ORCHARD PARK - After referee Ron Torbert explained which side of the coin was heads and which one was tails, he asked the visiting Detroit Lions to make the call Thursday night, and that call was heads.
Torbert flipped the coin in the air, gravity took over, it bounced on the new grass field that was just installed for the inaugural game at Highmark Stadium, and a sellout crowd of 60,644 that was eagerly awaiting the result let out a cheer when it landed tails up.
In the last several years under defensive-minded previous coach Sean McDermott, this would have meant the Buffalo Bills were going to defer their choice to the second half, meaning the defense was going to start the game. Not in Joe Brady’s world, at least not Thursday night when weather
had zero impact on the game and it didn’t matter which goal the Bills were defending.
The choice was easy for Brady: Put the best player on the planet on the field first, and let Josh Allen do his thing and get an early lead, and that’s exactly what happened. The Bills drove 85 yards in 10 plays, Allen capping the opening drive with a one-yard TD plunge, and they never trailed all night on the way to a 41-31 victory over the Lions.
“I wanted us to take the ball in this environment and set the tone,” Brady said. “I mean that stadium was electric. That was the start that we needed, and I just need us to play that way all 60 minutes.”
Brady worked against conventional wisdom because most NFL coaches believe what McDermott believed; deferring is the smart play. First, you have a sense of how the game is flowing when you go into the half and can adjust accordingly, and also, you have a chance to get a double dip with a score at the end of the second quarter and another to start the third which can potentially be important from a momentum standpoint.
And guess what, the Lions got the double dip with a field goal at the end of the first and a touchdown to start the second, all the while Allen was standing on the sideline watching. That turned a 27-7 rout into a sticky 27-17 game, and if the Bills didn’t have a big touchdown answer on their first possession of the third quarter, it could have gotten even more sticky.
“It was important to match the score with the score,” Brady said. “I didn't like how we finished the first half as an offense. I was pissed off, and we gave them an opportunity to get points, and so coming out of the second half, you want the defense to get a three and out, but they go down and get points. We can't allow that to linger into us, and I was proud of the way that the offense responded and matched the score in that situation.”
Brady being aggressive is a big reason why he chose to receive the ball, but what he probably doesn’t want to say is that right now he doesn’t want his defense on the field first because it likely means the Bills will be trailing. Through two games the defense has allowed 62 points, 50 first downs, and 736 yards.
Last week, offensive tackle Dion Dawkins spoke of the difference between Brady’s offense-first approach and McDermott’s perceived defense-first approach, and he reiterated that point after the game.
“We have a head coach that’s like, we want the ball first,” Dawkins said. “I’m having the most fun playing football I’ve ever had playing ball. It’s no thumb down to McDermott, but McDermott is a defensive coach. So we tip our caps to those guys, but now it’s in the offense’s hands.”
Here are a couple leftover items regarding the prolific offense from the game:
Tight ends played a huge role
We saw the makings of this in training camp, how Brady was utilizing more than one tight end in numerous formations. Well, through two games, the most common lineup the Bills have used on offense (39 plays) are three-tight-end groupings, usually with Dalton Kincaid, Dawson Knox and Jackson Hawes together, but even Keleki Latu mixed in for a few.
“I think it's always about how the game's being played, and a lot of that is also trying to dictate it on our terms,” Brady said of the heavy personnel looks. “You're always thinking of matchups. The game of football is continuing to evolve. We're going to have to do that as well, and we're going to have to continue to adjust as the season goes.”
Against the Lions, Knox played 76% of the snaps, Kincaid 66% and Hawes 50% and they were in 12 or 13 personnel for nearly 60% of all the snaps on their way to 446 total yards and 33 first downs.
In this game, the DJ Moore injury was a factor in the elevated tight end snap counts, but even if Moore had played the entire game, the snaps would have been taken away from Keon Coleman and Joshua Palmer.
James Cook got his groove back
Cook was not happy with the way he played in Houston, especially the fact that he very nearly cost the Bills the game with his late fumble deep in Buffalo territory. O’Cyrus Torrence bailed him out with a recovery and the Bills eventually drove to the winning touchdown.
Thursday, Cook looked like the 2025 rushing champion and the Lions had no answers for him. And you know he was fired up because on the other sideline was Lions star running back Jahmyr Gibbs who is currently the highest paid player at his position.
While Cook was tearing off three runs of 22 yards or more and totaling 135 and 6.4 yards per carry for the game, Gibbs managed just 52 yards and 3.3 yards per attempt.
“Every time he touches the ball, he's got the opportunity to (score), and he's shown why he's the best back in the game,” Allen said of Cook. “The more times we can get him the ball, the better. Our line did a great job of opening the holes, but he found ways to cut back and keep his legs moving and bounce off. He's just unbelievable.”
Offensive line survived a stress test
Given the depleted secondary that Detroit rolled out, coach Dan Campbell knew he was going to need to dial up pressure on Allen in the hopes that he could generate sacks, turnovers, and incompletions. Unfortunately for the Lions, they really didn’t get much of any of those things.
Ex-Bills linebacker Kelvin Sheppard is the Lions’ defensive coordinator and he sent blitzes at Allen 55.3% of the passing plays, but the Bills’ offensive line did enough to hold them so that Allen could complete 12 of 17 for 161 yards and a touchdown with an average depth of target at 11.2 yards and a yard per attempt average of 9.5.
When the Lions got effective pressure, Allen was 5 of 13 for 79 yards and a TD, but he also broke contain on a few other plays and his scrambles totaled 49 of his 69 rushing yards.
“They were just blitzing us like crazy, giving us different looks,” center Connor McGovern said. “A bunch of where we weren't really sure, like what to alert to. So, it was a great combination of staff, me, Josh, everyone just talking it out on the sideline, figuring out how to change what to get the kill to, if we had really alert to different things, they did a great job, and we were able to gash them a couple of times.”
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 37 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Joe Brady ignored NFL convention and the Bills never looked back
