You could try to adjust the font metrics in your font editor. I have never used FontForge (it persisted in crashing until I gave up) but I have done this with display fonts using my simple freeware editor Type Light:
https://www.cr8software.net/typelight.html
Experiment with WinAscent and WinDescent and "ascender" and "descender" (in Typelight, the latter are on the Font Metrics
Advanced tab). You must check to be sure that the entire glyph remains visible. Otherwise you might lose part of the tail on the "y", etc.
As I said, I've adjusted fancy fonts for headers, but for something to use in body text, you might not be able to decrease the descent enough to be helpful.
Good luck with it!