The Jets may have put together a clean preseason performance against the Steelers, but Buffalo’s AFC East neighbor still got a firm reminder that one shutout doesn’t rewrite the whole story.
New York blanked Pittsburgh in Week 2 of the preseason, but the result came with a giant asterisk. Carter Bahns of CBS Sports pushed back on any idea that the Jets’ defense has already been transformed under Aaron Glenn, writing: " Remember, though, that this came against Pittsburgh's No. 2 offense.
And keep in mind that while the Jets overhauled the unit with a plethora of free agent additions, none of them are elite players. Aaron Glenn needs this group to hold its own in 2026, and it may just do that.
But this shutout means very little."
The numbers from that game looked strong enough on the surface. The Jets held the Steelers to 5/16 on third down, picked off two passes and registered four sacks. But as Bahns pointed out, it was Pittsburgh’s backups on the other side, not the kind of test that tells you a defense is truly fixed.
That matters in Buffalo, where the Bills and Jets aren’t exactly on the same level right now. The Bills may have finished last season behind the New England Patriots in the AFC East, but they still reached the playoffs and picked up their first road playoff win in the Josh Allen era. Even after offseason changes, Buffalo still looks much closer to the championship conversation than to the bottom of the league.
The AFC East picture is expected to center on the Bills and Patriots at the top, while the Dolphins and Jets sit in a different tier. Miami at least had stretches of success last season. New York, meanwhile, entered the first stage of its rebuild under Glenn and finished 3-14, despite Glenn being a defensive-minded coach and the team still failing to record a single interception.
The Jets are sticking with Glenn, but he had to bring in new coordinators and the roster still needed help. They did add pieces in free agency and the NFL Draft, and there is talent on paper to make the defense better. Still, history and hype are not the same thing, and one preseason shutout against backups does not change that.
Buffalo fans can take some comfort in not being where the Jets are. The Bills have their own defensive adjustments underway under Jim Leonhard, and those changes are expected to look very different from what Sean McDermott ran. Buffalo also made a batch of moves designed to improve that side of the ball.
The teams won’t meet until Week 10, when the Bills travel to New York, and then again in the regular-season finale in Buffalo. Until then, there’s plenty of time to see whether the Jets’ defense is actually turning a corner. For now, there’s little reason to treat that preseason shutout as proof that the unit has been fixed.
In Other News...
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For Buffalo, the linebacker conversation is the one that keeps hanging around because it sits at the intersection of talent, availability and timing. Milano remains one of the more recognizable players in that group, and his status is the sort of thing that can shape how a team views the rest of its roster-building options. As the final preseason days tick by, the Bills will keep looking at the market with that familiar question in mind: whether the right veteran is still out there, and whether the fit is good enough to act on soon. [Read more 🡒]
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What made this one especially interesting was how many of those spot-competition battles stayed open after the final whistle. Some players helped themselves with steady work, others left more questions than answers, and that mix is exactly what complicates the Bills roster picture as camp moves on. The coaches still have time to sort through it, but the Browns game made clear that a few of the most important decisions may not be as straightforward as they looked going in. [Read more 🡒]
Bills Preseason Usage May Have Just Clarified Key Roster Battles
The Bills preseason opener against the Browns offered more than just a first look at camp depth charts. For players fighting for jobs, the bigger clue may have been who was on the field, when they were used and whether they were asked to contribute on special teams. In a roster battle this tight, those deployment decisions can say as much as a few snaps in coverage or a couple of tackles.
That lens puts some of the key competitions into sharper focus, from outside cornerback with Kani Walker and Toriano Pride Jr. to linebacker, where Kaleb Elarms-Orr and Dorian Williams were part of the conversation. The same idea stretches across other position groups, too, with the Bills usage patterns hinting that preseason timing and role assignments may reveal more than the box score ever will. [Read more 🡒]