Buffalo Rumblings
The Buffalo Bills’ defense answered head coach Sean McDermott’s challenge. The Bills pushed aside an outmatched New York Jets team with a physical brand of football rarely seen in the Josh Allen era. It seldom makes sense to take the ball out of Allen’s hands, but that’s exactly what the doctor ordered in a Week 2 win that saw Buffalo’s QB1 endure a gushing nose injury early in action.
In the immediate aftermath (and much of the live action) of the Bills’ 41-40 comeback win against the Baltimore Ravens, defense was a major discussion point. Buffalo rarely had an answer for the Ravens’ offense, and they looked completely over-matched at every level of defense. Some chalked a bit of it up to a lack of reps in the preseason, and that’s a real consideration one shouldn’t ignore. The large bit of truth may instead be that Baltimore has a championship-level roster with a difficult-to-defend offensive philosophy.
Enter Week 2: Where the Bills decided that Justin Fields, Breece Hall, and Garrett Wilson would not serve as an equally physical encore to Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, and Zay Flowers. Winning games down an uncomfortable 15 points with under five minutes to go is not a recipe for success week after week.
That doesn’t happen Sunday afternoon without a dominant effort orchestrated by defensive coordinator Bobby Babich (and also that of James Cook and Buffalo’s offensive line). In this space, we’ll focus on the defense. For every moment that the Bills were taken to task about their opening-week effort on defense, Babich and his defensive scribes made a point to set a far different tone on early in New Jersey.
It’s true that the Jets aren’t the Ravens and any physical comparison of the two should further be abandoned at the gate. It’s also true that the Jets have given Allen and the Bills plenty of problems, and may actually be Buffalo’s toughest AFC East matchup. But that wasn’t the case in Week 2.
Consider some of the Bills’ defensive work in New Jersey:
A healthy Joey Bosa is a problem for offenses, and he’s already proven to be a savvy addition this season, and he’s brought a more complete effort to the role vacated by Von Miller. The trick, of course, is keeping Bosa healthy — which sometimes requires luck.
Then remember what offensive coordinator Joe Brady decided to do coming out in the third quarter, taking all mystery out of the equation in winning the line of scrimmage. The Bills ran the ball and clock with intent en route to an 10-point third-quarter, and an impossible hill climb for the Jets.
Buffalo won just the second game of Allen’s career where he failed to score a...
