The Buffalo Bills are heading back into a primetime spot on Monday night when they head up to Minnesota to battle the 6-1 Vikings, who are now having Carson Wentz under center due to Kyler Murray dealing with hamstring soreness.
Minnesota's offense has been struggling this season, but their defense has been able to block out a good amount of negative publicity because of how dominant they have been. Even with their offense not performing at a high level, the Bills cannot underestimate a star wideout in Justin Jefferson, who still one of the best receivers in the game.
Justin Jefferson could do some big time damage against Bills' secondary
In case you don't know by now, the Bills have a secondary problem that was bad even before the releasing of C.J. Gardner-Johnson. While the Vikings' passing attack hasn't been great at all this season, Justin Jefferson still has 335 yards and 4 touchdowns, averaging 12 yards per catch. He leads the team in targets, yards, and touchdowns.
Now granted, Jefferson hasn't surpassed 100 yards in a game this season but with the way that Buffalo's secondary has performed this year, it's very likely that he could.
At the same time, Nick Suss of ESPN who covers the Bills, pointed out the fact that the Bills have been able to limit their last two opponent's top targets through the air. Against the Las Vegas Raiders, TE Brock Bowers had just 4 catches for 70 yards despite being targeted 9 times. Then against the Baltimore Ravens, wideout Zay Flowers was targeted 5 times but had 0 catches.
Bills' secondary is slowly starting to trend in the right direction
It’s only been two games, so we can’t sit here and say that Buffalo’s secondary has figured things out. Right now, they aren’t even close to it. However, maybe Jim Leonhard has found a key to some kind of success to take pressure off of the Bills’ offense so that they don’t have to score on every single drive to win.
Even though Wentz may provide more of a spark to Minnesota's offense, it's important to note that Buffalo's pass rush as been improving each week in some aspect and if the coverage against Jefferson can hold up just long enough to get Wentz to look somewhere else, Buffalo's defense shouldn't be in as much trouble as they could be because of the star level that Jefferson has established himself at.
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