Well this was an embarrassing one:

Wait, no, I meant for the Bills. Embarrassing for the Bills.

It’s not good when a team gets lucky to lose 38-17, but that’s pretty much what happened to Buffalo yesterday. It’s hard to remember a more one-sided NFL game of recent vintage.

For a while, it seemed like Brian Schottenheimer got so excited that everything he was calling was working that he actually started calling everything, which got a bit frustrating. No real need to go with the Seminole-offense reverse option that takes five seconds to develop and goes for two yards when every dive up the middle nets seven.

But that’s really only a minor quibble — the Jets’ offense steamrolled a miserable Bills defense, maintaining possession for just over 40 of the game’s 60 minutes, and even getting the much-maligned Joe McKnight his first four NFL carries.

The Bills did manage to score twice despite almost never having the ball, but it’s hard to get too concerned about the Jets’ defense when nearly half Buffalo’s offense came from desperate Ryan Fitzpatrick scrambles.

Also, it’s crazy to think that the Jets have played the whole season without arguably their best past rusher and the past two and a half games without the best cornerback in the NFL. Are they really getting both Calvin Pace and Darrelle Revis back for next week, and Santonio Holmes to boot?

It’s getting hard to keep expectations tempered. This might be a really good football team. And just look at Mark Sanchez:

“Hey, did you see your picture in the (paper)?” Sanchez asked.

“Which one?” Keller said.

“The answer is ‘No!'” Sanchez shot back. “You can’t read it, man. It’s poison. Don’t look.”

On a team filled with chest-thumping, ear-splitting bravado, Sanchez has rerouted his course: He’s not patting himself on the back after two consecutive stellar weeks.

“My line to everyone in the building is, ‘Every trash can gets a steak,'” Sanchez said Wednesday. “I don’t buy into it. I don’t want to take the cheese.”

– Manish Mehta, N.Y. Daily News.

Every garbage can gets a steak, so Mark Sanchez is not taking the cheese. Don’t doubt him; it makes perfect sense. Also I’m open to the possibility that Mark Sanchez said a whole bunch of brilliant stuff in between the garbage can thing and the cheese thing that just got cut out from the Daily News write-up, including some sort of poetic allusion to a mousetrap that made the cheese part of it fit seamlessly.

Also, maybe you should reconsider that whole cheese thing, Mark Sanchez. Delicious cheese, right there for the taking!

And furthermore, Dustin Keller: Mark Sanchez totally fooled you! You did not see that coming. He’s cagey, that fellow.

This is where it’s at for the Jets as they prepare for an appearance under the bright lights of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.” If reputation means anything, it’s a precarious position to be in. In terms of NFL regular-season platforms, none is bigger. The Jets’ mission, obviously, is to beat Miami. They have some control over that.

What no one in the organization can control – not Ryan, Woody Johnson nor Mike Tannenbaum – is how NBC will portray the team during nearly four hours encompassing a pregame show and the game itself.

When the tilt is over, how will America view the Jets?

Will the team’s image take a further beating?

– Bob Raissman, N.Y. Daily News.

Follow-up question: Who cares?

Look: DWI is a stupid thing to do and it sure seems like everyone involved knows that by now, or at least says they do. But since when have the Jets — the Rex Ryan, middle-finger Jets — cared about the way America viewed them?

And even if they did, what difference does it make?

The first two pages of the Daily News’ sports coverage were dedicated to more coverage of Braylon Edwards’ crime, the top half to Woody Johnson’s disappointment over the incident — he’s disappointed!? No! I thought he’d be thrilled! — and the bottom half to Mike Lupica’s disappointment with due process and the nature of the American judicial system.

There’s also Raissman’s page, with this screed wondering how NBC will choose to portray the Jets, two pages of fantasy-football advice that could be ripped straight from the pages of Duh! Magazine — stay away from Reggie Bush?! — and a Jets notebook piece mostly dedicated to the Edwards thing but with one item about Mike Nolan’s new defense in Miami:

There is a notable difference in the approach of the Dolphins defense. Mike Nolan was hired on as defensive coordinator and has instilled his aggressive 3-4 sets to unsettle opposing quarterbacks with cornerback blitzes and varying packages.

“I’m still going to try to beat him like he stole something,” Ryan said of his former co-worker with the Baltimore Ravens.

Last week, Nolan’s unit forced four turnovers (three interceptions, one lost fumble) against the Vikings and the week before limited the Bills to 166 yards of total offense.

Wait! That only gets like two inches and there’s a whole page speculating about what Bob Costas might say about Braylon Edwards? I want to hear more about that. That’s actual football stuff! I haven’t seen the Dolphins at all this year, and I had no idea they were running a different defense.

And look, I know all about how Raissman’s paid to be a media critic, and all the other writers at the Daily News are just doing their jobs, selling papers. I get it. I’m certain if we had more content streaming in here at SNY.tv I’d be begging columnists for more Braylon coverage, more Jets, the people want Jets, it drives traffic.

I just fantasize about a utopia in which I could spend my morning commute reading about actual football stuff.

Dawn Kotowski’s title is general manager of a Taco Bell, but last month she orchestrated one of the summer’s most successful bang-for-the-buck athlete endorsement campaigns.

Her restaurant is just a few minutes from the SUNY-Cortland campus in upstate New York where the Jets held training camp. Jets second-year quarterback Mark Sanchez frequently visited the restaurant for a chicken taco and chicken burrito, hold the tomatoes. Sanchez developed his fondness for Taco Bell growing up in Mission Viejo, Calif., minutes from the company’s headquarters.

– David Broughton, Sports Business Journal.

Oh, Mark Sanchez, you magnificent bastard, what will you do next? Not only did he “frequently visit” the restaurant, but he also eschews the tomatoes at Taco Bell — just like I do!

Nevermind that Sanchez favors chicken items and I’m a ground-beef guy.

The SBJ article goes on to detail how Kotowski provided Sanchez the much-discussed Taco Bell hat seen on Hard Knocks hoping for just such exposure, racking up an estimated $68,000 worth of advertising for Taco Bell, and how she was recognized by the company for “thinking outside the bun.”

OMG OMG OMG OMG Mark Sanchez!

Also, the big takeaway here is that all you need to do to get a free Taco Bell hat is be a talented, handsome professional quarterback playing for the team being showcased on Hard Knocks. So I guess I’ll have to get to work on that.

Taco Bell hat! Mark Sanchez!

Massive hat tip to Mike Rudner for the link.