10/18 — It's not raining in the area around East Rutherford, N.J., as originally forecast, but the wind is whipping, the air is chilly and the skies are low and gray — a forbidding omen for one of our two Meadowlands combatants today, either the visiting Bills, who with a loss would slip to 1-5 for the season, or the Jets, who with a third straight defeat would fall to 3-3.

The Jets, of course, are counting on being the victors. It's Fan Appreciation Day today, and although the weather apparently wasn't dialed up for such an occasion, there will be much to get the fans ready to contribute to a loud, proud Green & White victory against their AFC East rivals from northwestern New York State.

Rain or not, the conditions will be a test for both offenses. Mark Sanchez and the Jets, in particular, are facing just the situation they feared at their wideout position: both Jerricho Cotchery (hamstring) and Brad Smith (quadriceps) have been deactivated for this game.

That means that the starting WRs for the Southern California wunderkind QB will be Braylon Edwards, who looked so strong in his Jets debut on Monday night at Miami, and David Clowney, who had his longest regular-season reception as a pro with the 53-yard hookup with Sanchez early in the fourth quarter.

Also among the WRs who will be going against the Bills defense today: Wallace Wright and Danny Woodhead, the latter converted to a full-time WR from RB this week and signed from the practice squad to the active roster Saturday.

To help pump up the offense for this very important Game 6, head coach Rex Ryan and his staff have named Clowney and Woodhead as two of their five game captains for this game. The other captains: C Nick Mangold, CB Darrelle Revis and S Jim Leonhard.

The Jets inactive list besides Cotchery and Smith: QB Kevin O'Connell, CB Donald Strickland, CB Marquice Cole, LB Ryan Fowler and G Matt Slauson. Erik Ainge is the third QB.

The Jets defense wants to get after Trent Edwards, Marshawn Lynch, Terrell Owens, Lee Evans and company, and you have to figure the wind will be play some havoc with Trent deep balls. In addition, the Bills have more injury problems than the Jets.

Starting LB Kawika Mitchell was placed on injured reserve on Wednesday, their starting offensive line will have rookie Jamon Meredith starting at RT for the deactivated Jonathan Scott, their deep middle will have rookie Jairus Byrd starting at S for the deactivated Bryan Scott, and Fred Jackson will take over punt- and kickoff-return duties from the deactivated Roscoe Parrish.

The Buffalo IA list besides J.Scott, B.Scott and Parrish: DBs Ellis Lankster and Todd Johnson, RB Xavier Omon and DE Chris Ellis, with Gibran Hamdan as the third QB.

The Jets are in their green jerseys and white pants for this AFC East battle while the Bills are in their white/white unis with the navy numbers and navy and red trim.

The referee today is Walt Coleman, who is the ref for his 16th Jets game. His first was a home upset of Miami in 1995, his most recent was last year's home loss to the Broncos in Week 12, and the Jets' most memorable game with Coleman presiding was the Monday Night Miracle win over the Dolphins, 40-37 in OT, in 2000.

Now it's time for the usual drill: We'll update this pregame blog if required, but for the most part it's less than an hour away from our usual CoveritLive coverage of the game, with Eric Allen moderating your comments. I'll chime in with appropriate tweets that will appear on http://twitter.com/nyjets and also in the CoveritLive chat. After the game, you can read my game story (updated with quotes as soon as possible after postgame interviews), EA's locker room blog and Kyle Richardson's sidebar.

Appreciate ya. Now let's have a great game.