Bills 23, Jets 20

New York Jets owner Woody Johnson decided to fire his head coach Robert Saleh a week ago this morning. Saleh, in his fourth year, was escorted from the building without an opportunity to address his team. He later issued a statement thanking the Jets organization for the opportunity and wishing the players well etc etc. The NFL world, including Saleh himself and the legion of Jets beat reporters in New York, was taken entirely by surprise by this move and its timing. The morning sports talk shows, including WGR in Buffalo where I first heard the news, were abuzz with speculation about what drove Johnson to take this decision last Tuesday morning. Did Aaron Rodgers request or demand this? Was Johnson perhaps just extra distraught after his team’s loss to the Vikings two days earlier in London because he had invited many of his high-society London friends to his box at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the game? After all, Johnson had previously served as US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, someone mentioned. What? Is Woody Johnson a man who was able make the transition from the US Foreign Service to NFL owner - or was he somehow straddle both of these positions concurrently? I investigated a little and discovered that it was the latter and, yes, Johnson was indeed the US Ambassador to the UK from 2017 to 2021. Something about that timeline seemed curious and then I realized why: it exactly matched the period of the Trump presidency. A coincidence? Of course not.

Robert Wood Johnson IV, “Woody” as he is known, is the great grandson of one of the founding brothers of Johnson & Johnson, a massive pharmaceutical, biotech and consumer health products company which is ranked 40^th on the Forbes 500 and has long been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In addition to bearing a vague resemblance to Les Nessman of WKRP In Cincinnati, Woody Johnson is an heir to the family fortune – although now four generations removed from its origin, the fortune is really just passing through his hands although on the way through, he made sure to lop off $635 million to buy an NFL team in 2000. He is a long-time Republican Party donor and was a vocal Trump supporter before and during the 2016 presidential election campaign. As an industrialist and professional sports team owner, Johnson had always fancied himself as a diplomat (I’m making up this part) so as thanks for helping him in his successful run to the White House, Donald Trump appointed him to what is one of the most coveted positions in the United States Foreign Service. I’m sure that the many senior American career diplomats who would have, in normal circumstances, been considered candidates for the job, were duly impressed when Trump appointed Johnson Ambassador to the UK.

As a Bills fan, my team has faced its division rival New York Jets 128 times (including last night) going all the way back to 1960. Although the Bills now lead the all-time series 70-58, I wasn’t looking for another reason to dislike the Jets but their owner and his close connection to Donald Trump doesn’t exactly endear me to them. At least Terry Pegula’s fortune is self-made, even if it mainly came from selling large swaths of fracking rights to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion in 2010. Like it or not, fracking kept the Bills in Buffalo. Listerine and Band-Aids provided Woody Johnson with his fortune and ultimately cost Robert Saleh his job. How does the NFL manage to make every conceivable aspect of its existence so utterly fascinating?

Since 2000, 37 NFL head coaches have been fired mid-season. Average winning percentages for these teams increased from 27% before the firings to 39% afterward. Still not great but certainly better. In the next game following a mid-season firing, the “dead cat bounce” winning percentage is 47%. Maybe Woody Johnson figured that represented an improvement on the team’s chances to beat the Bills.  It may well have but the Bills and their 53% chance came through in the end but not before plenty of late-night nail-biting in the game’s final few minutes.

The score in the game should have been 27-19.  This assumes that four kicks - three missed field goals, including two “doinks” by Jets kicker Greg Zuerlein and a badly missed extra point by Tyler Bass – were made and that a Hail Mary at the end of the first half, the fourth by Aaron Rodgers in his long career, did not actually happen. The wind at the Meadowlands was difficult to be sure but the Bass extra point miss was, well, concerning. As for the Hail Mary, the Bills have been burned before this way, most recently in Arizona four years ago on a pass from Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray to win the game on a play which became known as Hail Murray.

With James Cook inactive with a toe injury, enter one Ray Davis. The rookie running back from Kentucky, selected 128^th overall in the 4^th round by the Bills, led the team in rushing with 97 yards on 20 carries and in receiving with three catches for 55 yards. Davis had a difficult childhood, as was mentioned on the broadcast, which included being homeless for a period as a teenager. On the Bills opening drive, I could sense that they were determined to run the ball and did so quite effectively with Davis leading the way, running with power between the tackles.

The game was a sloppy penalty-fest with each team flagged 11 times for a total of more than 200 yards. Most of the penalties were legitimate and were properly called – with two exceptions: each team was called for roughing the passer and neither call should have been made. I understand the desire to protect quarterbacks but I honestly don’t know how defenders are supposed to bring a quarterback to the ground without being called. Roughing the passer has become a farce and should be, and I expect will be, addressed by the league’s Competition Committee in the off-season. Both penalties came at critical points and extended drives which should not have been extended. In that sense it evened out, sort of the way hockey referees are sometimes inclined to make calls to balance things out in important playoff games. We don’t need it in football.

Going into week seven at 4-2 feels much better than it would have at 3-3. Now with a two-game lead on the Jets and holding the tie-breaker with them, the Bills find themselves in the AFC East driver’s seat. With conference losses to the Texans and Ravens already, they will need to crank out many more wins if they want more than one home playoff game in January. The Tennessee Titans, one of weaker teams in the NFL, come to Orchard Park this Sunday. The Bills should be 5-2 as they head to west coast to face the Seahawks the following week.