New York Jets: 5 X-factors to watch vs. Falcons in Week 8

4. Bilal Powell, RB

There’s one thing that can be said about this Jets offense lately. In three of the last four games, they found a weakness in their opponents, and they exploited it.

Against the Jaguars, it was the run defense. In that game, they had 256 yards rushing and two touchdowns. When New England came calling, McCown became the sixth consecutive quarterback to throw for 300 yards against the Patriots. Last week, he attacked the Dolphins secondary. This week another bottom-half statistical run defense comes into town.

Powell is undoubtedly the best running back on the team. According to NFL.com Next Gen stats, He’s faced an eight-man box nearly 37 percent of his snaps, and is still spending less than three seconds behind the line of scrimmage on runs and averaging 4.7 yards per carry.

The Jets will have to use the run to set up the pas against the Falcons. They will have to exploit their run defense and play the time of possession game, because they don’t want the Falcons to wake up from their season-long offensive hibernation in this game. The offense will have to do their part to keep the defense off the field. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long day.