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Bills at Jets, Week 6: What to expect from New York’s defensive line

Bills at Jets, Week 6: What to expect from New York’s defensive line

The Buffalo Bills will face the New York Jets Monday Night Football. Buffalo’s offense began a winning streak, scoring over 37 points per game in Weeks 1-3. In the last two games, that number has dropped to less than half at 15 points per game.

There are concerns that the Bills’ offense has faltered, and the defense has begun to deal with it. On the other hand, the Jets’ defense has held three of their opponents under 20 points.

Let’s take a look at some facts, numbers and a few GIFs to see if Buffalo’s offense is in for a tough night.

The statistics

Appropriate defense

The New York Jets are currently allowing 4.88 yards per pass attempt. Nobody allows less. A big part of this is all the “zeros” they add to their ledger by forcing incompletions. The Jets allow the third-lowest completion percentage. Making matters worse for Buffalo is that New York is solid to spectacular all over the field. Their only weakness is a potential problem defending deep mid-range passes, an area where the Bills haven’t exactly impressed in 2024.

Do you want good news? The Jets are 23rd in interceptions and relatively rarely take the ball away from the air. Back to the bad news: They sack the opposing quarterback 12.86% of the time. That’s the second-best rate in the league and roughly every eight passing plays.

The Jets defense also does a great job of controlling the sky when it comes to passing touchdowns. Opponents’ passing touchdown percentage is 1.4%, making the Jets a top-three unit.

The Jets do this with a 24% midfield blitz rate, meaning they don’t always rely on extra help to apply pressure.

Rushing defense

The Jets are weaker against the run, but that’s a relative weakness. They rank ninth-best in yards per attempt and allow 4.2 yards per carry. They complete runs on the right side but are mediocre in the middle and on the left side. Buffalo has had success in the run game and especially in the gut, so that could be an area to exploit.

The Jets have allowed four touchdowns on the ground, which is right in the middle of the field. They currently sit 12th in tackles for a loss, which as we all know is a statistic I love. Buffalo is a better fit here on paper, so fingers crossed we see running back James Cook.

The players

As a familiar opponent, the New York Jets have many names you probably know, such as defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and defensive back Sauce Gardner. To be clear here: When a team performs at a high level, it is always a team effort. So I don’t want to seem like I’m dismissing these and other players, but for the purposes of today’s look, let’s take a quick look at one particular player who could be disruptive for quarterback Josh Allen and the Bills.

EN Will McDonald

In his rookie season for the Jets in 2023, Will McDonald was listed with the ambiguous designation of “defensive line” and started zero games. McDonald regularly failed to break 20% playing time, doing so in just five of 15 appearances. McDonald handled his time fairly well, finishing the year with four TFLs, five QB hits and three sacks.

In 2024, McDonald has started three games. He only fell below 50% playing time once, and that was close. McDonald’s has already surpassed its TFL number from last year by one. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, McDonald doubled the QB hits and sack totals he posted last year with 10 and 5, respectively. No one else on the team comes close to those numbers, which are a good proxy for the ability to disrupt a game.

Let’s take a look at McDonald’s sacks against the Tennessee Titans to see how it helped ruin their day.

Sack 1


McDonald faked the initial rush and then went back to cover. The presence of McDonald’s likely helped prevent a quick raid on the crossing route. After that option veered to our right, quarterback Will Levis attempted to scramble, and the now-spying Will McDonald was immediately there to clean up.

Sack 2


McDonald initially did well against the first block, using a long arm to maintain space, but still gaining ground on his opponent. McDonald was blown away by the running back’s “much more than a chip” shot and the rest was comedy gold. I love this piece so much that I included both perspectives.


Sack 3


McDonald did nothing wrong on the last sack, but to be fair, Will Levis sacked himself. However, in this case, McDonald used his right arm to gain some space similar to the one above, but this time the lineman had a better approach and got McDonald with both hands. The movement of McDonald’s left arm helped clear the opponent’s right hand and also caused some movement in the shoulders. McDonald, now free, grabbed Levis and pulled him to the ground.

The last straw

The New York Jets defense should not be taken lightly as it has proven to be incredibly effective so far. Hopefully the Buffalo Bills offense that we saw in the Miami Dolphins game will come into play on Monday night to try and knock the Jets off their defensive pedestal.

If the version of Buffalo’s offense from the last two games makes the trip to New Jersey, Bills fans could be in for a sad night.