In the first game of a Week 3 “Monday Night Football” doubleheader, the 2-0 Buffalo Bills will play host to the 0-2 Jacksonville Jaguars. Despite an offseason of change, the Bills are again looking like one of the top contenders to the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs‘ throne in the AFC, while the Jags do not yet appear to have made many strides after their disappointing end to the 2023 campaign.
Josh Allen and Co. are rolling offensively, while Sean McDermott’s remade defense has stifled a pair of strong attacks in each of the first two weeks. Trevor Lawrence, meanwhile, has struggled to date, and the Jaguars’ defense hasn’t been able to do quite enough to make up for the offensive struggles.
Will the Bills remain unbeaten? Will the Jaguars bounce back? We’ll find out soon enough. Before we break down the matchup, here’s a look at how you can watch the game.
Where to watch
Date: Monday, Sept. 23 | Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
Location: Highmark Stadium (Orchard Park, NY)
Channel: ESPN | Stream: fubo
Follow: CBS Sports App
Odds: Bills -5.5; O/U 46.5 (via SportsLine consensus odds)
When the Jaguars have the ball
Jacksonville’s offense has been perhaps the league’s most disappointing unit through the first two weeks of the season, totaling just 590 yards and 30 points combined in losses to the Dolphins and the Browns.
Trevor Lawrence is 26 of 51 passing for 382 yards and one touchdown, and Jacksonville has a pathetic passing success rate of a mere 36.2%. He even has a sky-high sack rate of 12.7%, more than twice as high as his career average of 5.3%. Jacksonville’s receivers have dropped four passes already, while Lawrence has been off target on 13 of 51 attempts (27.1%, the highest mark of his career). Ostensible top passing-game target Christian Kirk has two catches for 29 yards. Nothing is working well, perhaps with the exception of the occasional, “well, Brian Thomas Jr. is down there somewhere” type of throw.
In the run game, Travis Etienne is averaging just 3.8 yards per carry, exactly where he was last year. He ranks 34th out of 50 qualified running backs in yards after contact per carry and 35th in avoided tackle rate, per Tru Media. The team as a whole is averaging only 1.28 yards before contact per carry, tied for 20th in the NFL. Tank Bigsby has ripped off a couple of long runs, but again, nothing else is really working here.
They’re now going up against a Bills defense that essentially strangled Miami’s offense even before Tua Tagovailoa left with an injury in Week 2, and held the Cardinals to only 270 total yards in Week 1. (A kickoff-return touchdown got Arizona its third touchdown of the afternoon.) Jacksonville will also again be without tight end Evan Engram, leaving Brenton Strange in the top tight end role in his place.
That particular absence is an unfortunate one, because the best way to beat this Buffalo defense might be on throws over the middle against a linebacker group missing superstar Matt Milano and a safety duo (Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin) that is not as strong in coverage as its predecessors.
With linebacker Terrel Bernard and slot corner Taron Johnson also out on Monday night for the Bills, that only reinforces that “over the middle” is where the Jaguars need to attack. Whether that is with Strange, or by getting Kirk much more involved than he has been to date, it needs to happen. On the outside, Thomas and Gabe Davis will see a lot of Christian Benford and Kaiir Elam, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Rasul Douglas slide into the slot. There’s also the fact that the offensive line will have to deal with a fully healthy Greg Rousseau and Von Miller — who have been really getting after it through the first two weeks of the season — to even give Lawrence enough time to find them downfield.
Can Doug Pederson and Press Taylor scheme anybody into open space and find success? Everything we’ve seen from this team over the last year-plus leaves me skeptical.
When the Bills have the ball
The Bills have won their first two games of the season in very different fashion.
In Week 1, it required a Josh Allen-is-Superman type of effort to come from behind and beat Arizona. Allen went 18 of 23 for 232 yards and two touchdowns through the air, and carried nine times for 39 yards and two touchdowns on the ground. In Week 2, James Cook basically went nuclear in the first half with a pair of touchdown runs and a touchdown reception, and Buffalo was basically just running out the clock the rest of the way. Allen threw only 19 passes and had just two rushing attempts.
The fact that they can win in totally disparate ways is an extremely encouraging sign for their rest-of-season prospects, especially given how well the remade defense has performed to date.
The Jaguars have actually allowed just 38 points to the Dolphins and Browns through the first two weeks of the season, but they did allow the Dolphins to put up 400 yards and the Browns to look like a vaguely competent unit (which did not happen against either the Cowboys or Giants), and they have yet to force a turnover. That they managed to slow Miami’s run game in Week 1 is encouraging in some sense, but Raheem Mostert left early with injury and the Dolphins’ last two games have shown that their rushing attack may just not be as explosive as it was last year even with De’Von Achane still around, mostly because they cannot block anybody. Jacksonville also gave up the 10th-most rushing yards to quarterbacks last season, which is less than ideal when facing a team led by Josh Allen.
With Tyson Campbell on IR and Tashaun Gipson suspended, the Jaguars’ secondary was already going to be shorthanded. But now Darnell Savage is out as well, leaving them perilously thin on the back end. Buffalo’s passing attack hasn’t had to do all that much so far this season, but their young pass catchers (Keon Coleman, Khalil Shakir and Dalton Kincaid) should be looking at favorable matchups down the field. So long as Buffalo’s offensive line holds up against the Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker-led pass rush, there is really not much to worry about here for the Bills.
Prediction
Buffalo is the better team, playing at home, against an opponent that has seemingly been regressing ever since getting a “dead cat bounce” season after it fired Urban Meyer. With Josh Allen leading the way, the run game operating at a high level and Sean McDermott scheming up the defense, there is just too much working in the Bills’ favor for the Jaguars to overcome. Bills 30, Jaguars 17
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Author: Jared Dubin
September 23, 2024 | 9:40 am
