Jets vs Bills: Three Things to Keep an eye on This Week

The New York Jets are set to face off against the Buffalo Bills this Sunday. After watching a shootout against the Steelers in Week 1, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about a potential upset victory in Week 2. The Bills also found themselves in a shootout in Week 1, narrowly winning by a point after Josh Allen had to become the first QB in NFL history to throw 250 yards in the 4th quarter.

Week 1 can be weird; sometimes it can be a sign of things to come, but most often the results of the week are outliers as teams try to establish their identity early on. Is Josh Allen going to throw for 397 yards every week? Is Justin Fields going to have a 118 passer rating every week? The answer to these questions is probably not, but each passing week will tell us how “out of the norm” these occurrences are, because perhaps Fields has reached a new norm.

Let’s look ahead to this matchup of division rivals and highlight three specific things to watch for during the game. These aren’t “keys to the game” or “matchups” per se, but just three things that could end up having tremendous impact on the outcome of the game. For those who read last week’s edition, we went 3/3 for bringing up things that became pivotal – let’s see how we do this week.

0 to 100 Real Quick?

For all of the Breece Hall haters out there, he wasted no time showing us why he was considered a Top-5 pick in fantasy last season. He immediately showed off the skill set that made him third in the NFL in scrimmage yards in 2023, only behind Christian McCaffrey and Tyreek Hill. He hit holes hard on Sunday, had great hands in the pass game, and looked explosive with the ball in his hands. The 5.6 yards per carry were the most he’s had in a game since October 14 last year, when he had 6.3 against the Bills at home.

As a matter of fact, he had 100+ rushing yards each time he faced the Bills at home – 127 yards on 10 carries in 2023 and 113 yards on 18 carries in 2024. That’s a career average of 8.6 yards per carry against the Bills at home, and the Bills are coming off a game where they allowed 9.4 yards per carry for Derrick Henry on 18 carries. Expect there to be be a huge emphasis in the Buffalo locker room on stopping the run with Hall up next after the Ravens ran all over the Bills in week 1?

Justin Fields also deserves a mention here, too – Lamar Jackson just gashed the Bills for 70 yards on six carries, while Fields just had 12 carries for 48 yards against the Steelers. Just like Jackson, Fields runs a lot of QB options but also can break tackles and break free for scramble yardage whenever the pocket breaks down. By having an explosive QB on the ground back in the option, the Jets are basically employing the same ‘type’ of offense as the Ravens that just dominated the Bills for 3 quarters.

Will Hall and Fields be able to keep that going and combine for 150 yards on the ground? Against the Steelers, they combined for 155 rushing yards.  Knowing that the Bills just allowed Jackson and Henry to combine for 239 yards against them, a big day isn’t out of the qeustion. Tanner Engstrand said he needs to be better than he did in week 1, which would be a heck of an achievement given the way his debut went.

Keyed In on Keon

When the Bills drafted Ceedee Lamb’s cousin Keon Coleman who was 6′ 4″, 215 pounds last season, you had to wonder if Buffalo had found a legitimate numer one receiver.  Once the games started you could see that if was going to be that, it wasn’t going to come as a rookie.  In the two games against the Jets, he combined for six catches for 53 yards, which is not at all impressive. Against the elite Ravens secondary, he started his 2025 campaign with eight catches, 112 yards, and one touchdown.

There has been serious talk about Coleman being the new WR1 in Buffalo, and he’s always had the size and athleticism to make it happen. Has he finally put it all together? If he has, can our 2x All-Pro CB Sauce Gardner neutralize his newfound capabilities? Sauce was one of the highest-rated defensive players in the entire NFL last week – he did a phenomenal job against DK Metcalf, shutting him almost completely down with pass breakups and excellent coverage.

With a deeper wide receiver room than Metcalf has in Pittsburgh, perhaps Gardner won’t follow Coleman as much and will split time between him and last year’s number one, Khalil Shakir. It’s going to be very interesting in seeing what Aaron Glenn and Steve Wilks have in store for this potential young star and seeing how the Jets’ secondary can slow him down. Please, let’s make sure Brandon Stephens has some steady cleats for this one if he finds himself across from Coleman.

Turnover Battle

For both the Jets-Steelers and the Bills-Ravens games, we saw shootouts full of touchdowns and field goals, and didn’t have too many punts. In each game, there was only one turnover, and in both cases, it would appear that one turnover cost that team the game.  Jets fans and media universally celebrated the accountability behind the decision on Xavier Gipson, but obviously, cutting Gipson doesn’t mean this team won’t commit a turnover again.

Will the Jets be able to play mistake-free football? And more importantly, can they force Buffalo to make a mistake or two? In this series specifically, the turnover battle has been a huge deal. The last time that the team that lost the turnover battle won the game was in Week 1 of 2019 – Quinnen Williams’s first NFL game – when the Bills miraculously came back after the Jets jumped out to a 16-3 lead after 3 quarters.

With a stat like that running for six years strong, it almost seems like a blessing that Gipson fumbled that one turnover away last week, because it’s quite likely that Glenn has been preaching ball security all week. With it being a major emphasis of this week’s game plan, perhaps all it will take is one forced turnover against the Bills to be the difference between winning and losing this football game. Let’s go Jets

The post Jets vs Bills: Three Things to Keep an eye on This Week appeared first on JetNation.com – New York Jets Blog & Forum. You can discuss this with other NY Jets fans on the Jet Nation message board. Or visit of on Facebook.