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Bills vs. Jets 2013: opponents lead NFL in rookie reliance

When the Bills and the Jets square off in Week 3, you can expect to see a lot of rookies taking a lot of snaps on both sides of the ball.

Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports

A tweet sent out Wednesday by ESPN.com's Mike Sando pointed out that no two teams have had more drafted rookies play on offense and defense this year than the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets, who square off in Week 3.

One of the predominant themes of this Sunday's matchup between the Bills and the Jets is each team's reliance on rookies - particularly at the quarterback position, where EJ Manuel and Geno Smith will each be making his third start in the NFL. Sando's tweet got me thinking: if we add in undrafted rookies and special teams snaps, what does the gap look like?

The short answer: the Bills are the more rookie-reliant team by a fairly considerable margin. Here is the breakdown of the rookies that the Bills and Jets have played through two games; for the sake of brevity, we combined a player's snap count into one lump sum.

Rd (Ovr) Player Pos. College W1 W2 Total
2 (46) Kiko Alonso LB Oregon 97 84 181
2 (41) Robert Woods WR USC 64 78 142
1 (16) EJ Manuel QB Florida State 63 75 138
UDFA Nickell Robey CB USC 68 43 111
4 (105) Duke Williams S Nevada 19 23 42
5 (143) Jonathan Meeks S Clemson 17 17 34
3 (78) Marquise Goodwin WR Texas 15 0 15
UDFA Johnny Adams CB Michigan State 0 6 6
6 (177) Dustin Hopkins K Florida State 0 0 0
7 (222) Chris Gragg TE Arkansas 0 0 0
UDFA Jeff Tuel QB Washington State 0 0 0
Bills team total 669
2 (39) Geno Smith QB West Virginia 75 71 146
1 (13) Sheldon Richardson DT Missouri 62 63 125
1 (9) Dee Milliner CB Alabama 62 39 101
7 (215) Tommy Bohanon FB Wake Forest 38 36 74
UDFA Ryan Spadola WR Lehigh 19 7 26
3 (72) Brian Winters OG Kent State 4 3 7
5 (141) Oday Aboushi OT Virginia 0 0 0
6 (178) Will Campbell OG Michigan 0 0 0
Jets team total 479