Bills O-Line Woes Rear Ugly Head in Loss To Jets

The Buffalo Bills' offensive line struggles from last season carried into their season-opening loss against the New York Jets on Monday.

In Monday night's season-opening overtime loss to the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium, an unfortunate trend continued for the Buffalo Bills.

Throughout the game, the Bills' offensive line struggled badly to contain the Jets' ferocious pass-rush. In total, Buffalo allowed five sacks, eight tackles for loss and nine quarterback hits on the night.

Unfortunately for the Bills, these offensive line woes aren't a new occurrence. The line became a major concern throughout last season, particularly late in the year. Those issues came to ahead in the wild card game against the Miami Dolphins, when the Bills allowed seven sacks and nearly lost the game because of it.

The Bills also struggled against the Jets specifically last year. They allowed five sacks in a Week 9 loss in New York, then three more in a Week 14 win in Buffalo. With another rough showing on Monday, it seems the Jets have the Bills' number up front.

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Granted, the Jets do have a very strong pass rush. Buffalo actually managed to hold New York's top pass-rusher, all-pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, without a sack on Monday. Instead, Quinton Jefferson led the way with two sacks, while Jermaine Johnson, John Franklin-Myers and Al Woods had one each.

"I think their pass rush does a good job of disrupting things," quarterback Josh Allen said after the game. "I think they play smart defense, you know, they don't do a whole lot. They're not overcomplicated."

Even with the Jets' strong pass-rush, the Bills' poor pass-blocking on Monday was still very disappointing. Not only because the same issues plagued them last year, but because they invested significantly to try and fix it over the offseason. Their big free agency acquisition was offensive guard Connor McGovern, yet it didn't seem to make much difference in this game.

Of course, there's still 16 more games to correct the issue and not every team is going to have a pass-rush as strong as New York's. However, there's no denying that this performance fell well short of expectations to start the season.