It’s the official open of Color Rush season on Thursday Night Football, but we’ve already got a literal spoil sport. The New York Jets have been instructed not to wear their all lime green uniforms tonight because, for people with color blindness, they clash with the all red Bills uniforms. Instead they’ll be in a an all-white ensemble with the lime green highlights. It should help people with monochromacy, who have just managed to mess it up for everybody. Jerks.
This week's Color Rush match-up: Jets (white) at Bills (red), which avoids last year's colorblindness problem. pic.twitter.com/EBOP9ghuHM
— Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) September 13, 2016
The game: New York Jets at Buffalo (EVEN)
The History
The Bills lead the all-time series 60-51. The two teams faced off for the first time at the Polo Grounds in New York with the Jets winning 27-3.
Buffalo is currently riding a five-game winning streak over the Jets, including a 22-17 voctory last January 3 that knocked New York out of the playoffs.
The fact is, head coach Rex Ryan himself has dominated this match up since he was hired by the Jets in 2009, then by the Bills in 2015. The Ryan-coached team has won nine of the 14 match-ups between the two teams in the last six seasons.
A Bills win streak is nothing new in this rivalry. Buffalo has put together streaks of six, five, 10, six and now five games in the two teams’ history. It will come as no surprise to you that the 10-win streak came in the Marv Levy, Jim Kelly and Thurmond Thomas era from 1987-1992.
The Jets on Offense
The arrival of Matt Forte has made the fantasy season interesting for the Jets if nothing else. He, along with wideouts Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker are legitimate weapons. The problem is they have a illigitimate quarterback slinging them the ball in Ryan Fitzpatrick. When he’s on, he’s fine. When he’s off, you get a 19-for-35, 189-yard, two touchdowns and one interception game like last week.
The Bills on Offense
If it’s even possible to comprehend, the Bills are in worse shape at quarterback than the Jets with Tyrod Taylor. Both Taylor and Fitzpatrick landed big “prove it” contracts in the offseason and neither guy should be able to prove anything but his back-up status. On the outside, Sammy Watkins is hobbled with hurts the Bills’ already anemic passing game. Buffalo is loaded at running back, but it doesn’t matter much when you’re consistently facing off against eight and nine-man fronts.
The Jets on Defense
New York will likely be without the services of defensive tackle Muhammad Wilkerson again thanks to ankle and foot problems, but they’re so deep it shouldn’t matter. Sheldon Richardson returns after his one-game suspension to team up with Leonard Williams to harass the Bills’ backfield all game. While Darrelle Revis had a game to forget against A.J. Green last week, Brandon Marshall shouldn’t present the same match-up issue for a guy who still should be a Top Five corner in the league.
The Bills on Defense
Buffalo boasts a couple of pretty good corners of their own with Stephone Gilmore and Ronald Darby. In fact, I’d argue their entire defensive backfield is the strength of their defense. Where they need help is up front and that’s exactly where the Jets will attack in the running game. Adolphus Washington is a rookie and didn’t record a stat last week. Corbin Bryant and Kyle Williams are just bodies taking up space.
The Coaches
The competition between Todd Bowles of the Jets and Rex Ryan of the Bills is no real contest at all. Bowles is the superior coach as proven by him taking Ryan’s former team to 10 wins last year while Ryan took a 9-7 Bills team that nearly made the playoffs in 2014 to 8-8 and a third-place finish in the AFC East in 2015.
The Pick: The Jets are simply the better team, with the better quarterback (although that’s a marginal difference at best). Ultimately, New York owes Buffalo for their playoff absence last season and there’s no reason they won’t hasten Ryan’s firing with a nice little road victory tonight. Jets 20, Bills 13
Last week:
Straight up: 9-7
Against the spread: 5-11
