George Willis

George Willis

NFL

Jets can stop Falcons by following AFC East blueprint

You scratch your head because it just sounds strange. The defending NFC champion Falcons are 0-3 against AFC East teams this season with Sunday’s game against the Jets offering a chance to go 0-4.

OK, the Super Bowl rematch against the Patriots didn’t work out, losing 23-7 last week in New England. But that was preceded by a 20-17 setback to the Dolphins on Oct. 15 and a 23-17 loss to the Bills on Oct. 1. Both games were at the Falcons’ new Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The Jets get their chance on Sunday at MetLife Stadium, hoping the Falcons’ futility within the AFC East continues.

“They’ve still got one more left,” said Jets defensive lineman Steve McLendon.

If you want a common theme in how the Pats, Dolphins and Bills beat the Falcons, it was containing Devonta Freeman. The Pro Bowl running back has averaged just 66 yards rushing in the three losses and has scored just one touchdown, that coming on a 1-yard run in the second quarter of the Bills game. He ran for 68 yards against the Dolphins, with 44 coming on one play.

Freeman had 12 carries for 72 yards against the Patriots, but the Falcons didn’t score their first points until Julio Jones caught a 1-yard TD pass with 4:09 left in the game.

The Falcons had a team meeting Monday to clear the air amid their three-game losing streak. Freeman’s message was “don’t panic.” At least not yet.

“A lot of us on this team don’t panic,” said Freeman, who has rushed 91 times for 425 yards, which ranks him ninth in the NFL. He has five touchdowns, which is second in the NFL, among running backs. “Guys have moments where they hit a brick wall. We understand that it’s a long race.”

The Jets (3-4) might be catching the Falcons (3-3) at the right time. Atlanta seems jinxed by the AFC East and the Jets are feeling chesty about their run defense after holding the Dolphins to 53 yards rushing last week in Miami. The Dolphins won the game 31-28 after the Jets blew a 28-14 fourth-quarter lead, but the defensive line saw positives in its performance.

It limited the Dolphins to an average of 2.1 yards per carry, knocked starting quarterback Jay Cutler out of the game and collected an interception when defensive end Mo Wilkerson caught a pass batted by blitzing safety Jamal Adams. The Jets took over at the 1-yard line and scored a TD for a 21-14 second-quarter lead.

“It was awesome to see Mo make some plays,” defensive lineman Leonard Williams said. “I tried to push him into the end zone so he could make a touchdown on his birthday.”

Wilkerson and Williams are still seeking their first sacks, but they would be happy if they apply the kind of heat on Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan that they did in Miami.

“Now that we showed we could get to the quarterback, we want to keep that momentum going and bring it to the next game,” Williams said. “Guys were getting to the quarterback and disrupting him. Even if we didn’t get sacks, getting hits on him was really big in the game. That’s what we want to do this week.”

That starts with stopping Freeman. The Jets limited the Dolphins to 83 yards rushing in their two games. Against everyone else they’ve allowed an average of 160.6 yards per game.

“We’re trying to stack playing together well each and every week,” McLendon said. “We’re playing fast and we’re playing hard. We just want to play smart together. The biggest thing last week was to be physical and try to finish. We didn’t finish the win, but we were physical. This week we want to finish physically, and play smarter and do whatever it takes to help our club win.”

The Jets need to prove they can stop the run against someone other the Dolphins.