I have three thoughts to share with you about the Buffalo Bills' 35-0 victory on Sunday over the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium:
1.) I’m very happy the Bills won.
2.) The defense put together one of the most dominant single game performances you’ll ever see.
3.) Something isn’t right with Josh Allen and the Bills' passing game.
I wasn’t panicking after the season-opening loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 1, but I would have been in a very dark place had the Bills lost in South Florida too.
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I would have been thinking about the Bills being 2-4 after the next four games. I still they think they would beat the Washington Football Team and Houston Texans, but then there would have been a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs and, after seeing the Tennessee Titans come-from-behind in the fourth quarter in Seattle to beat the Seahawks, I would have had a bad feeling about the game in Nashville.
The Bills did what we expected them to do, and couple that with less than impressive two-week starts for both the Dolphins and New England Patriots' offenses, I’m thinking winning the AFC East won’t be as challenging as I had anticipated.
Let me establish a new rule here. In truth, I’m dusting off a rule that we haven’t used when it comes to the Bills in about 30 years...
It is OK to be very happy they won a game, even when they won 35-0, while still pointing out some concerns about the offense.
It doesn’t mean you’re a negative person, and it isn’t complaining about a 35-point victory. This is a case of making an observation.
Through the first two games, the Bills' passing attack doesn’t look like the one we saw tear up opposing defenses for most of the 2020 season. It isn’t ripping off chunk plays with ease, tormenting opposing secondaries and scoring seemingly at will.
Allen doesn’t appear to be comfortable in the pocket, and they can’t really get into a rhythm. There have been a few Allen attempts in the first two games that require a little more zip, and it hasn’t been there for whatever reason.
Miami had a handful of near interceptions, because it took too long for the ball to get to the intended target. The same problem happened against the Steelers with the flea flicker pass to Stefon Diggs coming to mind. The 41-yard pass to Diggs on Sunday, which was the longest pass play of the game, would have been a touchdown if the ball wasn’t under thrown.
I don’t want to make it seem like Allen was bad, because he wasn’t. There were a number of good throws he made, including the touchdown pass to tight end Dawson Knox, the deep ball to Emmanuel Sanders that set up a touchdown, and the touchdown toss to Diggs.
Allen and the passing game had its best drive of the season to start the second half. They produced an eight-play, 75-yard drive that was keyed by the air attack. Allen was 5-of-7 for 57 yards after throwing for only 62 yards in the first half. He put some serious zip on the ball on the first two plays - a 22-yard completion in the middle of the field to Cole Beasley and a 13-yard gain to Sanders also in the middle. On a 3rd-and-6 later in the drive, Allen did what he does so well by keeping a play alive with his legs before making the touchdown throw to Knox.
There could be a few different possibilities for this, but the easiest answer might just be the two defenses the Bills have faced so far.
The Steelers have one of the best fronts in the league, and the Dolphins have one of the best secondaries. But the bar is much higher for the Bills now, and Allen leaped up into the discussion among the best quarterbacks in the league last season. It's fair to point out when he and the passing game are not playing at a level where they are expected to be.
The defense was amazing on Sunday.
As part of the shutout performance, they held Miami to just 216 yards on 70 plays, which is 3.1 yards per-play. Leslie Frazier’s group totaled six sacks, had two takeaways, stopped Miami on all four of their fourth down attempts, and kept them out of the end zone on all three of their red zone trips. Only two of Miami’s 11 drives went for more than 27 yards, and one of those was the final drive of the game when the Bills had put in some backups.
