Buffalo Rumblings
The Dolphins had the Bills there in the first half...
It wasn’t always pretty, but the Buffalo Bills persevered against an AFC East foe that was hell-bent on making noise at their expense. Now, the Bills are 7-2, having dropped the Miami Dolphins to 2-6 — and leaving them firmly in the rearview mirror on the road to AFC East supremacy.
After a slow start that saw Buffalo trailing 10-6 at halftime, the Bills adapted a methodical second-half game plan that leveraged big plays in key moments to steal hope from Miami. Yet the Dolphins never flinched, keeping the outcome in doubt with just seconds left in regulation. In the end, the Bills found the resolve to withstand all the Dolphins threw at them, while countering with a few knockout blows of their own.
Here are a few of my thoughts on a game that proved to be far more challenging than anyone expected, yet successful thanks to a few franchise record-setting performances.
In the closing seconds of a 27-27 tie between the Bills and Dolphins, head coach Sean McDermott called upon kicker Tyler Bass to bring home a challenging win for Bills Mafia. The ask: make a 61-yard field goal up against enough seconds on the clock for things to go poorly if missed.
For Bass there was no choice but to hit it as solidly as he could right down the middle of those uprights. Before the football made it through the goal posts, Bills Mafia were jumping out of their shoes in celebration of what Bass had just accomplished — setting a new franchise-long field goal of 61 yards.
There’s been no shortage of drama surrounding Tyler Bass since the Bills walked off its home field playoff losers once again to the Kansas City Chiefs. There’s no benefit to further belaboring how that game ended, nor how Bass’ offseason, training camp, or even the three missed field goals and extra points in nine games this season. That’s because the past is the past, and Bass is still really damn good.
I’ve said all along that once Bass begins to cost the Bills games on a consistent basis, concern will carry merit. No missed kick by Bass this season has played any role in defeat. That could have changed in Week 9, when he added another missed extra point against that same end zone that seems to give him trouble.
Then suddenly, seeing Bass warm up for what most believed was an impossibly long field goal try, here he was ready to do the very thing his 12-year-old self knew he was great doing: kicking Ws for his team and his fans. Incredibly, head coach Mike McDaniel had two timeouts but chose not to use one to ice Bass.
It’s pretty clear that Tyler Bass thrives off confidence, and support seems to fit him like a glove. That may sound like someone else on...
