EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The Buffalo Bills were not ready for prime time.
It doesn't take former coach Marv Levy's graduate degree from Harvard to draw that conclusion from the Bills' dud of a performance in Thursday night's 34-21 loss to the New York Jets.
Instead of stepping up on a national stage and improving to 6-2 for the franchise's best start since Levy's 1993 Super Bowl squad, the Bills laid an egg and looked like the team that sleepwalked its way through a 30-10 road loss to the Jets in last season's finale.
"It sucks," running back LeSean McCoy said. "Because everybody was watching. Prime-time game, which we don't have many prime-time games. You always want to kind of want to go out there and shine, get a big-time win."
Buffalo turned the ball over three times Thursday, on drive-killing fumbles by wide receiver Jordan Matthews, tight end Nick O'Leary and quarterback Tyrod Taylor. The Bills, who had been tied for a league low with three giveaways, committed their most turnovers since they coughed it up three times in that 2016 season-ending loss at MetLife Stadium.
At least on that day, when Buffalo was led by interim coach Anthony Lynn and backup quarterback EJ Manuel, the Bills were not called for any penalties. They were flagged 11 times Thursday for 99 yards, following their 11-penalty afternoon in Sunday's win over Oakland.
"Some of those [penalties], you could call them aggressive -- a few of them," coach Sean McDermott said. "But other than that, you can't do that and expect to win a game in the NFL."
The Bills reverted Thursday to the team that got Rex Ryan fired five days before that Week 17 loss to the Jets. Defensive end Jerry Hughes, who had a reputation in his first four seasons with the Bills for senseless infractions, was called for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty in the third quarter for "disrespecting the officials" while a teammate, linebacker Ramon Humber, lay injured.
When penalties and turnovers weren't holding Buffalo back from inching closer to ending its 17-year playoff drought, a slew of other problems cropped up. Poor tackling led to a pair of Jets' rushing touchdowns in the second half. Taylor was sacked seven times behind an offensive line that was dominated by the Jets and couldn't help the backfield to any more than 63 rushing yards.
"They whipped our butts tonight," guard Richie Incognito said. "It wasn't our night."
In the meantime, the Bills allowed the Jets to run for 194 yards, the most given up by Buffalo since Rex Ryan's leaky defense was embarrassed for 261 yards by Jay Ajayi and the Miami Dolphins in Week 16 of last season, sealing Ryan's fate as head coach.
McDermott, in his first year as coach, deserves praise for his work in getting a flawed Bills team to start 5-2 this season, but this game eroded some of the progress.
"This is uncharacteristic of this team to date, the way we've played so far," McDermott said. "We got to learn from it. We got outcoached. We got outplayed. Fundamentally, we weren't very good. ... We've got to get better. We'll learn from this. No excuses. We give credit to the opponent, to the Jets. They beat us straight up tonight."
So much for the "great opportunity" Taylor -- who completed a respectable 29 of 40 passes for 285 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for another score -- saw in this game.
"Night games give you just a different feeling," Taylor said Tuesday. "Of course, when you know everyone’s watching you, you look forward to those moments. Even with the short week, guys are preparing hard and looking forward to this opportunity to show the other team what we can do but as well as show the people that are going to be watching, everyone’s going to be tuned in to Thursday night football, to show that this team is real."
The Bills were certainly real on Thursday night -- a real mess.