Ultimately looking at this game comes down to trusting Sean McDermott and the Bills defense with his familiarity vs Adam Gase. Over the past two years, McDermott went 3-1 against Gase whose only win came in a game where the Bills outgained Miami 415-175 yards, or 6.3 YPP vs 3.5 YPP. In McDermott’s revenge game against Gase which could have been seen as Gase and Tannehill’s last chance to preserve their jobs, Bills absolutely throttled Miami 42-17. Returning with McDermott is 10 starters on defense along with a top draft pick in Ed Oliver, who by all accounts has been a perfect fit for the defensive scheme.
Last year this defense was dominant, as they finished #2 in total defense and #1 in total pass defense. I believe there’s no doubt this defense if for real, given the turnarounds McDermott has shown. He took Buffalo from 27th to 2nd in defensive efficiency while his previous team (Carolina) dropped from a top 10 overall defense efficiency to 22nd in 2019. This is a new, high-tempo Jets offense that should take a bit of time for Darnold to get accustomed to implementing, and it doesn’t make it any easier to have to go against a Buffalo defensive group that excelled together last season. Last season, Bills trounced the Jets 41-10 at MetLife while batting in a 4 point loss in Buffalo. The big question here obviously comes down to how Josh Allen will perform. Buffalo brings Mitch Morse over to help the OL from Kansas City, who Mahomes expressed dissatisfaction with not retaining.
Over Allen’s last 5 games last season, Allen showed some improvement having thrown for 200+ yards every game including 95+ rushing yards 3 of those 5 games. With Allen starts, Bills actually kept games incredibly close, having lost by double digits just once after Buffalo’s shutout loss to Green Bay in week 4 (8 games, lost by 12 @ NE). Defensively, the Jets last year were not good having given up 27.6 PPG including 380.4 YPG. The Jets brought in a couple good pieces but overall it’s not enough for me to look at the Jets here with Buffalo catching 3 against a familiar opponent in Gase. This is one of the better times to fade the Jets this season, I’ll take BUF +3 in this spot.
The Pick:
Buffalo +3