Following their season-opening loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers this past week in Orchard Park, the Buffalo Bills are hoping to bounce back and earn win No. 1 of the 2021 campaign this Sunday in South Florida against the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium.
Bills head coach Sean McDermott made his weekly appearance during the "Extra Point Show" with Sal Capaccio and "Sneaky Joe" DiBiase as part of Buffalo Bills Football Friday on WGR. McDermott gave insight into how his team is preparing for their first intradivisonal matchup of the 2021 season.
During last week's 23-16 loss to the Steelers, the Bills fumbled the football a total of four times - twice by quarterback Josh Allen and twice by running back Devin Singletary. Luckily for the Bills, only one of those fumbles ended up in the hands of the defense.
On the flip side, the Dolphins are coming off a 17-16 win this past week over the Patriots in Foxboro, where they forced four fumbles of New England, including one with just 3:18 to go in the fourth quarter. That forced fumble and recovery helped the Dolphins eliminate any chance of a late comeback for the Patriots.
Last season, the Dolphins finished near the middle of the pack when it came to overall defense, averaging 367.9 yards-against per-game. However, what Miami excelled at was forcing turnovers, leading the NFL with 29 takeaways - 18 interceptions and 11 fumble recoveries - over the course of the 2020 campaign.
McDermott said the Bills have to be wary of Miami's turnover-inducing defense on Sunday.
"One of their great strengths is taking the football away," McDermott said. "We cannot afford to do what we did last week. We put the ball on the ground four times. So we've got to continue to work on it. I'm speaking to the discipline of our team, the discipline in this case of our ball handlers... Discipline leads to good things, if handled the right way."
McDermott also provided an update on the injury status some key players, including safety Micah Hyde (neck), defensive tackle Star Lotulelei (calf) and wide receiver Gabriel Davis (ankle) for Sunday's bout in Miami. He said all three of those players are trending in a good direction towards playing this week.
"We're going to see," McDermott said. "They will practice today in some sort of fashion. We're trending in the right direction overall with that group. We'll see how it looks today."
You can listen to McDermott's entire interview during the "Extra Point Show" below:
