Jets takeaways, report card from NFL Week 3 loss to Buccaneers

The Jets fell 29-27 to the Buccaneers on Sunday. Here are some takeaways from the game:

1. The Jets have to find some explosiveness in their offense. Their longest play of the game was just 20 yards on Sunday. The Buccaneers had seven plays of 20 yards or more. This was always going to be the issue when the Jets set out to be a run-heavy team. That works well if you are playing from ahead. But the Jets were playing from behind on Sunday and their scoring drives in the fourth quarter were 10 plays and 11 plays. The reason they took the lead is because of the blocked field goal, which was an explosive play from special teams. 

The Jets don’t figure to be playing with many leads this season. They need to find a way to stretch the field in the passing game or break off some long runs.

2. One of the major storylines entering this game was that the Buccaneers were missing three starting offensive linemen. The Jets only had one sack in the game, though and allowed Baker Mayfield to escape the pocket repeatedly. The Buccaneers did end up with five holding penalties on offensive linemen (and two more on receivers) so the pass rush did cause some problems. It just was not as much of a factor as it should have been against an offensive line missing so many key players.