Where’s the beef, Jets? The “ground and pound” running game has turned from filet to ground chuck in recent games.
It’s not quite milk carton time, but the Jets vaunted running game has been bordering on missing in the last few weeks.
On Sunday, in Cleveland, against the surging 3-5 Browns, it might be a good place for the Jets to reestablish their rushing attack, which ranked No. 1 in the NFL last year.
“We’ve stalled a little bit,” left guard Matt Slauson said yesterday.
“It’s a mindset,” right tackle Damien Woody said. “Last year, it was a mindset that we were going to impose our will regardless of what the other team was doing.”
The Jets running game hasn’t exactly been chopped liver. They’re ranked fourth in the NFL in rushing offense, averaging 148 yards per game. That number, however, is skewed by the 273-yard bludgeoning they put on the Bills in Week 4.
“We want to be the best,” backup tackle Wayne Hunter said. “We want to be No. 1. No. 4 is not good enough.”
Despite the respectable ranking, the Jets are not running the ball with the authority they envisioned with LaDainian Tomlinson (123-for-599 yards) and Shonn Greene (87-391) as their one-two punch.
Tomlinson and Greene have posted just one 100-yard game each, both coming against Buffalo. Last year, Thomas Jones had seven 100-yard games, four in the first eight games.
Tomlinson’s production has declined over the last three games (164 yards and a 3.4-yard average) after he rushed for 435 yards and a 5.7-yard average in the first five.
“We’ve just run into a tough stretch,” Tomlinson said. “Teams are giving us some tough looks defensively. It’s been tough on us.”
The most eye-opening fact is that when you compare the Jets’ run-pass ratio from last year to this year.
The Jets ran 1,000 offensive plays last season and ran the ball 607 times compared with 393 passes, running the ball a little more than 60-percent of their time — by far the heaviest run ratio in the NFL. They ran more than they passed in 14 of the 16 regular-season games.
This season, the Jets have passed the ball more than they have run it in four of the eight games this season, running it more in two games and playing to a 50-50 ratio twice.
Overall, the Jets have passed the ball 256 times and run it 252 times this season.
“That’s crazy for us,” Woody said.
Both coach Rex Ryan and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer have talked since training camp about wanting a good balance, but the ratio seems to have shifted too far toward passing for Ryan’s liking.
“I’d always prefer to run it 50 times,” Ryan said. “We just have to be persistent and keep trying to punch holes in them and eventually we should pop some.”
The Jets led the NFL in rushing offense last year with 172.3 yards per game, some 24 yards per game more than they’re averaging this season.
“Last year there were a lot of big runs that would break,” Schottenheimer said. “We haven’t popped the big runs. I think we’re close in a lot of areas.”
The backs and offensive linemen talk about too many penalties (only four NFL teams have fewer than the Jets), lack of production on third down conversions (38.2) and a better passing game as reasons the running game isn’t what it was a year ago.
“We don’t want to get away from our core philosophy — being a run-first team,” Woody said. “At end of the day we want to run the ball and play great defense — and not only run it but dominate in the running game. We want to get that going again.”
Said Hunter: “We haven’t played our best yet. It’ll click soon, and once we do start clicking on all cylinders, it’ll be beautiful.”