The Buffalo Bills wrap up their 2025 regular season, and possibly their last game at Highmark Stadium, with a divisional rivalry game against the hapless New York Jets. The Bills are heavy favorites, and would be even if they decided to rest some starters, as the Jets are tied with three other teams for the worst record in the NFL.
Of course, the Bills don’t have much to play for in Week 18 relative to the postseason. With a playoff spot already locked in, Buffalo will have to see how other games around the AFC fall to know where they’ll be seeded for the playoffs.
Still, beyond closing out more than 50 years of play in their home stadium with a win, the Bills can also send the Jets into the offseason with an incredibly embarrassing stat.
Buffalo Bills poised to hand New York Jets one of the most humiliating defensive stats ever
Through 16 games, the Jets have managed to do something no other team since the merger has done: fail to record an interception. In fact, every team since the merger has at least recorded two. This season, no team has fewer than six, except New York.
Of course, the irony of the Jets’ newest plight is that their head coach is a former NFL cornerback with 41 career interceptions. Nonetheless, Aaron Glenn’s first Jets defense ranks near the bottom of the league in practically every meaningful metric. They’re dead last in takeaways, though, but all have come via fumble recoveries, with four on the season.
Still, it’s not that surprising that the Jets have struggled to generate turnovers. Sauce Gardner doesn’t see many targets as it is, but once he was traded away at the deadline, as well as another defensive star in Quinnen Williams, the Jets were left with few options to come up with takeaways each week.
With that in mind, Josh Allen didn’t throw a pick throughout December. His total for the season so far, 10, is below his average of 13 per year, too. Of course, it’s not beyond possibility that Allen doesn’t play the entire game, especially if Buffalo can build an early lead. That would mean Mitchell Trubisky would step in, but hopefully the Bills would play ground control football at that point.
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If the Jets can’t force at least four takeaways against the Bills this Sunday, they’ll set a new NFL record for fewest takeaways in a season. The current record is held by the 2018 San Francisco 49ers, who forced just seven takeaways. Of course, the Bills haven’t turned the ball over more than three times in any game this year, so the Jets' odds of avoiding the record are as slim as you could imagine.
Sure, the Bills might not have much to play for in Week 18, but sticking it to a rival like the Jets and closing out Highmark Stadium’s regular season history by giving New York two of its most embarrassing records yet offers plenty of motivation for the Bills in the regular season finale.