FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Only the Raiders and Jaguars, the only NFL teams without a victory this season, have run the ball less than the Falcons.

The Falcons have run the ball on 136 of 374 plays (36.4 percent) and passed the ball 238 times (63.6 percent).

“I think any time you can be a more balanced offense (it can) get us out of a rut and put us where we feel we don’t have our backs against the wall and we are not one-dimensional,” Falcons running back Steven Jackson said. “Any time you can be more balanced it helps everyone out from Matt (Ryan) all the way down offensively.”

The Falcons’ pass-heavy offense can’t really be attributed to large second-half deficits.

They trailed Cincinnati 17-3 and 24-3 after halftime but led the Vikings 28-27 in the third quarter and were ahead of the Giants 20-10 in the third quarter. The Bears didn’t take their 27-13 lead until the fourth quarter.

The decline in rushing efficiency for the Falcons has correlated with injuries to their starting offensive linemen. But offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter, asked about the run blocking, said there’s more to it than that because the defense can make it tough to run by deploying an extra defender near the line of scrimmage.

“You could block a play perfect and not get any yards because they have more hats than we do,” Koetter said. “They always outnumber us by one if they want to. So where that extra player is in relationship to where we are trying to run the ball, that’s the key to any running game.”