It’s Year 2 for both the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets with their respective quarterbacks, whom they are grooming to be their franchise cornerstone. The two teams split their matches last year, but who will prevail first in 2019? The Bills and the Jets are +800 and +550 to win the AFC East, respectively.
The Bills are still very far away from being a legitimate contender — even in the AFC East — but they want to see improvement. It all begins with Allen, who passed for just 2,074 yards to go with 10 touchdowns against 12 interceptions in his first year as a pro. He should fare better, though, in his sophomore year in the NFL. He has a huge upside, especially with his rushing ability. He rushed for 631 yards and eight touchdowns in 2018. Speaking of rushing, the Bills will likely remain as a run-heavy team even though they just traded away their top ground threat in previous years in the form of LeSean McCoy just a week before Week 1 of the regular season. For one, they drafted a shiny new backfield weapon in Devin Singletary and acquired two vets in the ageless Frank Gore and T.J. Yeldon. In their 41-10 road win over the Jets last season, the Bills put up 212 rushing yards and two touchdowns, and while the majority of those were from McCoy, Singletary and company are capable of doing it again against New York’s defense that allowed over 126 rushing yards per contest in 2018.
The Bills are 6-4 straight up (SU) and 6-4 against the spread (ATS) in their last 10 games against the Jets.
Betting on the New York Jets (0-0)
The Jets are bringing in plenty of new faces into the 2019 season, which they all hope would make a huge difference for the team that went just 4-12 SU in 2018. The Jets have a new head coach in former Miami Dolphins sideline boss Adam Gase and got themselves a superstar of their own when they won the Le’Veon Bell sweepstakes. With Bell, the Jets have a more dynamic team after just averaging 20.8 points in 2018. Before missing all of 2018, he rushed for over 1,200 yards and had nine rushing scores along with 655 receiving yards and two TD catches. Sam Darnold has never had a weapon like Bell before so expect the Jets to fully utilize the former Pittsburgh Steelers star. Darnold had 170 passing yards and a touchdown with an interception on 16 for 24 completions in their 27-23 home win over Buffalo last year. The Jets’ defense took down Allen three times that resulted in a 14 yards loss for the Bills.
