ORCHARD PARK - When Joe Brady was asked the other day what his message was going to be to his Buffalo Bills as they prepared to play the inaugural game at Highmark Stadium, he told them he wasn’t interested so much in putting on a show for the fans attending the historic game, but rather, putting on a clinic.
You’d have to say that edict resonated Thursday night because the Bills were indeed clinical, at least on offense, and they rolled to an impressive 41-31 victory over the Detroit Lions which capped off quite a party in the new place.
“My message to the team this week was allow the environment to change, and it's going to be different, but we’ve got to stay the same,” Brady said, meaning he needed the players to avoid getting caught up in the excitement
of opening the new stadium in front of an electric crowd. “And I was proud of how our guys didn't allow the environment to negatively impact them.”
As for the defense, well, it’s still a work in progress and when the Lions scored on four of five drives in the middle of the game, what was once a 27-7 laugher suddenly became a sweaty 34-24 game with nearly 11 minute remaining.
But Josh Allen, who was having another one of his epic performance with five total touchdowns, put together a clutch 61-yard drive that ended with James Cook’s touchdown run with 2:50 left to play which finally put the Lions to sleep.
“Any time that you're playing against a team like that, with a great quarterback, extremely well coached, got a lot of weapons on the offensive side of the ball, you have to take advantage of your opportunities, and we did that early,” Allen said of the cray fast start when the Bills scored TDs on their first four possessions.
“Felt like we had to step up the entirety of the game. But again, they still clawed and fought their way back and made it a game. And any time you're going against a team like that, you just have to put your head down. The score doesn't matter, and take it one drive at a time.”
Here’s how I graded the Bills:
PASS OFFENSE: A
It all started fantastically as Allen was playing pitch and catch and shredding an injury-ravaged Lions secondary. But almost from the moment DJ Moore injured his shoulder just before the Bills made it 21-0 early in the second quarter, things became much more difficult which was disappointing given the Lions were missing their two starting safeties and then lost one of the replacements in the second quarter.
Moore did not have a catch or target, but the coverage that he was drawing early was partially responsible for opening things up for Dalton Kincaid who had another big game with seven catches for 95 yards and a TD, and it probably had a role in the Lions’ busted coverage that allowed Joshua Palmer to be wide open for a 43-yard TD.
Keon Coleman picked up the bulk of Moore’s snaps and made several nice plays, none bigger than a nine-yard catch to convert a third-and-7 on the drive that helped the Bills finally put the game away late in the fourth quarter. Allen finished 20 of 31 for 248 yards and has now gone two games without a turnover.
I didn’t think the offensive line had a great night in protection because while Allen was only sacked twice, he was under pressure on numerous dropbacks and he had to be his usual elusive self to avoid trouble. He finished with his fourth career game of three TD passes and two rushing TDs, more than any player in NFL history.
RUN OFFENSE: A+
James Cook had a tough opener in Houston, but he started hot in this game and never really slowed down as he finished with 135 yards on 21 carries. He had back-to-back runs of 20 and 35 yards that set the Bills up for their fourth consecutive TD to start the game, and he ripped off a 22-yarder on the drive that put the game away, a drive he capped with a one-yard run.
Allen was very involved in the run plan as Brady called his number on a couple designed runs, Allen was huge on his unstoppable QB plunges, converting three third-and-1 plays, and he also scrambled for some key gains on his way to 72 yards which inflated Buffalo’s final total to 203 and a 5.6 average per attempt.
The Bills finished with a whopping 33 first downs and 15 of those came via the ground game. By comparison, the Lions had only two rushing first downs.
PASS DEFENSE: C
After a great start in which the Bills sacked Jared Goff three times on the first two series of the night, things went downhill. There was occasional pressure but only one more sack, and Goff started finding his rhythm and was able to get Detroit within 34-24 early in the fourth quarter.
Two of those quick sacks were by Greg Rousseau who joined Bruce Smith - who was in the house - as the only two players in team history to record at least two sacks in each of the first two games of a season, Smith doing it in 1996.
The Bills did a great job on speedy WR Jameson Williams and tough TE Sam LaPorta, but Amon-Ra St. Brown torched Buffalo for 142 yards on nine catches with two TDs, and much of that came against struggling CB Christian Benford who has started the season with two pretty poor games. Benford led the Bills with eight tackles, most after completed passes.
Deone Walker had to step up in a big way when Ed Oliver got hurt in pregame warmup and could not play, and the big man deflected two passes during a critical Detroit three-and-out as Goff was trying to make it a one-score game. Walker finished with three pass breakups and three QB hits, and one of his pressures led directly to a sack by Bradley Chubb.
RUN DEFENSE: A
Detroit’s offense runs through RB Jahmyr Gibbs, but the Bills held him in check all night as he managed a mere 52 yards on 16 carries, a paltry 3.3 average for a home run hitter. The one-sided nature of the score early on played a role in that, but not to be overlooked was the way the defensive line took advantage of an injury-plagued Lions offensive line that was missing three starters.
The Bills did a nice job on the early downs, and after some struggles on third down, actually fared pretty well as they stopped seven of 11, though the Lions did convert twice on fourth down. Terrel Bernard finished with five tackles and Dorian Williams had six
SPECIAL TEAMS: A
Sam Franklin committed a penalty on the opening kickoff that forced the Bills to start at their own 15. That’s two penalties in two games for a player who is only on the team to play on special teams.
Tyler Bass made a mistake by putting his first kickoff into the end zone and giving the Lions 35 free yards, and he also missed the extra point after Buffalo’s fourth touchdown in the first half.
Greg Dortch, playing against the team that cut him at the end of training camp, was elevated from the practice squad to return punts and after fair catching the first Lions punt, he ripped off a 25-yarder that gave the Bills a drive start at their 43. He finished with three attempts for 36 yards, and also had two kickoff returns for 51 yards, while Ray Davis had a 31-yard kickoff return.
COACHING: B+
If anything signals the different mentality of Brady compared to Sean McDermott - the offensive mindset as opposed to the defensive mindset - it’s that the Bills won the coin toss and rather than defer to the second half, Brady put his superstar quarterback and high-powered offense on the field first. The result was an 85-yard opening touchdown drive, giving the Bills a lead they never relinquished.
Brady stayed aggressive all night and he needed to do so because once again, the Bills’ defense yielded 31 points. Jim Leonhard has said right along it was going to take time for things to gel and that has been the case thus far, but one positive he can take is that when the Bills really needed a stop, they got it in the fourth quarter, the series where Walker deflected two passes.
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: Bills report card: Josh Allen dazzles, James Cook breaks loose against Lions
