ORCHARD PARK — Sean McDermott made a not-so-secret revelation in a short sentence.
The Buffalo Bills attempted to downplay the magnitude and excitement of playing against the Miami Dolphins all week and tried to do so again after a 48-20 mauling Sunday to regain their familiar place atop the AFC East standings.
“We’re gonna let our play do the talk and I’m gonna leave it at that,” Bills defensive tackle DaQuan Jones said after the game. “Watch our film and you’re gonna see what we do.”
Whether it was about how the Dolphins have become national darlings for a high-powered offense and the Bills have become afterthoughts for those who believe their Super Bowl window closed with last year’s resounding loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the playoffs and the ensuing drama surrounding Stefon Diggs that hovered throughout the offseason, the Bills just wouldn’t bite.
But they left breadcrumbs.
Several players, including safety Taylor Rapp and cornerback Dane Jackson, said the Bills had a good plan in place to slow down the Dolphins earlier in the week. Players and coaches also spoke about needing the fans throughout the week. Boy, did they get them.
And then McDermott contradicted himself after the game when talking about Josh Allen and Diggs connecting for three touchdowns.
“Big-time players have big-time games in these types of situations,” McDermott said.
The situation is that the Bills are still the team to beat in the AFC East, it seems the Super Bowl window is still wide open and Allen is unquestionably still the best quarterback in the division. A lot can happen in the next 13 weeks, but someone is going to have to wrestle the division out of Buffalo.
With all the talk about a Dolphins offense that led the NFL in total yards, passing, rushing and scoring, all coming off a 70-point outing against the Denver Broncos, the Bills were as crisp as they have been all season. Allen accounted for five touchdowns, the Bills accumulated 414 total yards and a season-high 7.4 yards per play.
And they also won their third game in a row by at least 28 points and now lead the NFL in scoring margin, outscoring opponents by 84 points this season. Meanwhile, after throwing three interceptions to the dismay of the national outlets, Allen has 76.6% of his passes, while accounting for 10 touchdowns and just one interception over the last three games.
“I think the Buffalo Bills proved why they are the team that our whole division is trying to beat,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said. “They’ve won it for how many years in a row now. They made some adjustments, and we didn’t, so to speak. I think it was kind of compounding.”
For two drives it seemed the Dolphins were every bit as good offensively as advertised, facing one third down in the first 14 plays. But the offense kept pouring on the points, something that has been questioned this season, only to score on all but one possession in the first half.
The Bills offense put pressure on the Dolphins to keep pace when the chatter all week was whether Buffalo could go blow-for-blow with Miami. And finally, at a point when Miami could have pierced the Bills with another long touchdown drive, forcing them to score to prevent a double-dip in the second half, the defense arrived.
Buffalo forced consecutive three-and-outs and finally capitalized when Allen hit Diggs for a 55-yard score to take a two-score lead. The Dolphins had six plays of 10 yards or more over the first 14 plays of the game, but none in the last 12 plays of the first half, which included Greg Rousseau’s first of two sacks of the game and a fumble that set up a Tyler Bass field goal to take a 17-point lead into halftime.
Even though Miami scored a touchdown to open the third quarter, the Bills had made its offense one-dimensional. For the third consecutive week, the Bills stifled the run game, taking an offense that averaged 6.3 yards per carry entering the game and holding them to 3.5 through the first three quarters.
Once the Dolphins had to rely upon Tua Tagovailoa to throw the ball, the pressure mounted. He was sacked four times and started to make some uncharacteristic mistakes.
“We are just trying to make people talk,” Bills defensive tackle Ed Oliver said. “We’re trying to wake everybody up and make people talk. We want everybody to know that this defense is for real and we’ve got special guys on this defense.”
Aside from Oliver, the Bills tried to downplay the win, just as they had the week leading up to the game. But in this particular instance, they are correct: four weeks doesn’t make a season.
The Bills have been notorious for having a letdown game after a big win in recent years, and although the defense has been superb all season, they are likely going to have to do it without Tre’Davious White for the remainder of the season after leaving with an Achilles injury, plus they want the offense to play closer to Sunday’s form on a weekly basis.
“You always want to figure out how you can get better and there’s some drives out there that we didn’t execute on and you just want to execute on those drives,” said Bills receiver Gabe Davis, who caught a touchdown for the third week in a row. “Every drive you’re out there you want to score. We didn’t do that today. It’s just a goal for us to be able to go out there and execute at a high level.”