{"id":17297,"date":"2012-12-28T23:54:33","date_gmt":"2012-12-29T03:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jetnation.com\/?p=17297"},"modified":"2012-12-28T23:58:17","modified_gmt":"2012-12-29T03:58:17","slug":"new-york-jets-at-buffalo-bills-game-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/2012\/12\/28\/new-york-jets-at-buffalo-bills-game-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Jets At Buffalo Bills Game Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Franchise Head to Head Record: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Buffalo leads 53-50<\/a>(with Jets winning 8 of last 9 meetings)<\/p>\n<p>The &#8216;Battle for the Basement&#8221; will take place in Buffalo this Sunday.\u00a0 The 6-9 Jets, led by once-benched, now starting QB Mark Sanchez (McElroy is out with concussion) take on the 5-10, injury-riddled Bills team.\u00a0 The Bills have a ton of key injuries on the offensive side of the ball, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Fred Jackson, Scott Chandler and OT Chad Rinehart<\/a>.\u00a0 On defense they are going to be without <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">CB Leodis McKelvin, Chris Kelsay, Terrence McGee, S Jairus Byrd and could be without big money free agent DE Mario Williams<\/a> again.\u00a0 The Jets have their fair share of injured player, most noteably, McElroy, and Dustin Keller.\u00a0 Both teams have nothing to play for but pride and hopefully to save their head coaches.\u00a0 Both teams will need to make significant changes in the off season to compete with the perennial division winner New England Patriots and the young, but improved Miami Dolphins.<\/p>\n<p><strong>OFFENSE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As an offense, the Bills are ranked 29th in the league in turnovers, and 20th overall in points.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Ryan Fitzpatrick <\/a>is still the QB for the Bills.\u00a0 He&#8217;s completing over 61% of his passes for 23 touchdowns and 16 interceptions this season.\u00a0 He&#8217;s thrown for over 3,000 yards, but his overall QBR for the year is 45.08.\u00a0 He&#8217;s been sacked 30 times this year for a team that hasn&#8217;t ran a lot of total plays offensively.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">RB C.J. Spiller<\/a> has been their most explosive player.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/boxscores\/201209090nyj.htm\">Spiller came in in Week 1 against the Jets and ran for 156 yards<\/a>.\u00a0 This year overall Spiller has 1185 yards, 6 touchdowns, to go along with 46 receptions for 387 yards and one touchdown with only 2 fumbles.\u00a0 He&#8217;s averaging over 6 yards per carry, which is one of the highest in the NFL.\u00a0 He&#8217;s the guy that the Bills want to get the ball to.\u00a0 It&#8217;ll be heavy doses of Spiller all game.<\/p>\n<p>The WR group, led by<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\"> Stevie Johnson (73 rec., 935 yards, 5 TDs<\/a>) have been mediocre at best for Fitzpatrick and the Bills offense.\u00a0 Their second leading receiver is on injured reserve (Scott Chandler) and the third guy on that list is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">WR Donald Jones<\/a>, who&#8217;s also out this week.\u00a0 Enter Rookie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">T.J. Graham(30 rec, 317 yards)\u00a0and Ruvell Martin (3 rec., 30 yards)<\/a>\u00a0as Fitzpatrick&#8217;s second and third options at WR.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Ex-Jet Brad Smith<\/a> has only caught 12 passes this year, but will be used as the Wildcat quarterback early in games to throw off defenses.\u00a0 The Bills are onto their third string TE, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Lee Smith<\/a> because of the injuries to Chandler and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">David Nelson<\/a>.\u00a0 He&#8217;s caught only 4 passes this year.\u00a0 This is why Spiller has caught so many passes.<\/p>\n<p><em>Jets Defense vs. Bills Offense ADVANTAGE: Jets<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>DEFENSE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The formidable pass rush of the Bills that looked so good on paper before the season is now virtually non-existent.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Mario Williams <\/a>has been their best pass rusher creating 10.5 sacks.\u00a0 He is questionable for this weekend&#8217;s game.\u00a0 Other than him no one has more than 5 sacks.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Marcell Dareus and Kyle Williams <\/a>each have 5 sacks each and free agent signing Mark Anderson hasn&#8217;t given them the production that they have been looking for.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the Jets offensive line gave up 11 sacks last week and these four guys would still be a bigger threatening pass rush then the one the Jets saw last weekend with the Chargers.\u00a0 This is a definite cause for concern for the Jets this week.<\/p>\n<p>Their linebackers are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Nick Barnett(101 tackles,2 sacks, 3 forced fumbles), Kelvin Sheppard(69 tackles, 2 sacks) and rookie Nigel Bradham(38 tackles)<\/a>.\u00a0 With the exception of Bradham, these linebackers are an aging group.\u00a0 They are very good run stoppers, but have struggled in the passing game all year.\u00a0 They have a combined 3 pass deflections this year.<\/p>\n<p>Their secondary has been banged up all year.\u00a0 McKelvin is out and safety <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Jairus Byrd <\/a>is questionable.\u00a0 Byrd is third on the team with 71 tackles, and leads the team in interceptions in his contract year.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Rookie Stephon Gilmore <\/a>has had a good first season at corner.\u00a0 With McKelvin out, he has stepped up into the lock down corner role, playing the other teams best receivers week in and week out.\u00a0 The corner replacing McKelvin is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Aaron Williams<\/a>.\u00a0 The safety opposite of Byrd is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">George Wilson<\/a> who is second on the team in total tackles with 92.<\/p>\n<p><em>Jets Offense vs. Bills Defense ADVANTAGE: Bills<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>SPECIAL TEAMS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The punter for the Bills is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Shawn Powell<\/a>.\u00a0 He&#8217;s averaging a little over 44 yards per punt, with a long of 62.<\/p>\n<p>The field goal kicker is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Rian Lindell<\/a>, who&#8217;s hit 21-22 field goals attempted this season.<\/p>\n<p>With McKelvin out, Brad Smith has been returning kickoffs.\u00a0 He has one touchdown on kickoffs this season.<\/p>\n<p>Returning punts is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/buf\/2012.htm\">Justin Rogers<\/a>, who has 3 returns for 14 yards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Franchise Head to Head Record: Buffalo leads 53-50(with Jets winning 8 of last 9 meetings) The &#8216;Battle for the Basement&#8221; will take place in Buffalo this Sunday.\u00a0 The 6-9 Jets, led by once-benched, now starting QB Mark Sanchez (McElroy is out with concussion) take on the 5-10, injury-riddled Bills team.\u00a0 The Bills have a ton [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":17078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[258,1337,213],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets-game-previews","8":"category-home-slider","9":"category-jet-news"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Game_Preview.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-4uZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17297"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17305,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17297\/revisions\/17305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}