While at times it sure didn’t look like the Buffalo Bills made the trip at all, let me assure you that the team traveled to Florida where they were embarrassed by the Miami Dolphins. Buffalo, usually good
for one embarrassing loss per season, is now up to three such games by my count.
In looking at the box score, I was startled to see that quarterback Josh Allen had thrown for over 300 yards (I was watching at a bar and wasn’t watching stats in-game). Buffalo outgained Miami (barely, but they did), had nearly three more minutes in time of possession, and one more first down than the Dolphins.
They lost by 17 and it didn’t even seem that close. What happened? My hypothesis is that they went to one of those stores that requires a membership and accidentally bought the industrial sized contained of blown chances.
Turnovers
The Bills have made a lot of noise winning the turnover margin of late, and starting off with an interception against the Dolphins made it look like that might continue. In the end though, Buffalo narrowly lost that part of the game, giving up the ball three times to Miami’s two.
I chose James Cook III’s fumble because it was remarkable that head coach Sean McDermott didn’t bench him for a quarter, but also because I think I know what happened on this one. It’s clear Cook was trying to make something happen. He extended his left arm to stay up just a little longer and gain a little more ground. He planted with a completely straight arm, which if you trust my judo instructor is a good way to injure your elbow.
Anyone who has ever landed with full weight like this knows how much of a jolt it sends through your body. I’m not trying to absolve Cook mind you, plenty of guys have held onto the ball in similar circumstances. If you’re looking to know why sometimes the wisdom is to just go down, it’s because trying to do too much leads to the potential for stuff like this to happen.
Third downs
At the moment I pause in the clip, I started vocalizing “Yakety Sax,” more often known as the theme to Benny Hill. This was one of Buffalo’s five conversions on third down. Not bad, unless you saw that it was out of 15 tries. Wanna hear something even wackier?
Miami ran away with the game and had the exact same conversion rate of 33%. They only had nine tries however. Some of this is the result of Buffalo running more offensive plays (68 to 53 if you’re interested). Not completely though. The Bills had 66% more third-down tries than the Dolphins, and only 28% more plays total. What does all the math mean? Miami was generally more effective on first and second downs. Not ideal.
General crappiness
I won’t dive too deep into these, because you can likely see for yourself what happened. On first down, Allen had a good pocket for quite some time, and was eventually flushed out. He looked to wide receiver Keon Coleman with a jump ball and they couldn’t connect.
On second down, a quick toss to James Cook gained eight. That’s a very good play and result.
On third down, feel free to blame who you want. Was it a bad call? Did Allen not check to a better play? Was the blocking suspect? Did Cook screw up somehow? All that matters is they needed two yards and couldn’t get it.
The Final Straw
You might have noticed I focused on the offense even though they didn’t allow 30 points. Let’s be candid, I will 100% blame the two long rushing touchdowns on the defense, as well as a handful of other plays they’d want back. On the other hand, Buffalo kept them to 16 points until the fourth quarter was already more than half gone.
In that same span, their vaunted offense featuring the reigning MVP had put up six points. If the offense had any sort of success, the outcome of the game is likely different.
