BUFFALO – The Jets lost to the Bills here on Sunday, 20-12, in an injury-filled game on a wet, sloppy day. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:

1. My biggest takeaway from this game is that the Jets are a team that is learning how to win and the Bills are a team that knows how to win. This is not a shot at the Jets. It is just the reality of where they are in their development as a young team. Robert Saleh has done a great job this season instilling confidence in this team and a belief they can play with anybody. The Jets have demonstrated that several times this year, most notably against these very Bills last month at MetLife Stadium.

But the Jets need to play nearly flawless football to beat a team like the Bills. They can’t turn the ball over (two on Sunday) and they have to force turnovers (none on Sunday) and the offensive line needs to hold up way better than they did Sunday (eight QB hits).

It feels like these Jets are now where the Bills were in 2019. Those Bills were learning to win and found a way to make the playoffs but they were not Super Bowl contenders like these Bills. That was still a few years away.

The Jets have made a huge leap this season. They are no longer a doormat. They have been in every game this season and there they were again Sunday with the ball in their hands and a chance to tie up the game with less than a minute left.

In Saleh’s first season, he would speak about how most NFL games come down to a series in the fourth quarter with your team either having to score or make a stop. It sounded like a fairy tale in 2021 as the Jets absorbed blowout losses. But this year’s version of the Jets has made the fourth quarter interesting nearly every week. On Sunday, they came up short but you can feel the gap closing between the Bills and the Jets and it will close further when the Jets go from a team learning how to win to one that knows how to win.

2. Mike White is pulling off something remarkable. His credibility is rising in losses. If you go back to when Saleh announced that White was replacing Zach Wilson, you figured White had at least three games as a “tryout” for the job. Those games would have been the Bears, Vikings, and Bills. If I told you he was only going to go 1-2 in those games, you might have thought Wilson would be warming up to face the Lions. But White’s hold on the job has only strengthened in the losses. He has shown guts and poise that have further won over teammates who were already fans of White. On Sunday, he kept getting up after getting drilled over and over again.

When Matt Milano hit White in the third quarter, it looked like he was split in half as his body jackknifed. The hit sent him to the locker room for X-Rays and you figured his day was done. But then he came jogging out of the tunnel with his helmet on to return to the game. Every time he got hit in the fourth quarter, you could see the pain on his face as CBS cameras zoomed in. White went to the hospital to be checked out immediately after the game and his teammates could not say enough good things about him.

White is not going back to the bench anytime soon. Even with the Jets losing, his grip on the starting job has gotten tighter.

3. While we’re on the topic of quarterbacks, it is time for the Jets to make Wilson the No. 2 quarterback behind White. Joe Flacco’s brief appearance Sunday underscored that.

Look, I have no idea what Wilson’s mental state is like right now or how much progress he’s making on the fundamental issues the Jets wanted him to work on, but this feels silly having him inactive.

Wilson still has a ton of ability and coming in off the bench might be just the kind of jump start he needs. He has paid his penance for his mistakes in New England with a three-game turn in street clothes. It’s enough. Saleh should move Wilson up the depth chart this week.

4. It is always a fun exercise to pick the wins and losses when the schedule comes out in the spring but there are so many factors we don’t know then. A big one in the NFL is when you catch a team. Are they hot? Are they scuffling?

Well, the Jets are about to get some bad timing. The Lions, a team that looked like an easy win on the schedule, have won five of their last six games and are playing really good football. They beat the Vikings on Sunday, the same Vikings the Jets lost to last week. Detroit has a strong offensive line and Jared Goff is playing maybe the best football of his career. Old friend Aaron Glenn has the defense playing better, too.

After the Lions come the Jaguars, who beat the Titans on Sunday and suddenly don’t look like a gimme either. The Jets’ playoff hopes may depend on how they handle some teams that are getting hot.

The Jets ran 73 plays and the Bills only had 54. It is the second straight week the Jets ran many more plays than their opponent and lost. It tells you the Jets are not finishing off drives.

Garrett Wilson played 72 snaps or 97 percent, missing just two snaps. It is unusual for a wide receiver to play that many snaps but it shows how strong the Jets’ belief in the rookie has gotten.

Sauce Gardner and D.J. Reed had another outstanding game and Stefon Diggs was quiet for most of the day. Diggs had three catches for 37 yards and 32 of them came on a play where Diggs was not covered by a cornerback. The Bills had very few explosive plays in the game and that is a tribute to Gardner and Reed.