So much for a dress rehearsal.
The norm around the NFL is that teams treat their third preseason game as the final tune-up for the regular season, keeping their best players in the game as deep as the third quarter. But coach Rex Ryan bucked that trend in Friday's 21-16 loss to the Washington Redskins, resting the majority of his starters and pulling others after only two possessions.
The reasoning from Ryan for the decision likely will be two-fold. First, the Bills' first-team defense could not have performed better in its playing time in each of the first two preseason games, holding the Colts to 17 net yards on three possessions and limiting the Giants to 23 net yards on four drives.