Buffalo Rumblings
Happy Victory Monday! The Buffalo Bills improved to 6-2 on the season after defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 28-21 on Sunday afternoon at Highmark Stadium. This marks Buffalo’s fifth straight regular-season win over Kansas City. The Bills suddenly find themselves 2.5 games ahead of the Chiefs in the AFC playoff seeding race, although their Week 5 loss to the New England Patriots will make things both difficult and interesting as the back half of the season progresses.
What has become a weekly occurrence at this point is quarterback Josh Allen breaking more records, and he broke multiple in Week 9. Allen completed a franchise record 88.5% of his passes, while quarterPatrick Mahomes completed just 44.1% of his passes, the lowest mark of his nine-year career. JA17 also found the endzone twice with his legs, the first of which put him above Cam Newton for most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback in NFL history.
Buffalo’s Week 9 injury report was lengthy, and it entered Sunday’s matchup down multiple starters. Nickel cornerback Taron Johnson, wideout Joshua Palmer, defensive tackle DaQuan Jones, and linebacker Shaq Thompson were all ruled out ahead of the matchup, with defensive tackle Phidarian Mathis and cornerback Dane Jackson called up from the practice squad.
Here was the full Week 9 inactive list: Buffalo Bills Week Nine inactives vs. the Kansas City Chiefs
D.Dawkins T 66 100%
D.Edwards G 66 100%
O.Torrence G 66 100%
C.McGovern G 66 100%
J.Allen QB 66 100%
S.Brown T 66 100%
J.Cook RB 50 76%
K.Coleman WR 45 68%
K.Shakir WR 40 61%
D.Knox TE 32 48%
T.Shavers WR 31 47%
J.Hawes TE 31 47%
C.Samuel WR 27 41%
D.Kincaid TE 23 35%
R.Gilliam FB 17 26%
E.Moore WR 17 26%
Ty.Johnson RB 13 20%
R.Davis RB 3 5%
A.Anderson T 1 2%
Allen (100%) finished the game with 292 total yards, three total touchdowns, and just three incompletions. It was easily his best game of the season, and hopefully it carries over into the rest of the regular season and the postseason. The offensive line both played every single snap and played well, limiting the Chiefs’ pass rush to six quarterback hits and three sacks. Honestly, Allen’s pocket awareness has seemingly dropped off a cliff this season, and he tries to do too much sometimes, which has resulted in more sacks.
Tight end Dalton Kincaid (35%) was Allen’s preferred target, despite logging just 23 snaps, eight fewer than Jackson Hawes (47%) and nine fewer than Dawson Knox (48%). He hauled in all six of his targets for 101 yards and an opening-drive touchdown. Kincaid has gone over 100 receiving yards in two of his last three games and seems to be Buffalo’s only consistent downfield threat. Only one other Bills’ pass catcher garnered more than three targets, and it was unsurprisingly wideout Khalil Shakir (61%), who finished with seven receptions for 43 yards. Still, the passing game was both productive and explosive,...
