ORCHARD PARK - For most of Thursday night’s electric home opener at shiny new Highmark Stadium, it felt like the Buffalo Bills were in complete control against the Detroit Lions, and understandably so.
The Bills scored touchdowns on their first four possessions in opening a 27-7 second-quarter lead and while the sellout crowd of 60,644 was in celebration mode, the nationwide Amazon broadcast audience may have started to flip around Prime for viewing options that were more compelling than the Josh Allen-authored blowout taking shape.
However, the Lions woke up late in the second quarter, continued their momentum into the third quarter and all of a sudden, they were within 27-17 and there were still 24 minutes of playing time remaining.
Just like
that, it was a game again. Buffalo needed to regain control, and that's exactly what Allen and the high-powered offense did when it took the field for its first second-half possession.
By the time the 15-play, 75-yard drive ended with Allen producing his second rushing TD and fifth overall in the game, the Bills were back in charge 34-17 and ultimately on their way to a 41-31 victory to improve to 2-0 on the young season.
“I was proud of the way the offense responded and matched the score in that situation,” coach Joe Brady said of Buffalo answering Detroit’s touchdown drive to start the second half. “I felt like that was a big step in that game. From them kind of feeling good about themselves, getting a 10-point swing, and us matching it right there.”
It was a masterful drive engineered by Allen. He completed 4 of 5 passes for 40 yards, the big one a 23-yarder to Dalton Kincaid that moved the ball to the 6, and he used his legs to run seven times for 26 yards. He converted three third-and-1 situations with his patented over the left guard QB sneaks which has become the most unstoppable play in pro football, then finished it off running around the right end and getting to the pylon just in time.
“That was probably the biggest drive of the game, eight minutes, finding a way to match their score,” Allen said. “Being on the other side of that before, you know that's got to be a depleting feeling. When you feel like you're getting into a rhythm, and then you look up and the third quarter is dang near over. So that was a huge drive for us, and we executed extremely well there.”
Of course, the Bills executed well all night. They had eight possessions not counting the end of game kneel down sequence and scored touchdowns on six of them as they piled up a whopping 34 first downs resulting in 446 yards with no turnovers. In terms of success rate, which measures whether a team is gaining enough yards on each down to remain ahead of the sticks and in favorable down-and-distance situations, the Bills measured 59.5% which is crazy good.
While true, the Lions’ secondary is severely depleted by injury, coach Dan Campbell said of his team’s defensive performance, “It’s not acceptable.”
Added star defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, “We were on our heels for majority of the game. We only got one or two stops, so it was bad, man. … Especially our offense fighting in the second half, I think we all came into the second half ready mentally, coming in to fight. And we didn’t get it done.”
Here are a few of my observations:
Keon Coleman answered the call
D.J. Moore reportedly suffered a sprained AC joint in his shoulder in the second quarter and was unable to continue playing, so that forced Brady to lean heavily on his three tight ends in heavy personnel groupings.
Dawson Knox (76% of snaps), Kincaid (66%) and Jackson Hawes (50%) were very often on the field at minimum as twosomes but on many snaps they were all on the field together. It’s partly why Buffalo ran for 203 yards with James Cook accumulating 135.
But Coleman helped fill the void of Moore by playing 74% of the snaps and on many plays was the sole wide receiver on the field, and he responded with six catches for 63 yards, none bigger than his nine-yard reception which converted a third-and-7 at Lions 49, allowing the clinching TD drive to continue, and then a 12-yard catch a few plays later that pushed the ball to the 23.
“(Coleman) stepped up tonight and made a lot of plays when his name was called,” Allen said. “There were a couple third-down conversions that were huge that really helped us. Hate to see (Moore) go down, and hopefully we get him back soon because what he does for our offense is, you can't really measure it. But very proud of how our guys stepped up tonight and continued to make plays.”
Coleman was not alone, though. In addition to Cook’s big performance, Kincaid had another great game with seven catches for 95 yards and a touchdown, and Joshua Palmer took advantage of a terrible Lions busted coverage to reel in a 43-yard TD.
Bills offense has been unstoppable
Through two weeks, one game against an elite defense in Houston, the second against a bad Lions group, the Bills have scored 77 points, managed 54 first downs and gained 855 yards. It’s pretty clear that if they play clean, meaning they avoid turnovers and limit penalties, there may not be a defense in the NFL that can slow Allen and company down.
Case in point: Cook had back-to-back runs of 20 and 35 yards which led to Buffalo’s fourth touchdown in the first half, and they came on the exact same call, the second of which the Lions knew was coming and still, they couldn’t stop it.
“It has to be wearing on them boys a little bit,” offensive lineman Spencer Brown said of what was a beleaguered and overmatched Lions defense. “I know they had some guys missing, but if you can just line up on the same play and pick up 20 to 30 yards a chunk, can't feel great by any means.”
Brown smiled when I suggested that right now, the offense seems unstoppable.
“I'm sure we're gonna hit bumps in the road, but I feel like all of our game plans are pretty cut and dry, simple,” he said. “We throw little wrinkles here and there, but Brady and everybody on the offensive staff just kind of makes it simple for us. Maybe we'll meet our maker, but if we just don't hurt ourselves, stay in front of the chains … It's a pretty cut and dry recipe for success. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Brady believes that philosophy.”
Bills saved best defensive series for a big time
As great as the offense has been, the same can’t be said for the defense which has now given up 31 points in each of the first two games.
Perhaps fueled by the energy from the crowd because of this being the first game in the new stadium, Jim Leonhard’s unit came out flying and forced Detroit punts on its first two possessions as Greg Rousseau recorded a sack on each series and a bad shotgun snap led to a loss of 11 yards on a third down.
But the Lions have an outstanding offense and from there it wasn’t pretty. They scored on four of their next five possessions including three touchdowns and were within 34-24 when they began a possession at their own 10-yard-line with 8:25 remaining.
Less than a minute later, Allen was back on the field because Deone Walker deflected two Jared Goff passes to force a three-and-out, and Buffalo promptly drove to the clinching touchdown.
Walker and Rousseau have been dominant in the first two games, and what was really impressive is that they picked up the slack after Buffalo lost DT Ed Oliver to a hip injury in the pregame warmup and could not play.
Rousseau became the first Bill since all-time NFL sack leader Bruce Smith in 1996 to record at least two sacks in the first two games of a season, to which he modestly said, “I’ve had good games before. You can’t get too high or too low. You can have a good game and you can go out there and (crap) the bed next week.”
“It's been fun to see him grow in the scheme and being able to take what he did a couple days ago and then put it on the field today and absolutely gassed and having an opportunity to get the quarterback down twice,” Brady said of Rousseau who leads the Bills with 13 QB pressures. “I'm so excited for him to continue growing and figuring it all out in the scheme. But through two games, you've seen the kind of impact of what the scheme can do for him and his confidence in it.”
As for Walker, he has been a force of nature in the middle with three deflected passes, a sack, seven tackles and nine QB pressures in two games.
“Amazing, man, he's a one of one, and as I said earlier in the week, he's like a nimble bear,” Bradley Chubb said of Walker. “Big, big dude, big bear size, but got quick feet, and he's able to elude offensive linemen and affect quarterbacks, affect running backs on every play. Not even just the pass, not even just the run. He's on every play.”
Before the key defensive series, Chubb said, “He was on the sideline saying, ‘I don't have a stat,’ but he affects the game in so many ways that stats don't even tell the story about the player he is. And he ended up having a lot of stats towards the end of the game because he took over that second half.”
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: 3 things that stood out as Bills opened Highmark Stadium in style
