The Jets gave up a lead for the third straight week against the Falcons on Sunday and they wound up as 25-20 losers for the third straight week when a late attempt to rally fell short.
One member of the Jets offense thinks their play calling was a contributor to the defeat. The Jets and Falcons played in a driving rainstorm that featured plenty of wind, which led running back Matt Forte to say that the Jets erred by running the ball 21 times and calling 37 passes.
“I’m definitely surprised by that, because we knew the weather was going to be like that,” Forte said, via Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. “It continued to rain the entire game. I think we only ran the ball 20 times. (There) should have been at least one person getting 20 carries -- something like that -- with the way the weather was. I thought we were going to grind them out on the ground like that, but it ended up not turning out that way.”
The Jets led to start the fourth quarter and never trailed by more than five points, but the split was 13 passes and two runs in the final 15 minutes of the game.
Pinning the entire loss on the play calling would be foolish. Chandler Catanzaro missed two field goals, the defense let Tevin Coleman break loose for a 52-yard run to set up the go-ahead Falcons touchdown and Jeremy Kerley muffed a punt with the Jets down two points in the fourth quarter.
The entire combination was too much for the Jets to overcome and their three-game skid leaves them with a 3-5 record at the halfway point of their season.