Tonight, there are two “Monday Night Football” games: the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills will face off at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN, while the Washington Commanders and Cincinnati Bengals will kick off at 8:15 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN+.
The usual “Monday Night Football” crew of Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and sideline reporter Lisa Salters will be calling the Commanders-Bengals game, so who will handle broadcasting duties during the Jaguars-Bills contest?
Who Will Call Jaguars-Bills ‘Monday Night Football’ Game?
For the Jaguars-Bills game, ESPN will rely on Chris Fowler (play-by-play), Dan Orlovsky, and Louis Reddick in the booth, with Laura Rutledge handling sideline reporting duties.
This crew has worked together before, stepping in during other “Monday Night Football” double-headers. For example, last season in Week 14, they called the contest between the Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans.
Dan Orlovsky brought a tear to Mina Kimes' eye talking analytics on Monday Night Football pic.twitter.com/lxEAI0bF7L
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 12, 2023
It’s never a bad thing when there are multiple “Monday Night Football” games to choose from, so NFL fans certainly won’t mind.
Let’s preview the contest between the Bills and Jaguars.
Jaguars-Bills “Monday Night Football” Preview
- Spread
Bills -5 - Moneyline
Bills (-238); Jaguars (+195) - Over/Under
45.5 total points - Start Time
7:30 p.m. ET - Location
Highmark Stadium (Bills)
According to TruMedia, Bills quarterback Josh Allen ranks second in EPA (expected points added) per drop back. Perhaps most impressive about this number is that he does it by spreading the ball around.
Robby Greerre at NFELO calculates target concentration for NFL teams using an economic statistic called GINI. This metric tells us the equality of a team’s targets by translating it to a score from zero to one.
A score of one would mean that one player gets all the targets for a team, and a score of zero means every player gets the same amount of targets. The Bills rank first in this metric with a score of 0.685, meaning they spread the ball around to different targets more than anyone else in the NFL this season.
The Jaguars’ defense has struggled to pressure the quarterback this season, ranking 26th in pressure percentage per drop back. Jacksonville loves to play man defense, deploying it the sixth most in the league, which could prove to be a recipe for disaster as Allen ranks fourth in EPA per drop back against man coverage.
The Jaguars’ offense is fourth in incompletions caused by receiver error. They are also tied for third in drops this season, losing the third-most EPA from drops as well.
Despite these woes, Jacksonville has maintained a slightly above-average passing offense and a poor rushing offense. They will go up against a Bills defense that ranks fourth in defensive pass EPA when coverage was the primary reason for an incompletion, as charted by PFF.
This stat, along with Buffalo’s middling pressure generation, shows that its strength on defense comes from the secondary, despite the numerous losses they have incurred throughout the offseason and into the beginning of the regular season.
This should give the Bills an advantage against a Jaguars team that doesn’t sustain drives really well, ranking 21st in drop-back success rate.