Attention, Bengals: This is how you do it.
The Buffalo Bills have issued a call for snow shovelers in advance of Sunday’s finale against the Jets. It’ll be the last regular-season game played at the team’s long-time home, and likely the last game ever played there.
Buffalo has a very small chance of hosting the AFC Championship. If the Bills finish as the No. 5 seed in the AFC, they could host a divisional round game if the sixth and seventh seeds win in the wild-card round, and the AFC Championship if the seventh seed upends the No. 1 seed in the divisional round.
Before that happens, the Bills need to be the No. 5 seed. Which requires the Bills to win on Sunday, the Chargers to lose to the Broncos, and either a Jaguars loss to the Titans or a Texans loss to the Colts.
So, basically, Sunday is likely the swan song. Which means Saturday is the last chance to show up and dig out the snow. (Until next year, at the new stadium.)
The team’s offer is $20 per hour, hot food and beverages, and (for the first 500) free Highmark Stadium branded gloves.
League rules require the home team to remove snow from all seating areas. The Bengals failed to do that last month, prior to a home game against the Ravens. But since the league essentially gave the Bengals a pass, they saved some money by not clearing the snow.
Bills head coach Sean McDermott told reporters earlier this week that there will be a lot of factors in consideration for playing time in Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Jets.
Quarterback Josh Allen’s health is among them. To that end, McDermott told reporters that Allen will not participate in Buffalo’s walk-through practice on Wednesday as he continues to deal with a foot injury.
But Allen is on the mend and is expected to be available.
“It looks like he is moving in the right direction,” McDermott said, via Katherine Fitzgerald of The Buffalo News.
McDermott added that Allen’s right foot is in a better spot than it was at this time last week.
Allen appeared to be hampered by the injury during Sunday’s loss to the Eagles. He finished the game 23-of-35 passing for 262 yards while rushing for 27 yards with two touchdowns. He also had two fumbles and was sacked five times.
Allen has not thrown a touchdown pass in the last two weeks.
Additionally, McDermott said linebacker Terrel Bernard, defensive end Joey Bosa, defensive tackle DaQuan Jones, safety Jordan Poyer, and fullback Reggie Gilliam won’t participate in the walk-through.
Tight end Dalton Kincaid, tight end Dawson Knox, defensive back Cam Lewis, and defensive tackle Jordan Phillips are set to be limited.
Kicker Matt Prater will be listed as a full participant.
After the Jets were blown out by the Patriots on Sunday, their head coach Aaron Glenn had a pointed answer for why the game turned out to be a 42-10 mismatch.
“I always talk about how we come out when we play with effort,” Glenn said. “Today was probably the one time I feel like our effort wasn’t as good as I would want it to be. I didn’t think the effort was where it needs to be.”
Criticizing a team’s effort doesn’t reflect well on players and it doesn’t reflect well on the coaches who are supposed to be inspiring the kind of commitment that makes motivation the least of a team’s concerns. On Monday, Glenn walked back those comments in a press conference opening statement by saying film review showed him “effort was not the issue” and then followed up on that reflection in response to a question about what he saw on film.
“You saw our guys; they were running on and off the field the whole time,” Glenn said, via a transcript from the team. “Man, it was nothing about them that they were throwing up the white flag and they were quitting. So, to me, that’s the one thing that I really wanted to look at and see how that was. Again, schematically were there some things that were challenging? Absolutely. But again, our guys did not quit. I mean, they were running to the ball. They were trying to defend the pass. They were doing all those things they need to do to try to win that game, and that was evident when you just go back and watch the game. And again, watching it twice that really showed up.”
Glenn’s team was outscored by 107 points in four December losses, which doesn’t say much for the scheme, effort or anything else that Glenn has put in place during his first season with the Jets. Assuming he’s back for a second season, there will need to be improvements across the board for his run to go much further.
At least the Jets fans who showed up for Sunday’s 42-10 blowout loss to the Patriots had something to entertain them.
During halftime, the team held a field-goal kicking contest that created headlines last week after the team tried to disqualify one of the finalists on a technicality.
Last week, the Jets told Ashley Castanio-Gervasi that she could not participate due to the fact that she’s a high-school soccer coach. After the story was reported by the New York Post, the Jets did an about-face.
On Sunday, Castanio-Gervasi and three other fans attempted a 30-yard field goal. She missed. Only one of the contestants converted.
The next step in the contest was a 40-yard field goal, for $100,000. The fan who converted from 30 missed the next try.
So, in the end, the Jets saved their money. They lost an undetermined amount of goodwill along the way.
If Jets owner Woody Johnson is making a Walter White-style list of pros and cons regarding the question of whether coach Aaron Glenn will return for a second season, here’s an item for the cons column.
Collectively, the quarterbacks who have faced Glenn’s defense this season are having an MVP-caliber season.
As flagged by Bobby Belt of 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, the opposing quarterbacks facing the Jets have completed 64.8 percent of their passes for 3,590 yards, 7.4 yards per attempt, 32 touchdown passes, and zero interceptions. Their combined passer rating is 108.6.
That said, the Jets’ defense doesn’t have the worst passer rating allowed this season. That would go to the Cowboys, at 109.7. Dallas has allowed a 68.6 completion percentage, 4,291 yards, 8.2 yards per attempt, 33 touchdowns, and six interceptions.
It’s become a given that the Cowboys will be replacing defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, possibly with Brian Flores. Glenn has already fired defensive coordinator Steve Wilks, during a historic string of blowouts that has generated a franchise record minus-107 point differential over the last four games.
The biggest difference, of course, is that Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer is an offensive specialist. Glenn earned the Jets’ job based on defensive acumen. Not nearly enough of it has been displayed in 2025. Johnson will have to decide whether things can or will improve in 2026.
The other factor is that Glenn has had much more control over the roster than Schottenheimer, who has essentially none at all.
Another significant factor in the final analysis is Glenn’s buyout. He has four years left on his contract, at more than $11 million per year. Johnson would have to be willing to do what some others (like Jones) typically won’t — pay a coach a lot of money to not coach the team.
