The sportsbooks have released their betting odds for Monday night’s game between the Bills and Jets, so join us as we find our favorite pick for this exciting game.
NFL Pick
- Under 41 (-110) at Bet365 (check our Bet365 Review)
Buffalo Bills vs. New York Jets
Monday, October 14, 2024 – 08:15 PM ET at MetLife Stadium
Defenses Are Adjusting to Buffalo’s Offense
By understanding what Buffalo does well and what makes it struggle, opposing defensive coordinators are making the necessary adjustments.
Buffalo has built itself to thrive against two high coverages.
Understanding this, defensive coordinators are running more single-high coverage. This has been apparent from Buffalo’s season opener onward.
What A Good Defense Needs To Do
Not every defense, however, is able to execute single-high looks well against Buffalo’s offense.
Let’s give the Bills their due respect: they have a great quarterback and try to surround him with weapons. Poor defenses are unable to contain them.
So, Buffalo’s offense thrived against the Cardinals and Jaguars — Arizona ranks 25th in total defense and Jacksonville 31st.
Conversely, the Bills managed 247 total yards of offense against Miami’s sixth-ranked defense, 236 yards against a Baltimore defense that was one of the NFL’s very best last year, and, most recently, 276 yards against Houston’s fourth-ranked defense.
What Can New York’s Defense Do?
So, we need to ask: in terms of quality, is the Jets’ defense more like Arizona’s and Jacksonville’s or like Miami’s, Baltimore’s, and Houston’s?
Undoubtedly the latter. Aided by the brain-power of Jeff Ulbrich, New York ranks second in total defense. In order to execute single-high looks well, defenses will need to have cornerbacks and linebackers who are strong in coverage.
New York is arguably the team that, in terms of personnel, is best equipped to run single-high, seeing as its cornerback duo is likely the NFL’s best. Sauce Gardner is a former All-Pro selection, and D.J. Reed is yielding a 42.4 passer rating when targeted this season, positioning him currently as the best cornerback according to PFF’s grades.
Jets’ linebackers likewise flourish in coverage. PFF grades attest to the coverage abilities of linebackers like Quincy Williams, C.J. Mosley, and Jamien Sherwood. Able to trust its cornerbacks and linebackers in coverage, New York will gladly devote an extra defender to the box in order to add security against the run.
What This Will Look Like
On Monday, you will see Allen stand around in the pocket, waiting for his pass-catchers to get separation from their defenders so that he can target them. They won’t get separation against New York’s superb crew of linebackers and cornerbacks.
Buffalo’s offense is allowing many more pressures in their latest games largely because Allen’s pass-catchers are failing to gain separation and are therefore not making themselves available to Allen.
The Jets are superbly equipped to take advantage of the time that Allen will spend with the ball in his hands, as they rank second in sack percentage.
At least ten different New York players have one sack or more so far. Look out especially for Will McDonald IV, who has six sacks.
Historical Support
Josh Allen, historically, struggles against the Jets with Ulbrich.
These struggles have been especially prominent in East Rutherford. In his last two seasons, Allen has thrown a combined total of five interceptions to one touchdown in the Jets’ venue. Buffalo, in those two road games, averaged 16.5 points.
Will New York’s Coaching Change Rejuvenate It?
The Jets have fired head coach Robert Saleh. Bettors are thoughtlessly disposed to back a team when it gets a new head coach.
But teams are not particularly likely to win their first game after their head coach gets fired. The statistics suggest that they’ll win more than they did before the firing but only because they were winning with such infrequency. So, it would be illogical to blindly back the Jets.
We have to look at New York’s coaching changes rationally. Under their previous head coach and their current defensive coordinator, their defense was terrific. They promoted their current defensive coordinator to interim head coach.
This promotion, this continual reliance on Ulbrich, will ensure that the Jets continue to have an elite defense. However, there is zero reason to expect the offense to improve.
As the Jets should already know after having hired (and now fired) Saleh, having a defensive-minded (interim) head coach will not make the offense more potent. The Jets still have a terrible offensive coordinator in Nathaniel Hackett, whose offense is identically productive to the one led by quarterback Zach Wilson, who is now a third-stringer for Denver as part of what is likely one of the NFL’s three worst quarterback rooms, last year.
New York’s Offensive Struggles
The Jets rank 27th in total offense and average 18.6 points per game. Hackett’s offense is not one that can succeed in today’s NFL. It lacks explosive and innovative qualities.
To give an example of how archaic it is, New York does pre-snap motion with one of the lowest frequencies. As long as Hackett is running his stone-age offense, the Jets can never have enough talent to be dangerous offensively. Specifically, the Jets’ offensive line has struggled, resulting in their rush attack being the NFL’s third-least efficient one.
A lot of their offensive line issues are not physical. They are miscommunicating, blowing assignments, and committing other sorts of mental and discipline-related errors.
While these issues point to the coaching staff, their interim head coach is not going to fix them until he replaces position coach Keith Carter — and even if he were to replace Carter, or Hackett, this week, it will take time for changes to take shape because players cannot simply learn in a few days a new offense.
Carter is not well-liked. His hiring raised confusion, and it’s confusing to see that he still has his job. In any case, Buffalo ranks close to the top in run-stop win rate, so its run defense is primed to prolong the misery of New York’s rush attack, especially while the latter seems committed to trust Breece Hall despite his awful rush success rate.
Aaron Rodgers Is Washed-Up
Even when Braelon Allen got as many as eight carries against Denver, the Jets still only managed nine points.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers is having the worst season of his career, as measured by passer rating. At 40 years old, he is old. He is certainly not as mobile as he once was, and he is in general not as productive.
Buffalo has only struggled against mobile quarterbacks, surrendering high point totals to Arizona and Baltimore. The Bills, however, shut down the likes of Miami and Jacksonville. They just gave up 23 points to a Houston team that has one of the NFL’s best pocket-passing quarterbacks in C.J. Stroud.
Led by Rodgers and likewise held back by their offensive line and offensive system, the Jets won’t sniff 23 points.
The Takeaway
Josh Allen will continue to struggle in the Jets’ venue, as the Jets are uniquely well-equipped to limit Buffalo’s offense. Allen is going to have to hit big plays downfield in order to succeed against New York’s sort of defense, but he doesn’t have the necessary quality at wide receiver when he’s facing strong cornerbacks.
New York’s high-caliber group of cornerbacks and linebackers will continue to prevent Buffalo’s pass-catchers from gaining separation. The Jets’ already solid pass rush will, partly as a result of the time that Allen spends trying to find a target, have a field day.
Buffalo will not sniff 20 points but neither will New York, whose archaic offense is doomed to fail in today’s NFL. The Jets’ offense will have to make a lot of changes, especially to its coaching staff, and it will need time for those changes to produce positive effects.
In any case, Buffalo has a defense that has been solid against quarterbacks who aren’t dangerous runners like Kyler Murray of Arizona and Lamar Jackson of Baltimore.
This will be an ugly 16-14 sort of game, a grinder that I suspect a desperate Jets team that can enter first place in its division by winning will cover. Given Buffalo’s outlook on offense, the Jets do have some underdog value, especially at home.
Given the above analysis, however, I am only confident in the “under” hitting.
NFL Pick: Under 41 (-110) at Bet365
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