It’s been a whiplash two weeks for the Buffalo Bills, from the disheartening loss to the Miami Dolphins, then followed by wide receiver Keon Coleman’s benching and an electric 44-32 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bills are now 7-3 heading into tonight’s primetime matchup with the 5-5 Houston Texans, yet many fans and professional sports pundits remain unsure about where this team truly belongs in the NFL’s Super Bowl picture.
Buffalo faces a Houston team with Backup quarterback Davis Mills
getting his third straight start. With a win, the Bills would hold tiebreakers on the three teams directly outside of the playoff picture (along with the Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens) and keep themselves in AFC East title contention.
Buffalo seemingly found their downfield passing game on Sunday, but would be wise to not test the Texans’ NFL-best pass defense on a short week. Running back James Cook III struggled to get going on the ground against the Buccaneers, but still tallied 19 touches for 114 total yards.
Cook should be in line for an increased workload. Here’s why…
Don’t get cute, Joe Brady
Last season’s matchup in Houston produced arguably Josh Allen’s worst career outing (9-of-30 passing), and was an overall difficult offensive watch that ended on a crushing 59-yard walk-off field goal from kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn. Now, coming off a historic performance by Allen in Week 11, it’s on offensive coordinator Joe Brady to play the numbers and avoid trying to replicate Sunday’s efficiency against the NFL’s best defense.
Houston’s passing defense is first in EPA/play against the pass and allows the third-fewest passing yards per game (171). This, despite the fact that opponents throw the ball on them 60% of the time, which is good for the ninth highest rate.
In Week 1, the Rams and potential MVP Matthew Stafford have been the only team to generate positive EPA against this secondary and they still managed just 224 passing yards and 14 points on the Texans. Los Angeles also gets the ball out quick and has two elite outside wide receivers to lean on in any given game.
Buffalo doesn’t have that same capability and Allen is the king of extending a play. So, my plea to Joe Brady is not to not overthink it regardless of what fans clamor for — this game calls for a matchup-induced run-heavy game script featuring Cook.
Houston is best in the league regardless of what kind of scenario is drawn up, so hopefully Brady realizes he cannot out-scheme the talent deficiency between these two units. Maybe play-action will throw them off? Nope. The Texans are by far the best pass defense unit against the play-action fake, even better than straight dropbacks (-.49 EPA vs -.19 on regular dropbacks).
The Texans rank among the top three defending pass plays that include motion, plays where they generate no quarterback pressure, and both short and deep passes. This is a no-fly zone and the only thing that takes this defense to even an average percentile is actually when they decide to send extra pressure and blitz (15th ranked), so the Bills would be banking on Houston sending the house.
A win is a win
A lack of trades and some new blood atop the AFC has caused lots of negative stir recently in Bills Mafia circles. Let’s take a lesson from the one and only Aaron Rodgers and R-E-L-A-X. The Bills are still an overall very good football team with a chance at home playoff games and one-seed consideration, difficult as the latter may prove to be true.
Buffalo’s win against Tampa Bay felt like what fans wanted to see, but all the credit went to Allen. Head coach Sean McDermott, general manager Brandon Beane, and Joe Brady still caught flack for needing their MVP to play like an MVP.
Now, with an impending boring, slugfest of a game on tap in Week 12, everyone should try to remember that securing the W is far more important than the way it’s won. Buffalo has been flashy in the past, they’ve been the media darling and the ultra-dominant “who can beat them” team before and still came up short.
Many fans are scared that the team is losing its regular-season dominance because they think they see a sinking ship, but just look around the league. The defending champion Philadelphia Eagles want to offload their offensive coordinator; the Kansas City Chiefs are reeling despite a revamped offense; the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers look very beatable; and the AFC is looking up at quarterbacks Bo Nix and Daniel Jones.
Very few fan bases are actually happy right now, and no team looks more dominant than the rest. Buffalo is not a pantheon team in 2025 and they should be better, both in terms of roster and performance. However, as fans prepare to watch wide receiver Keon Coleman be overthrown towards the sideline and James Cook run 20 times while the Bills hang around against a backup quarterback, the only thing that matters will be moving to 8-3.
Let James Cook create another Chef’s Special.
