Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

‘Yes, 2020 just keeps getting weirder and weirder by the day.’

‘McDermott did allow himself one moment where he veered away from his standard cliché answers and acknowledged what this victory meant to a fan base that was starving for it. He’s only been here for a small portion of New England’s dominance, so while the win was nothing more than checking another box in a long season for him, he knew what it meant to western New York.’

‘My pick: Bills 23, Patriots 19.’

‘Buffalo lost to the Titans and Chiefs, and despite penetrating the Jets 35-yard-line on nine possessions, five of those moving into the red zone, the Bills were fortunate to win as they were unable to score a touchdown against a winless New York team whose defense had been pillaged for 22 TDs through six games.’

‘“They definitely were my guys that kept me going and kept me on the right path,” he said. “When I’m here, those guys always came up to me and always made me still like part of the team because when you’re hurting on IR, and you’re on IR for an extended amount of time, things go on. They still gotta win games, people still got a job to do. So I appreciate those guys making sure that I didn’t get left behind.”’

‘“Jerry’s been playing well, he really has,” said McDermott. “He finally got to reap the fruits of his labor and got the production with it. Very good effort, very good discipline, consistency throughout the game, attention to detail, and then he capped the game off at the end.”’

‘“We came out (in the second half) with a new objective, a new goal,” Hughes said. “We weren’t going to allow them any more points and we were going to try to do our best to get off the field, and when you challenge us like that, we answer that call. I was really happy to see us on the defensive side of the ball figuring out ways to get off the field on third down and going out there and just playing fast.”’

‘Still, it’s tough to feel too enthusiastic about the way this victory was achieved as all 18 points came courtesy of the right leg of kicker Tyler Bass. Ugly? Yeah, that’s one of many words you could use for this one, and a few curse words mixed into the description wouldn’t be out of place.’

‘Give credit to the defensive staff for really getting things turned around after a bad start. One of the keys was the Bills generating a pass rush and using blitzers to do it. They knew the Jets were playing without their most productive receiver and that they could cover man-to-man, so they went after Darnold and the result was a lame passing performance from him which included six sacks taken.’

‘Of that group, Sweeney has been on injured reserve all season and was not going to play, and Becker is on the practice squad. Smith would have been active against the Jets, but now, the only tight ends available are Tyler Kroft and Reggie Gilliam.’

‘My pick: Bills 27, Jets 13.’

‘The former first-round draft pick has endured an undeniable regression in 2020, and that is part of the reason why the once-formidable Bills’ defense has played poorly for most of the year.’

‘He took off at 11 a.m. in Lancaster and landed about 90 minutes later. After the Bills shared the flight path on Twitter, Jeswald took credit for the artful flight.’

‘On paper, this looked like the most prolific group of ex-Panthers that McDermott and Beane have recruited, but thus far the returns have been minimal.’

‘Well, six games into the season, the Bills’ running game is officially a problem area, and with the weather about to start turning which generally makes it tougher to throw the ball, and the competition on the schedule picking back up again following Sunday’s game against the Triple-A Jets, Buffalo needs to get it figured out.’