ORCHARD PARK - The start of Joe Brady’s head coaching career in the NFL could not have gone much better given how his high-powered Buffalo Bills’ offense lit up both the Houston Texans and Detroit Lions in the span of four days.
The question we all needed answered about Brady is how would he respond when he and his team were smacked in the face and were staring at adversity for the first time?
You’d have to say pretty well because Sunday’s come-from-behind 24-16 survival against the Los Angeles Chargers was fraught with trouble, almost all of it emanating from his offense which for most of the game could not stop making killer mistakes.
“Every day is a test as a head coach and I believe I have to be the pulse and I have to be what they need,” Brady
said shortly after the Bills won a game in which they turned the ball over five times.
As Josh Allen said of the Bills getting to halftime tied at 10-10. “To be tied at halftime felt like a dream, to be honest,” he said. “We knew that if we didn't turn the ball over, we'd put ourselves in good spots, and we still came out (in the second half) and turned the ball over, but our defense played fantastic. It's not a game that you expect to win, but we'll take them any way we can get them.”
One of the reasons they won is Brady steadied the sinking ship, and while he’ll be doing plenty of swearing when he reviews the film Monday, he’s also going to take pride in how his team responded in a game that felt destined to be a loss.
At halftime, Brady said, “I told them it’s perfect. What, am I going to go in there and flip a table? What’s that going to do? I think they needed right there to say, ‘let’s see what we’re about right now. Let’s see how we’re going to respond, and let’s see what we’re made of.’
“Sometimes there’s yelling that needs to happen and at a time like that, early in the season, I thought it was absolutely perfect (though) I hated (the way they played). But it was perfect in terms of building our football team, to be able to look back and say, or later down the line, ‘Hey, guys, it wasn’t perfect early, but so what? Let’s keep going.’”
Here’s how I graded the Bills:
PASS OFFENSE: C-
We don’t see Josh Allen struggle like this too often. There were times throughout the day where he looked completely flummoxed by what the Chargers were doing, both in their pressure packages and coverage schemes. He made some uncharacteristically poor decisions with the ball, and he lost a fumble and threw two interceptions.
“I thought they did a good job with their pressure plan, showing a lot of different looks,” he said. “They had a good plan and it's something we’ve got to learn from. Teams are going to see this and try to implement the same thing. But we still feel like we shot ourselves in the foot a lot tonight.”
DJ Moore made a few big plays among his six catches for 67 yards, two that converted third downs on the Bills’ TD drive at the end of the first half, and then a 16-yard catch and run on a crossing route on third-and-10 on the final TD drive that put the game out of reach.
Dalton Kincaid had a big 25-yard reception but he fumbled at the end of it, and Keon Coleman had a 37-yard catch that set up the Bills’ first TD, but Khalil Shakir had just one catch on three targets for a mere six yards.
RUN OFFENSE: A-
Going against a Chargers defense that came into the game ranked No. 1 in yards allowed per attempt at 2.7, James Cook blew through them for 154 yards on 24 carries and a touchdown. It didn’t start great for Cook as he lost a fumble on the Bills’ first offensive play and that led to a Los Angeles touchdown, but thereafter Cook was the key man on a day when Josh Allen and the passing game could not get much of anything going.
On the drive that put the Bills ahead for good at 17-13, Cook had three straight runs totaling 26 yards that put the ball on the 1, from where Josh Allen scored his second QB plunge TD of the day. And on the drive that made it 24-13, Cook broke a 23-yard run which eventually set up his own three-yard TD. And on the final possession when the Bills were killing the clock, Cook’s nine-yard run gave them the first down that ended the game.
PASS DEFENSE: B+
There were too many dropbacks where Justin Herbert had too much time, despite the fact that Pro Football Focus credited the Bills with 23 individual QB pressures, with Greg Rousseau made the only two sacks among his team-high seven pressures.
Despite having time, Herbert did not pick apart the Bills as he finished with 226 yards and threw the killer interception to CJ Gardner-Johnson in the fourth quarter that turned the game in Buffalo’s favor.
CBs Davison Igbinosun and Max Hairston stepped up and competed well on a day when Christian Benford left in the third quarter with a toe injury. In all, the Bills had eight pass breakups on Herbert on the 14 passes he did not complete.
RUN DEFENSE: C
It wasn’t a stellar day up front for the Bills as Omarion Hampton and Keaton Mitchell combined for 108 yards on 23 attempts and the Chargers finished with 131 yards and a 4.7 average.
Deone Walker provided some pass rush pressure and had another deflected pass, but he and Ed Oliver were low impact against the run and that was very disappointing considering the tattered state of the interior of the Chargers offensive line. That was supposed to be a big advantage for the Bills and it wasn’t.
One player who has started somewhat slowly is Michael Hoecht and the Bills need to be getting more from him, especially when he takes reps at 4i. It was also a quiet day for Terrel Bernard, but Dorian Williams picked up the slack and led the team with nine tackles.
SPECIAL TEAMS: B
Greg Dortch, who was signed to the 53-man roster late in the week, has turned Ray Davis into the invisible man. They are both deep on kickoffs, but Dortch had the only three returns which totaled 92 yards, good for a nice 30.7 average. He returned the opening kickoff 38 yards to the 43, not that it mattered because Cook fumbled the ball away on the next play. He also had one punt return for eight yards.
Thanks to the five turnovers, Tommy Doman was called on to punt just once and it was a 51-yarder though it was returned 14 yards for a net of 37.
Tyler Bass made all four of his kicks, three extra points and a 28-yard field goal.
COACHING: A-
Credit to defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard who squeezed some juice out of his beleaguered defense, one that had been torched for 62 points in the first two games. The Bills limited the Chargers to one touchdown early in the game and forced them to settle for three field goals, then came up with the big turnover early in the fourth quarter.
Leonhard also did a nice job getting through the second half with the young corners playing while Benford was sidelined, but there still needs to be more pressure up front from someone other than Rousseau and Walker.
Offensively, Brady owned it afterward, saying all the miscues were a direct reflection on him. Nice of him to say that, but he wasn’t the one throwing picks and losing fumbles. What I thought was important is that he stayed true to the game plan and didn’t seem to panic, even when things were going horribly wrong for so long.
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: James Cook shines, defense bails out struggling Josh Allen
