CHICAGO — As if the Jets offense did not have enough issues on Sunday against the Bears, the unit complicated things further by committing five false starts.
Early in the game, the Jets were constantly going 5 yards backward as they could not stop jumping before the snap. They had a false-start penalty on their first three drives — each by a different player.
In all, the Jets committed seven pre-snap penalties with the defense chipping in two neutral-zone infractions.
“We shot ourselves in the foot on that,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said after the 24-10 loss. “Especially when the crowd wasn’t that loud, those were just concentration things. It was pretty much a different guy each time.”
Tight ends Chris Herndon and Neal Sterling each got penalized once for jumping. Offensive linemen Brandon Shell, James Carpenter and Kelvin Beachum all got flagged as well.
“It’s very frustrating as a group,” Beachum said. “We’ve talked about it. We’ve gotten better at it. But it seems to come up at the wrong times, inopportune times.”
Bowles made a few more questionable decisions Sunday. He punted with 5:37 left, trailing by two touchdowns. It was fourth-and-13 at the Jets 37, so Bowles said the game would have been over if they failed to convert.
“They were pretty much almost in field-goal range,” Bowles said. “The game would have been over right there. So we tried to punt and call our timeouts and try to stop them and go back down the field and score.”
The other one that can be second-guessed was declining an offensive-pass interference penalty in the third quarter. The Bears had the ball at their 45. Instead of pushing them back to second-and-20 at the 35, Bowles declined and Chicago had third-and-10 at the 45. They converted on a Mitchell Trubisky scramble and ended up scoring on the drive.
“We had been pretty good on third down,” Bowles said. “We were pretty good in the first half, third-and-10 was pretty good for us. But he made a good play.”
Starting safety Marcus Maye returned to the lineup after missing one game with a broken thumb. He wore a cast on his right hand, but it did not seem to affect him. He led the team with seven tackles.
“I’ve been dealing with injuries and missing games,” Maye said. “I wasn’t going to let a thumb hold me out for two weeks. Last week was the doctor’s decision, but I was like there’s no way I can miss another one.”
TE Neal Sterling left the game with a concussion. It is the second concussion Sterling has suffered this season. … NT Steve McLendon injured his ankle and will undergo tests on Monday. … CB Trumaine Johnson missed his fourth straight game with an injured quad.
Mitchell Trubisky was not that great with his arm on Sunday, but the Bears quarterback made some timely runs, gaining 51 rushing yards. He threw two touchdown passes and did just enough for the Bears.
Jets linebacker Avery Williamson blew his assignment on a screen pass to Tarik Cohen in the first quarter and Cohen went 70 yards for a touchdown. Williamson was supposed to slow him down at the line of scrimmage, but instead went past him.
Bears running back Jordan Howard did not have the biggest day statistically, but he wore down the Jets defense in the second half and rushed for 81 yards and a touchdown.
The Jets’ averaged 2.4 yards per rushing play Sunday. Entering the game with injuries at wide receiver, on a windy day, the Jets needed to run the ball. They could not.
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