An inside look at Sunday’s Jets-Bills Week 18 matchup in Buffalo.
Marquee matchup
Jets offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur vs. Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier
The Jets’ offense has shown some signs of life down the stretch. Now, it will get a major test. The Bills have the No. 1 defense in the NFL in terms of yards and points allowed. They have good players at every level of their defense and will give the Jets fits.
LaFleur has shown a lot of progress in his first year as the team’s offensive coordinator. He has gotten more comfortable calling plays and has shown a lot of creativity in the past two months. He’ll have a major challenge on his hands in this one though, with the Bills playing for a division title, and he knows it.
“In my opinion, and this is no disrespect to anyone else, but I think they’re the best guys to coach defense in football right now,” LaFleur said of the Bills’ staff. “Not only is it the same coaches, saying the same message each year, it’s a lot of the same players that have just been gelling. I talked about it seven weeks ago, they don’t have to even signal anything to each other, they just know. They know where they’re going to be and it is a problem and it’s tough.”
Costello’s call
The Jets played a spirited game last week against the Buccaneers, but I wonder if they have anything left. The Bills are playing to win the division title. They have every reason to be motivated in this one while the Jets may be dreaming of vacation.
Bills 35, Jets 13
Four downs
Playoff party: Jets head coach Robert Saleh has been talking about having his team learn what late-season football is about for the past month. Saleh hopes his team can get a feel for what it is like to make a playoff push even though they will be going home after this one.
The Bills will win the AFC East with a victory, and Highmark Stadium will be rocking. It will also be cold and wet and have the feel of a big game, something Saleh hopes will help his young team.
“This is the first stadium we’re actually going into, we’ve been talking about December football and all that, this is the first one that’s going to feel that way,” Saleh said. “Buffalo is playing for a division, it’s going to be sold out, it’s going to be loud, it’s going to be cold, it’s going to be everything you dream of as a kid in terms of going into a stadium and it just being as live and as juiced up as it’s going to be, and we’re going to get their absolute best shot.”
Buffalo backers: The Bills have a good amount of star power on their team, but two players who don’t get enough attention are linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and Matt Milano. The duo are tackling machines and always seem to make plays against the Jets. Edmunds leads the team with 103 tackles. Milano has 83 tackles, a whopping 14 for loss. Saleh praised both.
“He’s like a unicorn in the linebacker world,” Saleh said of Edmunds. “The guy’s 6-foot-5. He’s got ridiculous length, speed, range, knock back. He’s got all of it. There isn’t anything he doesn’t have. He is special in every sense of the imagination.”
Milano was a little more under-the-radar out of college, Saleh said.
“He’s really proven to be a heck of a football player,” Saleh said. “He’s smart. He’s instinctive. He’s actually a lot tougher than people gave him credit for coming out of college. He is exactly what you’d want out of a linebacker in terms of instinct, speed, feel, doesn’t miss many tackles if any at all. He’s always where he’s supposed to be. He’s a playmaker.”
Line it up: The Jets’ offensive line has undergone a lot of changes in the past few weeks, but it hasn’t hurt them. They have had seven different starting offensive linemen in the past two games, and only one started and finished both games. Still, they rushed for 150 yards or more and allowed just one sack in the two games, the first time they have done that in consecutive games since 2015. Last week, Jets backs averaged 6.2 yards per carry against the Buccaneers, the No. 3 rushing defense in the league entering the game. The Jets will be playing their third-string left tackle, Conor McDermott, in this game.
Diggs town: Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs destroyed the Jets in their first meeting in November. He had eight catches for 162 yards and a touchdown as the Jets failed to adjust on defense to double-team him. Diggs has been huge for the Bills the past two years. He needs three receptions in this game to have the most by a player in his first two seasons with a team in NFL history. He would pass Wes Welker, who had 223 with the Patriots in 2007-08.