The Bills are 3-0 in the Joe Brady era, but Sunday's 24-16 win over the Los Angeles Chargers at the new Highmark Stadium was the ugliest of the bunch.
Buffalo turned it over five times — James Cook III on the first play from scrimmage, two interceptions and a lost fumble from Josh Allen, plus a Dalton Kincaid fumble — and still found a way.
QB Josh Allen knows the Bills stole a win in an unlikely scenario given the turnovers.
"100%." he said after the game.
"I mean, you're not going to win very many games turning the ball over that much," the QB continued. "Sometimes the ball bounces the other way. That's what happens. But our guys fought, our defense fought, gave us an opportunity to go make some plays."
The team debuted their Nickel City edition
uniforms, which are meant to visually express a new era in a new stadium for the Allen-led Bills.
At first, they looked more like the team of old-habits before coming back to shock the Chargers.
Los Angeles turned Cook's opening fumble into Justin Herbert's 1-yard shovel pass to Keaton Mitchell, and Allen's first interception set up a Cameron Dicker field goal that made it 10-0 before the Bills got on the board.
Brady's halftime message was the opposite of what the scoreboard suggested.
"I told the team at halftime: 'This is perfect,'" Brady said. "I meant that. I wanted to see how we were going to respond. I wanted to see what it was going to reveal. Were we going to be a team that's just going to point fingers when things aren't going well? How are we going to respond?"
The second half brought two more turnovers, six penalties and just 82 passing yards from Allen. The break Buffalo needed came early in the fourth quarter, when Herbert threw an interception just outside the red zone with a two-score lead sitting right there.
Allen's 1-yard touchdown run with 7:35 left gave the Bills their first lead of the afternoon, and Cook's 3-yard scoring run four minutes later put it away. The two rushing scores gave Allen 87 touchdowns from scrimmage in his career, tying Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed for the franchise record.
When asked about whether the team's composure was a factor in the comeback, Allen said "Absolutely."
"Sitting there, to be tied at halftime felt like a dream to be honest," he added. "We knew that if we didn't turn the ball over, we'd put ourselves in good spots and we still came out and turned the ball over, but, like I said, our defense played fantastic."
Center Connor McGovern pointed to the head coach for why nobody blinked.
"I think it all comes back to Joe Brady," McGovern said. "That's what he preaches: We don't break. No matter whether it was the first [turnover] or the fifth or all the different penalties we got, you look at the sideline and we're all ready to go, saying, 'Hey, just put the ball back down.' Until the final whistle blows, we're going to keep playing."
He called it a "full circle" feeling. For two weeks the offense sent the defense back out with a nod and a "we got you." On Sunday, the defense returned the favor.
"We know how good we can be," McGovern added "but even at our worst, we've still got that."
History says afternoons like this one end badly. Since 2010, teams that cough the ball up five times in a single game have surrendered 32.7 points per contest on average. Sunday was only the fourth such result in 20 years: five giveaways, and an opponent held to 16 points or fewer anyway.
Allen expressed his awareness in the victory that it's not the ideal way in which they want to get one.
"I mean, that's it's not a game that you expect to win, but we'll we'll take them any any way we can get them.
The Bills are 3-0 despite their sloppiest afternoon of the season, and will close out their three-game home stand Sunday when the New England Patriots visit the new Highmark Stadium.
This article originally appeared on Bills Wire: Bills' Josh Allen, Joe Brady on difficulties during win vs. Chargers
