Bills/Jets preview: Three storylines, two keys to the game, one X-Factor

by TYLER HATHAWAY

Buffalo opened up its 2025 campaign with as dramatic of a victory as a team can have in Week 1. The Bills stormed back from a 15-point fourth-quarter deficit in their season opener against the Baltimore Ravens last Sunday, and won 41-40 on a walkoff field goal by recently signed veteran kicker Matt Prater. However, the Bills must put that emotional victory behind them and ready to face a division rival- the New York Jets, who opposite of the Bills, are coming off of a last-minute loss. Here’s the breakdown:

BUFFALO BILLS (1-0/AFC East)
vs.
NEW YORK JETS (0-1/AFC East)
Sunday, Metlife Stadium, 1:00 pm

Storyline #1: Avoiding the “letdown game”

One of the more interesting trends in recent NFL history has been teams with statement Week 1 wins losing in the following week. In 2021, the New Orleans Saints opened the season with a 38-3 thumping over a Packers team that won 13 games in 2020 (and would win 13 more in 2021). But in Week 2, the Saints fell 26-7 to the Carolina Panthers, a team that only won five games that entire season. In 2023, the upstart Detroit Lions shocked the NFL world by walking into Kansas City and knocking off the defending super bowl champion Chiefs to kickoff the season. The next week, they suffered a home loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Bills find themselves in a similar spot- their win was watched by nearly 25 million people and was the first time in NFL history that a team trailing by 15 or more points with less than four minutes left in the fourth quarter won the game in regulation. However, Buffalo has been in this position before, and did not fall victim to the letdown. In 2022, the Bills cruised to a 31-10 win over the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams in Week 1, and followed it up in Week 2 with a dominant 41-7 win over the Tennessee Titans. 

Storyline #2: Can the Jets bounce back from a hard-fought loss?

A big surprise of Week 1 was the game between the Jets and the Pittsburgh Steelers turning into a shootout. The Jets finished last season in the bottom 10 in both total yards and points per game but ended up producing almost 400 yards of total offense and scoring 32 points in their Week 1 contest. However, the Aaron Rodgers-led Steelers ended up erasing a two-score lead the Jets had built through three quarters and took a lead in the final moments on a 60-yard field goal by Pittsburgh kicker Chris Boswell to earn a 34-32 road win.

“There are no moral victories,” Jets quarterback Justin Fields told reporters after the game. “At the end of the day, we lost. We gotta get better, and that’s what we’re gonna do this week.”

Despite the loss, the Jets offense was encouraging. Their 32 points in Week 1 tied the season-high in points the Jets had last year and the 394 yards of total offense was the most they’ve had in a season opener since 2014. 

Storyline #3: Bills defense looks to fill Ed Oliver’s absence 

Seventh-year defensive tackle Ed Oliver had one of the best games of his career in Week 1. The Houston product finished with six tackles, three tackles for loss, a sack, and a game-changing forced fumble on Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry in the fourth quarter. However, Bills head coach Sean McDermott announced Thursday morning that Oliver will miss Sunday’s game against the Jets after suffering an injury at practice on Wednesday.

That leaves the Bills’ defensive tackle depth pretty thin. Currently on the active roster, the Bills have only three defensive tackles who can play in Sunday’s game, being veteran Daquan Jones, rookie second-round draft pick TJ Sanders, and rookie fourth-round draft pick Deone Walker. On the practice squad, the Bills have three defensive tackles they could call up to the active roster, being Phidarian Mathis, Zion Logue, and Jordan Phillips, who has spent six years throughout his 11-year career with the Bills.

Key to the game #1: Limiting the Jets’ rushing attack

The biggest reason the Bills found themselves in the hole they were in against the Ravens was due to their inability to stop the run. Buffalo gave up 239 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the ground between running back Derrick Henry and quarterback Lamar Jackson in Week 1, and faces a Jets offense in Week 2 that saw running back Breece Hall run for 107 yards and quarterback Justin Fields run for 48 yards and two touchdowns in their season-opener.

Hall has found success on the ground in his two career home games against the Bills. The fourth-year back ran for a season-high 118 rushing yards when Buffalo visited Metlife in Week 6 of last season and posted 127 yards on only 10 carries when the Bills opened the season in New York in 2023. On the other hand, the Bills bottled up Fields when he tried to run the ball as the quarterback for the Chicago Bears when the two teams met in 2022. In a year that saw Fields finish with 1,143 rushing yards across 15 games, Buffalo limited the dual-threat quarterback to a season-low 11 yards running the football.

Key to the game #2: Josh Allen playing clean football

Historically speaking, Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen has had a hard time taking care of the football while playing against the Jets. While his two games against the Jets in 2024 were turnover free, in his 10 other full games against New York, the reigning MVP touts a total touchdown to turnover ratio of 17/18.

The Bills are 2-3 against the Jets when Allen turns the ball over two or more times, compared to a perfect 7-0 when Allen has one turnover or less. His 18 career turnovers against the Jets rank the most out of any one team he’s played against.

X-Factor: Jets quarterback Justin Fields

Fields’ first start as a Jet could not have gone better outside of nabbing the win. A former first-round pick on his third team in the past three years, the Ohio State alum completed 73% of his passes and finished with 218 passing yards, 48 rushing yards and three total touchdowns. Facing a Bills defense that struggled to contain a fellow dual-threat quarterback in Lamar Jackson in Week 1, and with the Bills pass-rush hampered with the loss of Ed Oliver, Fields will attempt to exploit Buffalo the same way Jackson did, who finished with 279 total yards and three touchdowns.

However, potential issues lie in the fact that the Jets have recently struggled to move the ball through the air against the Bills’ defense. In the past four games between Buffalo and New York, Jets starting quarterbacks are only averaging 144 passing yards per game with a 4/5 touchdown to interception ratio. The play of Fields, who in his career averages 156 passing yards per game, will be crucial if the Jets want to knock off Buffalo in Week 2.