NY Jets: Week 1 loss to Buffalo Bills isn’t the end of the world

The NY Jets may have lost in Week 1, but it isn’t the end of the world just yet.

It was a rough afternoon for Sam Darnold and the NY Jets as they dropped their opening game to the Buffalo Bills 27-17. This coming on the heels of an end to Week 17 of last season where the Jets won up at Buffalo.

This game would’ve been a good spot to possibly double-dip for Darnold and the Jets to get their 2020 season off to a bang.

Unfortunately, Darnold and the Jets didn’t do much of anything to put the Bills on their heels in this game. In fact, they got crushed in time of possession 41 minutes to just 18 minutes and out-gained 404 total yards to 254.

Darnold had a rough day throwing for just 215 yards and a touchdown with one interception on 21-for-35 passing. The Jets went 4-for-11 on third downs as well and didn’t pick up their second first down until just before the end of the first half.

This was simply a case of the Bills being the better team in this matchup. But I wouldn’t throw the Jets away already like so many fans out there want to do. It’s not going to get any smoother for the Jets in their scheduling, but nothing out of the ordinary happened in this opening game.

Here are some positives, the Jets defense quietly did a pretty impressive job yesterday forcing two fumbles on Josh Allen that they recovered, as well as sacking Allen three times — one by Brian Poole and two by Marcus Maye.

Maye looked awesome yesterday. This is a Jets team that will certainly miss the talent of Jamal Adams, but the truth of the matter is he and Maye were very close in what they did production-wise.

Maye possesses similar abilities to play down in the box and get to the quarterback as Adams did as well as play back like a traditional safety and he proved that on Sunday.

The Jets don’t look completely lost on defense as one may assume. They may have gotten beat yesterday, but Buffalo is a better team and Gregg Williams has a good scheme going as their defensive coordinator.

The NY Jets offense was clearly a huge problem on Sunday.

Where I think the Jets looked a little lackluster yesterday was in their running game and play-calling creativity. Not a ton of different looks that were thrown out by the offense. Not too much motion and moving parts as you would expect from an offensive guy like Adam Gase.

I mentioned just a few days ago with my Jets prediction article that Sam Darnold is going to get this offense going and he’s going to win a bunch of games in 2020, but the play-calling needs to be better.

The run game also doesn’t look like it has gotten that much better from last season. This team was one of, if not the worst running team in football last year.

24 yards on six attempts by Frank Gore and 14 yards on six attempts by Le’Veon Bell aren’t great starts for a Jets run game I expected to improve this year.

Three sacks and six tackles for loss by the Bills also don’t look so good on the offensive line, but hey, it’s a brand new group trying to get in sync. And a few players, particularly rookie Mekhi Becton, actually looked pretty good.

All five positions on the line have been upgraded — just give it a little time to bake. Once it does, Darnold’s pass protection will improve and the run game will get a boost.

It doesn’t get easier for the Jets with San Francisco coming to town next week, but Young Sammy is going to get in a groove very soon once everybody else on the offense gets settled in.