ORCHARD PARK - One would have to imagine that the last team Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa wants to be facing are the Buffalo Bills because almost nothing good has ever come from these encounters.

Since entering the NFL as the No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 draft, Tagovailoa has put together a solid resume, obviously helped by some wondrously skilled players in the Miami offense. He has completed 67% of his passes, has an 84-40 touchdown-to-interception ratio, and averages 7.7 yards per attempt which results in a 96.4 passer rating.

In 2023 he led the NFL in yards passing with 4,624, and in 2022, thanks in large part to the amazing season wide receiver Tyreek Hill had, Tagovailoa led the league in yards per attempt (8.9) and per completion (13.7). Despite his lack of size and arm strength, he has been a fine player and certainly a difference-maker because without him, the Dolphins have been mostly incompetent.

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Except when he plays the Bills. Then, everything gets a whole lot more difficult. Tagovailoa has faced Buffalo eight times, he has won just once (and barely at that in Week 3 of 2022), and in those games he has completed just 61.8% of his passes, has averaged just 200 yards per game and 6.78 per attempt, his TD-to-pick rate is terrible at seven to 10, and most importantly, he has suffered two concussions.

Sunday afternoon, Tagovailoa gets another crack at his No. 1 nemesis, and when he was asked about that following the Dolphins’ head scratching 28-27 home loss to the Cardinals last Sunday, he said of facing the Bills, “I’ve got no thoughts. We’ve got to beat them. They’re good. It’s the same thing over and over. You’ve got to beat them.”

But Miami will not beat the Bills until it finally finds the secret sauce that allows Tagovailoa to play the way he does against almost every other opponent not wearing a charging Buffalo on its helmet.

The Bills’ defense always executes its game plan against Tagovailoa and it finds a way to upset his timing and accuracy by defusing the explosive speed he has at his disposal in the form of wide receivers Hill and Jaylen Waddle and running backs DeVon Achane and Raheem Morris.

“Number one, glad he's okay,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said of Tagovailoa’s return when he threw for 234 yards against Arizona. “(The concussion against the Bills in Week 2) was scary to watch. Number two, it appears, obviously, that he's back and playing at a high level. So, they're a good team, a good offense and we're gonna have our work cut out for us this week here.”

Maybe. After all, the Dolphins are 2-5 on the season and might be playing for their survival in the playoff race and every man on the coaching staff and roster knows it, and now standing in front of them next are the big, bad, Bills.

“Each and every week is a must win,” Hill said. “Our mindset was a must win (against the Cardinals), but next week, 24-hour rule, we’re going to move on and Buffalo is a must-win.”

Here are three questions I have heading into the matchup:

1. How important is balance to the Bills offense?

It has become glaringly clear that when the Bills can support Josh Allen with a viable rushing attack, they are so much more dangerous on offense. Last Sunday in Seattle, offensive coordinator Joe Brady was able to find a beautiful rhythm in his play-calling because he was balanced in his decisions, mixing pass and run at almost a 50-50 ratio.

The result was two touchdown drives of at least 90 yards, the other three going 69, 61 and 73 yards, and the Bills hogging possession of the ball for more than 38 minutes on the way to season highs in first downs (29) and total yards (445). It was a master class from Brady up in the coaches booth, and by the players who executed the play calls, and as a result, the Bills have a season point differential of plus-84 which is No. 1 in the AFC and second in the NFL behind only the 6-1 Lions (plus-100).

“These days it seems like more and more the defense is putting enough pressure on you to execute consistently through the course of a double digit play drive, say, in order to get points,” McDermott said. “Being able to be efficient yet explosive, being able to maintain one's level of execution and detail, that leads to the execution down in and down out through the course of a drive.”

And while Allen is always the most important figure, he’s getting a run for his money from running back James Cook. In Seattle, Cook ran for 111 yards and two TDs and much of his success came in a way you wouldn’t normally expect: He used his speed, his vision and his ability to slither through creases, but he also wasn’t afraid of contact, and that latter attribute is why the Bills now trust Cook down around the goal line.

His two TDs came on runs of two and seven yards, situations in his first two seasons in the league where he would have been standing on the sideline watching bigger, more physical backs get those carries.

“Yeah, when he's running hard like that, and that second touchdown, he lowered the boom,” Allen said. “I wouldn't say he has the biggest frame but he can be an angry runner and you saw that today.”

Cook missed the Jets game, but he still has 452 yards rushing and is averaging 4.6 yards per attempt with seven rushing TDs, plus a TD through the air on 14 catches for 145 yards.

“Again, just more and more development from a young player,” McDermott said. “He's focused, he prepares, and you don't take that for granted. These guys in that locker room, they work during the week to get themselves to be the most prepared they can and they take it seriously. They hold each other accountable, which is very powerful, as you guys know.

2. Do the Bills have one of the NFL’s best offensive lines?

You could make a strong case for this unit based on the Seattle game that indeed, it is one of the most effective groups in the league. And what’s crazy about that is the line actually had an awful day in terms of penalties, committing six that were accepted and another that was declined, but when it was playing by the rules, wow, what a show.

Tackles Dion Dawkins and Spencer Brown, guards David Edwards and O’Cyrus Torrence, and center Connor McGovern dominated the Seahawks’ front seven, gashing them in the run game and providing Allen more than enough time on most of his 34 pass attempts to scan the field and make the proper throwing decisions.

“They always get credit for anything that we do,” Cook said. “The touchdowns, the first downs, they always get the credit. Hats off to the offensive line, they played good. I’m happy for them.”

The Bills averaged nearly five yards per rush and Cook had 10 runs of at least seven yards, plus had a 10-yard run wiped out by a penalty.

“It just elevates everyone else because once we get the run game really established and (Cook) gets going, that gets Dalton (Kincaid) open, that gets the tight ends open, all the wide receivers get open. It just opens up our entire offense. It’s obviously a lot of fun when you can run the ball for so many yards and you’re able to control the front.”

And in pass protection, Allen has been sacked just 10 times, or 4.29% of his drop backs. If you read anything into Pro Football Focus grading, it ranked the Bills seventh heading into Week 8 in its weekly offensive rankings.

“Huge,” McDermott said of the line’s play. “You know me well enough to know what I value, what we value, and that's winning up front. And you saw that I thought in particular in the second half, once we got going in the first half, being able to take over the line of scrimmage in the second half was big for us.”

3. How have the Bills kept Tyreek Hill in check?

When the speedy wideout played for the Chiefs, Hill had a couple huge playoff games against the Bills, the types of games fans will never forget. In the 2020 AFC title game he caught nine passes for 172 yards, and in the 13 seconds debacle in the 2021 divisional game, he had 11 receptions for 150 yards and a TD.

But for the most part, Buffalo’s defense has done a terrific job in its matchups against Hill and he has never had a 100-yard game since coming to the Dolphins in 2022. That’s something because even though he surpassed 1,700 yards in each of his first two South Florida seasons, his best game against Buffalo came in the finale last season, seven catches for 82 yards and a TD.

In total, in the six games he has played against Buffalo counting the 2022 playoff matchup, Hill has totaled a mundane 31 catches for 335 yards and three TDs.

Sound pass defense has long been a hallmark of McDermott because in a passing league, he knows that’s what you need to focus on, especially against a team like Miami with Hill and the rest of its weapons. Sure, at times that has resulted in opposing defenses gashing the Bills’ run defense, but over the long haul, McDermott’s coverage concepts have been the key to Buffalo’s overall defensive success.

Case in point was last week against the Seahawks who came into the game with the No. 1 passing offense in the league, only to be throttled as Geno Smith managed just 212 aerial yards, much of that in garbage time.

Despite moving on from safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde, and cornerback Tre’Davious White, plus not having excellent coverage linebacker Terrel Bernard for nearly four full games this season, the Bills continue to make life miserable for opposing passers as they rank fifth in yards allowed per attempt (6.0).

In six of the eight games, they have allowed 212 net passing yards or less; the only two quarterbacks who found some success were Houston’s CJ Stroud with 331 yards in a 23-20 Texans victory, and Aaron Rodgers who had 294 for the Jets yet still lost 23-20.

The key is always discipline for the Bills because they are primarily a zone team, and players have to make sure they are taking care of their coverage areas while not trying to do too much, and then wrapping up when the ball is caught. That takes skill and trust in your teammates to know that they’ll be where they’re supposed to be.

Can the Dolphins finally get something to work against the Bills? Maybe, but it won’t come easy because unlike the first meeting, which Tagovailoa did not finish, the Bills were without injured star nickel cornerback Taron Johnson, while safeties Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin were playing just their second game side-by-side as starters.

“All of it's a challenge,” defensive coordinator Bobby Babich said of Miami’s attack. “Everything about them is a challenge. Mike (McDaniel) does a great job, but we've seen them quite a few times. So, every time we prepare for him, we know what it's going to be. We know the challenge it's going to be. We just have to make sure we're executing our plan going in.”

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

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills vs Dolphins: Tua Tagovailoa's rough history, Buffalo's balance