Following a poor showing in a week one loss to the Baltimore Ravens the Buffalo Bills look to avoid falling 0-2. Squaring off against the Jets in a primetime Thursday night game the Bills must look to finally make some noise within the division. The Jets, whom accounted for two of the Bills 8 wins a season ago are coming off a devastating last second loss to the Bengals.
Following a 13-7 loss at the hands of Baltimore the Bills will need to make some much needed adjustments. Coming off a short week the Bills are stuck with many questions with few answers in sight. A game against the Ravens were it seemed as if Buffalo’s offense was stuck in neutral throughout. An offense that managed to rack up 160 yards of total offense, the same Bills team that averaged 152 yards on the ground per game last season. As disastrous as the offense was perhaps the biggest downfall for the Bills was the endless penalties they seemed to have acquired throughout. The outcome was eight penalties for 89 yards, including four personal fouls, though this was nothing new for a Rex Ryan led Bills squad as this is following a season, which saw them lead the league with 168 penalties.
Perhaps even more importantly for the Bills squad on a short week is handling the injuries and depth, specifically at linebacker and offensive line.
“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. But that depth is being tried. We’ll see if Cordy (Glenn) can go or not. If not, then obviously Kouandjio steps in there and that’s fine. But the depth behind him, with the suspension to Seantrel, isn’t what it used to be to say the least,” said Bills Head Coach Rex Ryan. “The biggest problem we had in protection wasn’t the offensive line, it was the back in protection. So I think that can be—they’re going to get the brunt of it. And like I told them, I’m going to blame you guys for everything. Why? Because you can take it. And that’s the truth. And so we’ll blame all (them), “It’s Richie’s fault.” Ah no, I was just kidding, Rich. But no, literally that is a prideful group. There is no question about it. Immediately you get lumped to it. I mean that if it doesn’t go well, it’s the offensive line. And sometimes there’s truth to it, sometimes it’s other areas.”
The Bills success is reliant of that on a strong run game led by Lesean McCoy who helped lead the charge on offense a year ago. In his first season in Buffalo ran for 895 yards and three touchdowns. McCoy who is viewed as a vital asset to the 2016 is not worried after one game, “The goal this year wasn’t to go undefeated, that was never talked about. The goal was to win this game and have a chance to win our division. And that’s still intact. We can’t panic. I feel like a lot of people are panicking, “Oh, we lost the first game.” Eh, we lost the first game. The offense played bad. You got to move on. It’s a long season and this is the type of league it is so we’ll come out here this week and if we have a great game, you won’t even talk about last week. That’s how it works, so we can’t look back, man. Always got to look forward.”
Looking forward McCoy will do especially with a familiar face back in front of him as the Bills have re-signed Jerome Felton after releasing looking fullback Glenn Gronkowski. Felton looks to provide an immediate improvement, as the younger Gronkowski brother seemed lost out on the field at times in his debut and ultimately was a non-factor in the Bills passing attack.
As vital McCoy is to the success of the Bills against the Jets even more importantly will be the health of star wide out Sammy Watkins. Against a defense and front seven that is arguably one of the best in the game Tyrod Taylor will look to rely on the health of his off-injured receiver. “Of course you’d like to give Sammy a lot of touches. When the ball is in his hands, he makes big plays. So the more we can get him the ball, the better we are as a team. But there’s also other guys that can make plays as well too. And we’re going to need them to make plays and I count on them just as well,” mentioned quarterback Tyrod Taylor.
The Bills face many question marks going into this matchup whether it be the offensive line or the health of Sammy Watkins. 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. A slow start and the looming return of Tom Brady to the Patriots has all the signs of disaster for the Bills unless they are able to execute on primetime Thursday night.
