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LONDON — Jets coach Robert Saleh was not happy with a roughing the passer call that extended the Falcons’ first drive on Sunday.
Jets linebacker Quincy Williams was flagged for what looked like a clean hit on Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan on the initial third down of the game. Instead of the Jets getting off the field after Ryan’s pass fell incomplete on third-and-9, the drive continued and ended up with a Falcons field goal.
“I think we’ll see, slow motion and all that, looked like he had his head to the side.” Saleh said. “He’s obviously full speed trying to get to a guy before he throws the ball, and when he lands, he’s trying to roll up. You can see it go off, so as of now, I disagree with the call, but we’ll see when we get to the tape.”
The NFL might say that Williams landed on Ryan with his full body weight, but Saleh said you could see Williams trying to roll off of Ryan as he brought him down. It seems to defy the laws of physics to ask a 225-pound man going full speed to prevent himself from landing on the man he is trying to tackle, but those are the rules.
Saleh said it was disappointing, but he did not want to use it as an excuse for the defense’s poor start.
“Any time you get a third-down conversion, it’s hard, and now you’re getting into a whole other set of plays,” Saleh said. “It’s added reps. Especially when you feel like you won the down and you see that. But it’s not an excuse by any sense of the imagination. But it’s a call when you’re fighting your tail off and a call like that doesn’t go your way, we’ve still got to find a way to get off the field.”
Jets LB C.J. Mosley made a momentum-changing play when he punched the ball out of the arms of Falcons TE Hayden Hurst early in the second quarter at the Jets’ 12. Zach Wilson had just thrown an interception and the Jets were already down 17-0. It felt like Atlanta was going to score again but Mosley turned the tide.
“I’ve been punching and swinging all season, so I finally got one, got the ball out,” Mosley said. “It was definitely momentum-changing because they were driving the field again. … We practice that all the time. It’s fun and it feels great when it happens and you get rewarded for the practice, for the work.”
The Jets had six wide receivers active. The only one who did not have a catch was rookie Elijah Moore. Denzel Mims had two catches for 33 yards, including a 27-yard catch on the late touchdown drive. It was the first time the Jets had thrown to Mims since Week 1. He was inactive in the next two games and only played 10 snaps last week.
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