ORCHARD PARK - It would be pretty difficult to find a week that went much better for the Buffalo Bills than Week 7 of the 2024 NFL season.

Not only did the Bills smoke the Tennessee Titans 34-10 to improve their record to 5-2, the rest of their AFC East brethren all lost - Miami (2-4) fell 16-10 to Indianapolis, New England (1-6) got drummed 32-16 by previously lifeless Jacksonville, and perhaps most importantly, the Aaron Rodgers/Davante Adams Jets (2-5) were destroyed 37-15 by Pittsburgh.

Though we haven’t reached the halfway point of the schedule, the tenor of the division race has certainly changed dramatically. On the evening of Oct. 14, the Bills were in New York and had they lost that Monday night to the Jets, they would have been 3-3 at the time, riding a three-game losing streak, and technically in second place in the division as the Jets would have been 3-3 and owned the head-to-head tiebreaker.

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Now? The Bills are cruising in the division, up three games plus the head-to-head tiebreaker on the Jets, and they are 2 ½ games plus the head-to-head tiebreaker ahead of the Dolphins. Yeah, things happen fast in the NFL, and Buffalo’s Week 8 opponent, the Seattle Seahawks, can attest to that as well.

They opened the season with three straight victories, then lost their next three before waking back up with a 34-14 road rout in Atlanta. The Seahawks are 4-3, and because the heavy preseason division favorite 49ers are decimated by injuries and can’t get things figured out, Seattle leads the NFC West under rookie head coach Mike MacDonald.

This will be a tough test for Buffalo, especially at Lumen Field where the Seahawks have one of the best homefield advantages in the NFL, but even if things don’t go well, there are two things that should calm the nerves of Bills fans: Obviously, every win matters, but losing to an NFC opponent on the road is the lowest level of concern; and because of their big victories the last two weeks, and the collapse of the Jets and Dolphins, the Bills have created some wiggle room for themselves if they happen to stub their toes in the Pacific Northwest.

Here are three questions going into the Seahawks game:

1. Is Keon Coleman ready to take off?

For as exciting as it is for the Bills to have injected Amari Cooper into the offense, the reality is this: He’s the present, but he’s probably not the future because it doesn’t seem like the Bills would be looking to pay him a sizable chunk of change in free agency before 2025. Coleman, the 2024 second-round pick, is the future, a future that looked a whole lot brighter Sunday.

The rookie made two huge plays that totaled 101 yards, and he very nearly made an excellent TD catch, but he barely failed to keep his toe off the sideline in the end zone and it was thus overturned by instant replay.

The first came in the second quarter when Coleman got open when the Titans blew a coverage, Josh Allen found him, and he turned it into a 44-yard gain that set up the Bills first touchdown which started their comeback and cut their deficit to 10-7.

The second came as the Bills were looking to close out the game with a 27-10 lead and 4:37 remaining, so the stakes were lower, but it was nonetheless a great individual effort. He caught a quick pass just a yard past the line of scrimmage, broke a tackle attempt by fellow rookie cornerback Jarvis Brownlee and sprinted 57 yards to set up Ray Davis’ putaway touchdown.

“We just got to continue harping on the consistency and all the little details and little things,” offensive coordinator Joe Brady said of Coleman’s development. “I think sometimes it’s so important for guys to not get caught up in the production or the results and understand all the little things. I’m proud of how he was able to kind of make some plays on the ball. Keon's confident, he can be coached hard and I like how he's approaching it.”

It was the first 100-yard game of Coleman’s career and he now leads the Bills with 326 yards receiving, has a huge 20.4 average on his 16 receptions, and two of those have gone for TDs.

Just for fun, here’s what Xavier Worthy of the Chiefs - the player Kansas City drafted with the first-round pick it acquired from Buffalo last April - has done through six games (the Chiefs have already had their bye): 15 catches for 198 yards, a 13.2 average, plus seven rushes for 47 yards and a total of four TDs.

I have no idea who will have the better season, or for that matter, the better career. Yeah, Worthy is a fast and electric player, but Coleman has done some nice things in seven games, and with Cooper getting more involved in the weeks to come, Coleman should be able to take advantage.

“I liked it,” Coleman said of having Cooper on the field. “He brings a different dynamic to the offense. Another guy that can do similar things that I do at a very high level, and he’s proven himself in the league for a very long time. Just another threat. You gotta respect it.”

2. How did Geno Smith become a quality QB?

Smith entered the NFL as a promising second-round pick of the Jets in 2013, coach Rex Ryan made him the starter in his first season and kept him in that spot in 2014, too. But the Jets lost 18 of the 29 games Smith started, he completed just 55% of his passes and had 25 TDs compared to a gruesome 34 interceptions.

Ryan was fired after 2014, took the head job in Buffalo, and his replacement in New York, Todd Bowles, pulled the plug on Smith. Over the next six seasons (not counting 2019 which he missed), Smith was a little-used backup for the Jets, Giants, Chargers and Seahawks and his career looked like it was over.

But in 2022 he beat out Drew Lock in a spirited Seattle training camp competition, and suddenly he was a different guy. That year he led the NFL with a 69.8 completion percentage, threw for 4,282 yards with 30 TDs and 11 picks. He won the NFL’s comeback player of the year award and he’s never looked back, famously saying of his detractors, “They wrote me off but I ain’t write back though.”

He’s now in his third season as the starter, and in 2024 he leads the NFL in completions (191), attempts (279) and passing yards (1,985).

“His arm and his accuracy are awesome,” Chris Simms said on the Sunday Night Football pregame show last Sunday. “(The Seahawks) don't run the ball that well and they're a middle of the road defense, but they are 4-3 because of this guy’s ability to push the football down the field.”

It has been quite a second act for Smith, whose most famous moment in the NFL before all of his success probably came in Jets training camp 2015 when he got into a locker room fight with teammate IK Enemkpali and suffered a broken jaw, the same Enemkpali who Ryan convinced Bills GM Doug Whaley to sign the very next day when the Jets waived him.

This will be the first game Smith has started against the Bills in 10 years, so they have their work cut out for them in film study trying to figure out how to slow him and Seattle’s explosive passing game down.

3. Can the Bills’ exploit the Seahawks offensive line?

Seattle’s passing game has been great, but it is succeeding despite some below standard play from an offensive line that has struggled in protection most of the season. According to NextGenStats, the Seahawks have allowed Smith to be pressured on 36.2% of his dropbacks, the 11th-highest rate in the league. And this is happening even though Smith has faced blitzes on just 26% of his attempts, the ninth-lowest amount.

Teams are affecting him with a four-man rush, and that’s the way Buffalo plays. The Bills have blitzed just 17.9% of the time which is third-lowest in the league, and while they’re a middling pressure team (ranked 16th at a rate of 33.7%), rushing just four allows them to cover with seven. As a result, they rank tied for fourth in passing yards allowed per attempt (6.4) and third in yards per catch (9.8).

For the bulk of the season, the Seahawks have started LT Charles Cross, LG Laken Tomlinson, C Connor Williams, RG Anthony Bradford and RT Stone Forsythe, though rookie sixth-round pick Michael Jerrell started against the Falcons because Forsythe was out with a hand injury. Pro Football Focus has this line 28th in its weekly offensive line rankings and as I often say, while I don’t put much stock in these grades, they at least provide a little context.

The Bills are coming off a game against a Titans’ offensive line that PFF had graded 30th, and the Bills dominated. PFF credited Buffalo with 23 pressures of Mason Rudolph including 11 by Greg Rousseau, with three of those resulting in sacks by DaQuan Jones, AJ Epenesa and a share between Rousseau and Dawuane Smoot.

And in the run game, one of the reasons the Seahawks throw so much is that their line has not been great in that aspect, either. Seattle has run a league-low 33.5% of the time and its runners have been stuffed (zero or negative yardage) on 17.9% of the attempts which is ninth-most in the league.

McDermott talks all the time about winning the line of scrimmage, and his defense will have an opportunity to do that in this game, and it could lead the way to a victory.

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, and he has written numerous books about the history of the team. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

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This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills vs Seahawks questions: Is Keon Coleman ready to take off?