After week of hype over Dolphins' 70-burger, Josh Allen and Bills showed their offense should be feared just as much
Scariest part of Buffalo's fireworks vs. Miami? QB says Bills can play even better
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The field at Highmark Stadium was still smoking nearly three hours later from the offensive firepower that the Buffalo Bills showed in their 48-20 win over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen comfortably had his most efficient day of the season, throwing for 320 yards and four touchdowns on just 25 pass attempts, and chipped in another touchdown on the ground as he completely dismantled the Dolphins in all facets of offensive play.
Buffalo's defense certainly did its job to shut down an offense that scored 70 points last week, but it’s clear that the Bills will go as far as their quarterback and their offense take them.
Sunday, it took them pretty damn far.
After the game was over, the Bills gave coordinator Ken Dorsey a ton of credit for the offense that he has installed and the gameplan that they executed, which featured a whole lot of throwing at Dolphins cornerback Kader Kohou.
“Dorsey had a heck of a gameplan and our guys went out there and did it,” Allen said. “Stefon Diggs taking a stop route essentially and making two guys miss and taking in 50 [yards]. That’s huge for us, we haven’t had a whole bunch of that in the first couple weeks, getting some [runs after catch] going, getting Dalton [Kincaid] and Gabe [Davis] going. I still think we have more.
“We’re going to have to learn a lot from this tape and find ways to get better, but we left a lot out there.”
Wide receiver Gabe Davis agreed — that even after the 414 total yards and 7.4 yards per play, the offense was a tad incomplete.
“You always want to figure out how you can get better and there were drives out there that we didn’t execute on,” Davis said. “You know, you just want to execute those drives. You want to be able to go out there on every single drive and score. We didn’t do that today and it’s just a goal of ours to be able to go out there and execute at a high level.”
The idea that an offense that scored on eight drives has serious room to improve has to be a terrifying thought for defenses. The Dolphins’ defense certainly has not been a stalwart unit this season, but to play with that kind of efficiency is breathtaking. To take it up another notch and say that this was an incomplete version of what the team and players expect from themselves, that’s wild.
“Our thought process every time we touch the ball is to score,” Allen said. “Whether that be six or three. We had no turnovers today, which is great, but I still think there’s some things we can clean up. As good as it looked out there, when you get to the film, it’s never as bad, it’s never as good as you think it’s going to look.”
Sure, there are things that the Bills can work on to improve the down-to-down operation of the offense, but their quarterback had the same amount of incompletions as touchdown passes. That’s impossible to stop — even when the other team has an offense that just scored 70.
Allen was spectacular, but it takes a team effort to produce the end result that the Bills accomplished. The offensive line held up against a talented Dolphins’ defensive line, allowing only five pressured dropbacks Sunday, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats. Diggs converted six of his seven targets into 120 yards and three touchdowns, Davis caught a touchdown and veteran running back Latavius Murray chipped in with 56 total yards on just six touches.
It was a comprehensive performance from the Bills’ offense that continues to improve from their embarrassing loss against the New York Jets in Week 1. Allen has thrown only one interception since he threw three to open the season, just allowing this offense to stay on the field more often than they did in that singular game has shown to be a fruitful strategy.
No turnovers. Eight scoring drives. Forty-eight points. And they beat arguably the best offense in the league by four scores. That’s about as good as it can possibly get, but the Bills want more than they had against the Dolphins.
“Fun to watch,” Bills head coach Sean McDermott said about his team’s offense. “I don’t get a chance to watch it as much as I would like to, but big-time players have big-time games in these types of settings.”
The Bills head to London next week to take on the Jaguars (2-2), and if their star players have another big-time game, the Bills won’t only establish themselves as the team to beat in the AFC East — they just might be the team to beat in the entire conference.
