When Aaron Maybin returns to Buffalo on Sunday for the Jets to play the Bills, he probably can’t expect a warm reception. The Bills took Maybin 11th overall in 2009 and he was one of the NFL’s biggest draft busts of the last few years, getting released without ever recording a single sack.
But Maybin has three sacks so far this season with the Jets, and he says the difference between his old team and his new team is simple: His old coaches never gave him a chance to show what he could do, and his new coaches are making the most of his talents.
“When you get between five and seven plays a game, that’s not really an opportunity,” Maybin told Sean Jensen for Yahoo Sports. “There was something the Bills’ coaching staff didn’t see that Rex Ryan and that coaching staff did. Whatever it is, I can’t tell you or put my finger on it. I can sit here and try to focus on why that is. But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Of course, the Bills would argue that the five to seven plays a game were an opportunity, and that Maybin also had plenty of opportunities in minicamps, training camps, practices and preseason games to prove he deserved more than five to seven plays a game in the 27 regular-season games he played for the Bills.
That time is over, though, and Maybin has found a role he can fill in the Jets’ defense. That’s a credit to him, and to Ryan. And it can’t make the Bills happy to see Maybin contributing for an AFC East rival in a way he never contributed for the Bills.