Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New York Jets: A few things that stood out

With Sunday’s overtime win against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the New York Jets improved to 2-2 on the season. What should we take away from the game? Here’s what stood out from Sunday’s action.

Not many people expected the New York Jets to actually stand a chance against the red-hot Jacksonville Jaguars but not only did they play competitively, they left the game victorious. It wasn’t easy and at the end of the day, the Jets should be proud that they capitalized on key moments of this Week 4 matchup. What stood out the most from the game? Here’s what I noticed once the game was over and in the books.

Great running back production

The Jets running game was excellent Sunday, as they ran for a total of 256 yards, headlined by two big touchdown runs: a 75 yarder by Bilal Powell and a 69 yard run by rookie Elijah McGuire. Powell and McGuire combined for 321 total yards on Sunday. Will Sunday’s great performance get these two a bigger role in the offense? Will Matt Forte‘s playing time be diminished? Hopefully, the Jets don’t ruin a great thing by going back to Forte since clearly, these two are ready to shine.

Horrible clock management by Todd Bowles

Not everything went well on Sunday for the Jets. The Jaguars had the ball at the Jets six-yard line down by three points with about 1:45 left in the 4th quarter. After a two-yard pass to Allen Hurns, the Jets should have called their second timeout to stop the clock, and then if they needed to, their final one after third and goal to leave time for the offense. This seems like obvious clock management, but what does Bowles do? Nothing. The Jets ended up only having around 45 seconds left on the clock for a potential game-winning drive attempt, but they easily could have had around 1:30 to work with.

More from Jets News

• NY Jets: Jonnu Smith would be a smart free-agent target
• NY Jets expected to be ‘much more aggressive’ in free agency this year
• NY Jets: Patriots will not use the franchise tag on Joe Thuney
• NY Jets officially place the franchise tag on safety Marcus Maye
• NY Jets: 3 reasons to be optimistic about the 2021 season

On the Jets game winning drive attempt at the end of the 4th quarter, they had the ball at the 39-yard line with around 25 seconds left, Josh McCown got sacked at the 31 with 20 seconds left and instead of calling his final timeout, Bowles let the game go into overtime.

Why? You’re not far at all from Hail Mary range, and if you get to midfield you’re not that far away from field goal range. I get conservative football, I’m not the guy on Madden who goes for it on 4th and 21 in the first quarter, but try something. As you know the Jets ended up winning the game in overtime anyways, but that shouldn’t excuse Bowles from criticism.

Fluke turnovers

Two of the big plays that got the Jaguars momentum in the 4th quarter was very fluky. The first one being a Myles Jack 81 yard touchdown return on a non forward pass, something that almost never gets called. Not only did this take the Jets out of the red zone, but the Jaguars were able to cut their deficit from 10 to 3.

The other fluky play that gave Jacksonville momentum was A.J. Bouye‘s interception that put Jacksonville right near field goal range down by 3 late in the fourth. If you didn’t see the play, it’s easy to blame McCown, but the reason why the interception happened was due to Powell tripping on his route, normally that wouldn’t happen.

PRO FOOTBALL FOCUS: The best in football stats just got better. Elite packages now on sale!

This is what stood out from Sunday’s action. Will we continue to see these things? Will the Jets continue to win games? Only time will tell but winning fixes everything.