pass rushing repertoire. What he is now may end up being what he always will be.
What that is is certainly nothing spectacular, though nothing terrible, either. He will look bad, from time to time, particularly when he ends up on the ground in the pass rush, but he has become more consistent as a tackler, which was a strong step forward.
He had a couple of run stops in the game, including one on the opening drive on Buck Allen, committed to back side pursuit. On a zone run to the right side of the field, Jones showed immediate pursuit and decent quickness to hunt down the ball carrier and bring him down after a gain of just one to set up third and long.
Rushing the passer is where he found little success, however. While he did fine in getting an initial bull rush on the left tackle on a five-yard play during the second quarter, he was knocked off his base by the left guard coming to assist. Not a terrible result considering the double team, but you would like to see him a bit more stout there through contact.
At the end of the drive, on a third and six play, the Ravens threw incomplete, but it had nothing to do with the pass rush, and certainly not Jones coming off the offensive left side, who was stalled by the left tackle and then fell to the ground as he tried to spin out of the contact. There are a lot of things that you can get away with as a pass rusher, but being consistently off your feet is not one of them.
But Jones did do a nice job of dropping into coverage, manning his zone and making a break on the pass once it was delivered. In this case, it was a short pass to a wide receiver on a first down, on which he actually showed surprising agility considering his previous tape to adjust to the ball carrier and bring him down.
But before the half ended, the former first-round draft pick was also put on his butt by a chip block thrown by a wide receiver as he was, evidently, trying to set up the left tackle for an inside move. It was a damn good chip block, admittedly, sending Jones sprawling to the ground with a hard shoulder.
In the second half, he showed strong awareness in breaking off his pursuit after seeing the quarterback ready to throw, instead making sure to get into the throwing lane and get his arms up. As it just so happened, on this occasion, he was able to knock down the pass.
Considering the kind of production he should be delivering for the Steelers given the resources that the team invested in him, this is not exactly a ringing endorsement, but the truth is that this is not far from where Jones is. He has done better as a pass rusher in many other games this season, but then against, inconsistency has been another concern.
