Sunday’s Buffalo Bills’ game against the New York Jets was one of those games the Bills have suffered through over the years. The team shows up apparently unprepared to play, and gets physically dominated on both sides of the ball to the point that players leave the field injured all day long as a result of that domination. The Jets won by only a 27-20 score, but the game was nowhere near that close. When an opponent hands you almost 200 free yards as a result of taking a whopping 20 penalties, and you win the turnover battle, you should win that game, yet the Bills were so physically dominated that they still lost. New York was overpowering in the trenches on both sides of the ball. The Jets kept their rookie quarterback, Geno Smith, clean all day while sacking Bills’ rookie EJ Manuel 8 times. The Bills’ line struggled against Rex Ryan’s blitzes all day. Guard Colin Brown, who was dubbed the worst offensive lineman in the NFL by a statistical website recently, played up (or down) to that rating on Sunday, but overall the whole line was terrible. Manuel was under siege all day, and looked skittish throughout the game, overthrowing receivers and heaving balls out of bounds without getting his throws anywhere close to allow those receivers to make any plays on the ball.
The Bills’ defense, as is their habit, allowed another obscure back, this time some guy named Bilal Powell, to rush for over 100 yards, while allowing 2 receivers to go for 100+ yards. While the unknown Powell was gashing the Bills all day, Buffalo’s star back, C.J. Spiller, gained 9 yards on 10 carries and eventually was pummeled into the trainer’s room with an injury. It was Spiller’s second disappointing game in 3 outings, and the Bills’ coaching staff, which has stubbornly and predictably kept running him into the middle of the line on almost every first and second down, deserves a lot of the blame for his failures. To repeat what was said by game analyst Rich Gannon on Sunday, running a fast-paced offense doesn’t necessarily equate to running a creative offense. As far as injuries, besides Spiller, defensive end Alex Carrington was lost for the season, while Mario Williams, Kraig Urbik, Stevie Johnson and Leodis McKelvin also were hurt. McKelvin’s injury affected the team the most, as his replacement, Justin Rogers, was toasted by the Jets all afternoon. With Stephon Gilmore, Ron Brooks and Jairus Byrd already out, the secondary was depleted, but still, the backups didn’t look much like NFL players against an offense led by a rookie QB with a receiving corps that lacks any star players. Up next for the Bills is an even bigger challenge – the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, who have a veteran signal caller in Joe Flacco and an even more physical defense than the Jets.