I love Bills head coach Rex Ryan. Even though I don't share his affinity for women's feet, I enjoy many facets of his personality. He's bombastic, opinionated, fun-loving and an occasional hardass. His press conferences are invariably entertaining and he doesn't scoff at reporters with the same unbridled disdain that occasionally bubbles up from Giants coach Tom Coughlin.
I also love Rex Ryan because he's never been the coach of my team, so he hasn't focused 99.999 percent of his attention on his defense and the remaining nanoseconds accumulating skill position players with observable skills.
The Jets had a Super Bowl-worthy defense for several years under Ryan, but the team was always supplying the fewest amount of offensive players to people's fantasy teams. Other than Thomas Jones, who had 1,402 yards rushing in Ryan's first year in New York (2009), the Jets' best skills position players were laughably bad. The leading passers were Mark Sanchez and Geno Smith, and the leading receivers were (look away!) Jericho Cotchery, Braylon Edwards, Dustin Keller, Jeremy Kerley and Eric Decker.
Know what they all had in common? (Ya know, other than terrible quarterbacks.) None of them had more than 1,000 yards receiving while with the Jets. The team hasn't had a 1,000-yard receiver since the pre-Ryan era, when Cotchery notched 1,130 in 2007.
In an era when NFL teams are setting passing, receiving and scoring records, the Jets remained blissfully in the dark ages. Is the Buffalo team that the Giants face this week any different? It sure seems to be, which is why a lot of people are giddy about the Bills, a team which already features a (sometimes) Super Bowl-worthy defense.
Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor is currently fifth in the NFL in quarterback rating, which would be remarkable if the season were more than three games old and the Bills had played those games against teams with honorable defenses. Indianapolis, New England, Miami are ranked 15th, 19th and 23rd in points allowed per game, respectively, meaning Taylor should do quite well against another mediocre defense -- the Giants, ranked 16th in points per game.
Last week's victory over Washington was a season-saver for the Giants, who at 1-2 are just one game behind Dallas (2-1) in the race toward mediocrity in the NFC East. The winner of this division could limp home with an 8-8 record, it wouldn't surprise me. So how devastating would a loss be in Buffalo?
U.S. & World
Let's ask our man on the street, Joey from Meadowlands Park: "Any loss is very devastating, but especially a loss to another New York team."
And that reminds me, Buffalo is from New York, which I always forget because, well, Buffalo.
Without the services of the injured LeSean McCoy and Sammy Watkins, the Bills' offense will ostensibly have trouble matching its year-to-date average of 33 points per game. But they're facing a Giants defense that has only generated three sacks in three games, so Taylor should have plenty of time to find some of Buffalo's other offensive options, including Percy Harvin (provided he can get his porcelain bones to the stadium in one piece, which is never a given); tight end Charles Clay; and third-year USC product Robert Woods.
Oh, and they can also lean on a guy at running back (Karlos Williams) who is averaging 7.8 yards per carry. Is Williams available in your fantasy league? Go check right now. Run. Seriously, hurry up.
The rookie from Florida State ran for 110 yards on 12 carries in last week's 41-14 drubbing of the Dolphins. So just imagine what he's going to do against a defense that doesn't have Ndamukong Suh and Cameron Wake.
The long lag time between the victory over Washington has tempered some of the bickering about this Giants team, which still has no pass rush, an unreliable running game, few playmakers on defense and a future slot receiver (Victor Cruz) who is in dire need of some good juju.
It's hard to be confident about the Giants' prospects in traveling to Buffalo when you're basically counting on Odell Beckham Jr. to go 150 with two TDs, Eli Manning to continue posting zeros in the INT column, and the defense to continue producing turnovers. Can all three of those things happen? They're going to need to happen in order for New York to travel upstate and raise their record to 2-2 and put them firmly in the hunt in the NFC (L)East.
