Written By Bobby Greco
The Buffalo Bills have started the season 2-0, after a victory over the Miami Dolphins Sunday and are now the only undefeated team left in the AFC East. Sure a three-point win over a pretty weak Miami team doesn’t seem that impressive, however, this game had a lot more than meets the eye. The first half of the game saw a power outage in half of the stadium and caused CBS to lose connection to the game, though there was no indication of how it affected the teams. Then two plays into the second half, the teams were sent back to the locker rooms for a 25-minute lightning delay. So this wasn’t your normal football game, because both teams had to deal with these issues and that is on top of everything else going on this year. Situations like that usually favor the home team, as they are the ones in a comfortable environment and it was evident that the Dolphins had much more energy coming out of the lightning delay. Buffalo had a touchdown lead entering the second half but came out of the lighting delay quite stale and Miami rattled off 10 unanswered points to take a 3 point lead in the 4th. This seemed to wake up the Bills, as they scored two quick touchdowns and overtook the Dolphins for good. This is why I say the score doesn’t tell the full story, because I feel this was a big character-building win for a team trying to establish themselves as divisional favorites.
Sunday also saw another huge performance by Josh Allen, passing for 417 yards with 4TDs. The last time a Bills QB had a game like this, it was by Hall of Famer Jim Kelly in 1990. I know it’s only week 2, but Josh Allen looks like he used his time this quarantined offseason to truly improve his craft. He not only has been much more accurate this year improving his completion percentage from 58% to 70%, but he has been much better anticipating his throws and has played with a lot more touch on deep passes. I truly believe with the improvements we have seen the first two weeks, that the Bills have found the franchise quarterback that they’ve been looking for. Stefon Diggs had a very big game too, with 8rec 153yards and 1TD. Though thanks to the power outage, Bills fans were unable to see Diggs score his first touchdown with the team. Thankfully that did nothing to dampen his performance and it showed Buffalo what they got in the star wideout. I would still like to see more out the run game, but that is a minor complaint with how good the offense has looked.
The defense was missing their two young star LBs and it showed, thanks to a smart game plan and quarterback play from Ryan Fitzpatrick. With two replacement linebackers and little starting experience, the Bills were very susceptible to play action. The Dolphins did a very good job exploiting this, as the middle of the field was open much of the game. I do feel the defensive line showed they are going to be a problem for O-Lines this year, as they got a lot of pressure on Fitzpatrick. I also think the defense gained a lot of confidence this week. Not only did they show the talent they have from top to bottom and that even when you have to replace a couple they are still a good defense, but the fact that now they can depend on the offense to pick them up when they are struggling is huge.
Overall I think the Bills showed the NFL that they are a legitimate contender this year and that the offense has caught up to the skill of the defense. Next week is a big test against a 2-0 LA Rams team, so I am very excited to see what this team does vs a quality opponent.