The Buffalo Bills were a big road favorite on Sunday over the Cleveland Browns, and when they had the football with less than two minutes to go in the first half, a 10-point lead, and a double-dip opportunity
in front of them, I felt like a blowout was coming. However, neither of Buffalo’s possessions around either side of halftime amounted to points, and the Bills allowed a three-win Browns team to hang around, making a 23-20 victory something much more uncomfortable than it could have been.
The 2025 vintage of the Buffalo Bills has been a roller coaster ride of sorts, and they’ve had a nasty habit of allowing inferior opponents to hang around in games for far too long. Unlike head-scratching losses at the Miami Dolphins and Atlanta Falcons, however, the Bills were able to do enough on Sunday to pull out a much-needed 11th win of the season.
It wasn’t a perfect day for the Bills, and our five players to watch were a hit-and-miss bunch, as well. However, they all played a big part in the game, even if their individual performances weren’t all roses.
Here’s how our five players to watch fared on Sunday.
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QB Josh Allen
If you started Allen in your fantasy playoffs, you were likely expecting a big game. After all, Allen is the No. 1 quarterback in ESPN standard scoring and the No. 2 player overall. However, Allen scored just 6.9 fantasy points this past weekend, which is a far cry from his 22-point average for the season.
Snapping back to reality, it wasn’t a clean game for Allen despite him avoiding a costly turnover for the day. Allen was on the move for much of the game, as offensive coordinator Joe Brady made it a point to move Allen and the pocket away from All-World defensive end Myles Garrett. Allen gifted Garrett half a sack on Buffalo’s last possession of the first half, as he scrambled wildly and lost 20 yards on a second-down sack that nearly resulted in a safety. It also led to Allen injuring his foot, something that didn’t cause him to miss any game time, but briefly caused all of our heart rates to spike as he limped to the locker room before the half had expired.
Allen only attempted seven passes in the first half, and he completed six of them for 86 yards. Buffalo didn’t need to throw, as they ran the ball to devastating effect in the early going. In the first half alone, running back James Cook III gained 100 yards on just nine carries, scoring two touchdowns in the process. Ty Johnson had three carries for 16 yards and a touchdown of his own in the first half, as well. Allen added four first-half carries for 17 yards. Buffalo had missed some chances, but they scored 20 points in the first half, and they looked like they’d be able to add more.
After Allen injured his foot, though, the offense looked a little less fluid. Cleveland made some adjustments and clamped down on the run game, and Allen made a few perfect passes that his receivers flat-out dropped. Two in the second half that come to mind include a deep shot to wide receiver Brandin Cooks, who once again couldn’t haul in a pass that hit his hands. Yes, he had to dive. Yes, he was covered. Yes, Allen put it in the perfect spot given the coverage, and yes, I think it’s a grab that Cooks has to make.
The more egregious drop came on a fourth-down try late in the game. Rather than kick a field goal to potentially give the Bills a six-point lead, head coach Sean McDermott decided to keep the ball in his MVP quarterback’s hands to try and end the game then and there. Allen rolled right and found tight end Dawson Knox wide-open in the end zone. Knox dropped it.
All told, Allen completed just 12-of-19 passes for 130 yards, adding seven rushes for 17 yards on the ground.
RB Ray Davis
With the aforementioned big day from Cook, who totaled 16 carries for 117 yards and two touchdowns with one 17-yard catch, there wasn’t much for Davis on offense. And yet, he caught Allen’s first two passes for the game, gaining 14 yards on one catch and six yards on the other. Davis also had three carries for 14 yards. He played eight snaps on offense, so the fact that he touched the ball on five of those eight snaps is impressive. Eight offensive snaps is more than he played against the Cincinnati Bengals (four) or the New England Patriots (six) in the two weeks prior to Sunday’s game.
On kickoff returns, Davis didn’t break a big one, but he continued to give the Bills great starting field position. He totaled 92 yards on his four returns, an average of 23 yards per return. That was well down from his 32-yards-per-return average entering the game, but it can’t all be big returns and near-touchdowns. Sometimes, you have to be content with taking what you can, and Davis did a nice job setting Buffalo up in good position. His returns went for 17, 25, 24 and 26 yards, respectively.
TE Dawson Knox
Well, we already covered the big “whoops” for Knox, as he dropped a sure touchdown pass in the fourth quarter. Interestingly enough, though, both of Knox’s targets came on the same fourth-quarter drive. He caught the first one, a 10-yard pass that was initially ruled short of a first down, but head coach Sean McDermott threw his second challenge flag of the day, and the play was overturned. McDermott lost his first challenge when he tried to have what appeared to be a Dalton Kincaid toe-tap grab along the sideline reversed, but the replay officials couldn’t tell whether the knuckle of Kincaid’s foot hit before the toe, so the call on the field stood.
While Knox once again led all Bills tight ends in snaps, it was rookie tight end Jackson Hawes who led in receptions. He had two catches for 26 yards, including a grab on a Josh Allen shovel-pass that set up the game-clinching tush push.
DE Greg Rousseau
In the lead-up to this one, I wrote that I felt good about Rousseau having a big game. I predicted that he’d have multiple sacks and force a fumble. I’ll take it. Rousseau easily had his biggest game of the season, notching 2.5 sacks and a whopping seven quarterback hits on Cleveland’s quarterbacks. He had three total tackles.
One of his sacks came against Dillon Gabriel, ending a promising Browns possession by holding them to a field goal in the second quarter. Rousseau’s other 1.5 sacks came on Shedeur Sanders in the fourth quarter. Ultimately, those two plays in the final frame led the Bills to victory.
Perhaps Rousseau’s most important play, however, was actually one where he didn’t rush the passer at all. With Cleveland facing a 3rd & 10 with just under six minutes remaining in the game, Buffalo showed pressure and dropped both defensive ends — Rousseau and Joey Bosa — into coverage. Rousseau carried tight end Harold Fannin Jr. up the seam like he was the Tampa-2 linebacker, sticking the standout rookie tight end in coverage all the way up the field.
If this game could be the launch point for more Sundays exactly like it for Rousseau, then we could be in for a fun postseason. However, Rousseau has done this before with big games that are followed by disappearances. He’ll need to channel this energy moving forward for the Bills to go as far as they want to go this postseason.
K Michael Badgley
Well, as far as team debuts go, it wasn’t a great one. Badgley made his first kick attempt, a PAT to tie the game at seven. He doinked his second PAT, leaving the Bills with just a 13-7 advantage after their second touchdown. Later in the first half, after the Bills scored again, Badgley made the PAT. However, he followed that up with a kickoff well short of the landing zone, gifting the Browns the ball at their own 40-yard line.
In the second half, Badgley hit his only field goal attempt, a 41-yard try to give the Bills a 23-10 advantage. It wasn’t a disastrous debut, but after watching Matt Prater do things at an elite level all season, it was a step backwards for Buffalo’s kicking game.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see the team have tryouts this week for another kicker, and it also wouldn’t surprise me if the team just rolled the dice and went with Badgley for one more week. The margin for error against the Browns is much greater than it is against a team like Buffalo’s next opponent, the Philadelphia Eagles, so any of these mistakes could be the difference between winning and losing. We’ll see what the team decides.
