Let’s stop bemoaning the field-goal try that Eric Mangini didn’t call. In your heart, you know you wanted the Jets to go for that touchdown from the Colts’ 2-yard line early in the third quarter of yesterday’s 31–28 loss. If you say otherwise, you’re being hypocritical. What you wanted, what I wanted, and what the Jets wanted was to seize control of the game — and perhaps the season — right there at that point. And that’s what they tried to do. They did what no New York Jets team has had the guts to do in several years: roll the dice.

You also know, in your heart of hearts, that the end zone interception wasn’t what lost the game.We all knew that no matter what happened on that fourth down try, it would all come down to whether the Jets could stop Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. And on a desperation fourth quarter drive, they couldn’t.

The odds were in the Jets’ favor.They were at home and ahead by more than the margin of a field goal.The Colts had no timeouts for the last 2:21. (In fact, the Colts had used all their timeouts with 9:21 left in the game, the only time I can recall a Tony Dungy-led Colts team in such a situation.) The Jets lost the game because during that last 2:21, their defense just couldn’t come up with a big play — a tipped ball, an interception, or a sack on Manning — during the eight agonizing plays of the scoring drive.

They also lost because of two crucial plays, one on their very first possession and one on the kickoff to start the final possession. This was the day when the Jets’ newly constructed offensive line came together, and it did so right after a major breakdown on the third play of the game. The Colts’ Robert Mathis slipped a block and blindsided Chad Pennington at the 23. The Colts recovered the fumble at the 26, leading to the game’s only cheap touchdown. For the next 56 minutes and change, the game was, let’s not say dominated, but controlled by the Jets’ defense and their offensive line.The defense, up until Manning’s final drive, allowed just 284 total yards. Before that last possession, Manning had completed just 15-of-22 passes for 149 yards against a defense that jammed his receivers and confused him with well-disguised coverages and fake blitzes — hence the reason the Colts used all their timeouts so quickly.

On the other side of the line, the Jets kept landing jabs with the running game, but couldn’t follow up with a knockout punch. But that, at least, was an upgrade from previous weeks, when

the ground game was punchless. Running behind a bewildering series of traps, pulls, and draws led by center Nick Mangold and guards Pete Kendall and Brandon Moore, Cedric Houston, Kevin Barlow, and Leon Washington — none of whom will ever be mistaken for Bronco Nagurski — looked like real NFL runners for the first time this season. The three ground out 117 yards on 34 carries, which is just a 3.4 yard average but looks pretty good when you’ve averaged 2.5 through the first three games of the season.

After the fumble on the opening possession, the offensive unit allowed only two more sacks on Pennington, both courtesy of missed blocks by 312-pound offensive tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson, a potential Pro Bowl talent with a distressing habit thus far in his young career of getting beat to the inside by linebackers 70 pounds lighter. Those two sacks were made up for by Shaun Ellis making a bid to become the Jets’ new John Abraham-type impact rusher. This was particularly impressive considering that the Colts doubleteamed Ellis nearly all day; if just one other Jet lineman had been able to get through to Manning, it might have made all the difference.

The other major goof for the Jets, perhaps more costly than the first quarter sack-and-fumble since it allowed practically no time for the Jets to recover, was Leon Washington’s mishandling of a Colts kickoff with just under a minute to play. I like the Jets’ chances if they had given the ball to Pennington at, say, the 25 or 30-yard line with about 50 seconds, a timeout to spend, and 40–50 yards for the tying field goal. Instead, the same special teams unit that delivered a touchdown with a 103-yard kick return just minutes before (with Justin Miller carrying) could scarcely get the ball out of the end zone on the final possession of the game.

All losses hurt, but the ones you lose at home after leading by four points with 2:21 left really hurt. The Jets outplayed the Colts nearly all afternoon, and then, but in the end, they couldn’t lay a hand on Manning or execute a simple kickoff return. When they look at the films tomorrow, they can complain about their bad luck or admit to themselves that they could have changed it.After all, losing by three points to the team that some picked to win the AFC is far from a season-ending disaster.

Looking ahead to next week’s game with Jacksonville, Gang Green can find confidence in the fact that Pennington, though hardly anyone is acknowledging it, is having a sensational season, with six touchdowns against two interceptions and 8.12 yards per throw — 0.2 higher than Manning, by the way.He’s also playing behind what could be the best offensive line the team has had since Bill Parcells ran the show.

But a loss to Jacksonville might prove to be a season-ending disaster. No team with playoff aspirations can afford to lose to three good teams in its first five games, and the Jets have already lost close games to New England and the Colts.The Jets have just five days to figure out whether the mistakes at the beginning and end of the Colts game were flukes or omens.

Mr. Barra is the author, most recently, of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul Bear’ Bryant.”