The Bills will end the first week of the regular season in sole possession of first place.
They got there with the help of Mother Nature, the Chiefs and a pair of second half touchdowns that allowed them to pull away from the Jets for a 21-12 victory. The Bills were up just one point at halftime despite a big edge in yardage, but they were able to put together a pair of scoring drives and forced a pair of turnovers that dashed any hopes of a win for the visiting team.
Tyrod Taylor threw a one-yard touchdown to Andre Holmes for the first of those scores and Mike Tolbert ran for the second against a Jets defense that had some good moments while getting little help from the offense. The Jets ran for just 38 yards, forcing Josh McCown to put the ball up 39 times. He completed 26 of them, but they were mostly modest gains and McCown was intercepted twice in the fourth quarter while trying to engineer a comeback.
That’s pretty much what was expected of the Jets offense coming into the season and the struggle looks like it will be quite real for a team short on talent across the offense.
The Bills offense has its own detractors, but they managed to find good balance on Sunday. Taylor threw for 224 yards and connected with newcomer Jordan Matthews for one big play to set up a score. LeSean McCoy ran 22 times for 110 yards and caught five passes for 49 while Tolbert also played a prominent role with 13 touches over the course of the afternoon. They’ll try to keep that rolling against Sean McDermott’s former defensive charges in Carolina next weekend.