The first “Thursday Night Football” game of the season gets underway tonight with the Buffalo Bills hosting the New York Jets. In contrast, CBS and NBC are paying $45 million per game for the Thursday night package and Yahoo reportedly paid almost double that just for the Jaguars-Bills game in London previous year.
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A year ago the Jets faced as simple a scenario as they come: win and you’re in. if the Jets had won their last game of the season in 2015, then they would have held a spot in the playoffs.
This week, the Buffalo Bills are going to lose at home to the New York Jets because Rex Ryan can’t coach an offense. Now the Jets make the trip to where their playoff hopes and season ended, a 22-17 loss to the Bills in January.
As long as Fitzpatrick’s focus is on how he and his team can be most effective, the numbers of the past hold little meaning. In the season finale in Buffalo, Gilmore was out with an injury so Leodis McKelvin started with Darby, and the Jets’ dynamic duo had 13 catches for 176 yards and a touchdown apiece.
In 11 total games against Ryan’s teams, Fitzpatrick has thrown 16 touchdowns vs. 12 interceptions, completed just 47 percent of his passes and averaged 166 yards per game.
The Bills are led by Tyrod Taylor and LeSean McCoy, and are coached by ex-Jets coach Rex Ryan.
“We thought we had a great situation there with tons of depth with obviously having Cyrus Kouandjio and Seantrel Henderson as your backups, it’s probably as deep as any team in the league”. Last time we made a big stink about, “Hey you’ve really done well against somebody, ‘ (Brady) lit me up for 600 yards (actually 466)”. Holy smokes. So yes, it’s only Week 2, but neither the Bills nor Jets can afford a loss, and for the Bills, I see two advantages that could be key – they have the advantage of playing at home on the short week, and they also will be fired up to wipe away their miserable performance in the opening loss to the Ravens. We just have to play better. A report from the New York Daily News on Monday that Watkins could miss weeks – or even the entire season – because of “severe discomfort” in his surgically repaired foot set off alarm bells in Bills Nation. In starts, Fitzpatrick is 1-8 against Ryan. The Bills got four sacks a year after failing to get more than two in one game. Rex and the Bills clearly got the better of Fitzpatrick and the Jets in 2015, which brings us to the stat of the week.
NOTES: Watkins was spotted inside the Bills fieldhouse testing his foot before practice alongside head athletic trainer Shone Gipson.
Football is a team sport, and while Folk’s mistakes ultimately brought the team down, other areas of the game will need to improve for the Jets to pull out a victory on the road.
Before going through metal detectors, Bills fans should take out phones, cameras and glasses cases. Regardless this game could be viewed as a must win as the Bills schedule does not get much easier as they could quickly find themselves 0-4.
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The Bills didn’t look good in the opener, and they will be without receiver Sammy Watkins.
