The Defense Didn’t Show Up:
Fitz’s final line for the day read like this: 16-of-37, 181 yards, 2 TD, and 3 INT. Early on, however, it was the defense who didn’t even come close to showing up.
A team, mind you, who was led by a defensive mind in Todd Bowles – former safety and Super Bowl Champion with the Washington Redskins.
Rex Ryan’s offensively challenged Bills team tallied the first TD after a shanked Ryan Quigley punt. Tyrod Taylor ran for a ridiculous 18 yards for the score on third down.
In a 3rd-and-3 situation, Bowles matched the Bills full house backfield with nine in the box (eight of which were DL and LB). The play-action movement had the entire line shift to the defense’s left (strong side).
The sin of the play comes on the right side when Sheldon Richardson – who is playing way out of position at OLB in a 3-4 scheme – swims to the inside instead of maintaining outside leverage. Allowing Taylor to get outside that easily, with his legs, is an act that simply cannot happen to a good defense.
This first score of the day was a sign of cloudy things to come for Gang Green on third down. Buffalo converted an absurd 9-of-20 on third down in the game.
After the disappointing Taylor scramble for a TD to open the scoring, the Jets defense yielded a 65-yard touchdown drive engineered by the 13th ranked offense in the league. Suddenly the Jets were down two possessions.
Here’s a critical third and short situation the Bills converted early in that drive. They overloaded one side and once again took advantage of a lumbering Richardson at OLB who couldn’t seal the edge:
Sheldon was cracked on, but Calvin Pryor couldn’t get it done and Antonio Cromartie had no chance. A much faster MLB would’ve been needed in such a situation.
One play later it was Darrelle Revis who couldn’t get it done in a one-on-one against Sammy Watkins:
Watkins finished with 11 receptions for 136 yards.
It wasn’t just Watkins, however. Check out this outrageous 3rd-and-20 conversion early in the second half. The Jets were in a 3-deep look (why, I’ll never know) with a man under defense and single-high safety roaming.
Revis provided so much cushion to Greg Salas that this happened:
The poor play and mistakes continued all afternoon. One of the more unforgiving mental mistakes came on a late encroachment penalty, courtesy of rookie Leonard Williams.
The only reason the Bills didn’t have more than 295 yards of offense was because they played with the lead the entire game and Rex Ryan doesn’t play offense when that’s the case.
