Bills: Hello Darkness My Old Friend

The Thursday Night was interesting the first half with a 6-3 Bills lead with both offenses having success until reaching the redzone. However the 2nd half was the opposite as the Dolphins flat out dominated and outscoring the Bills 19-3 and winning 22-9 and taking one more step for a playoff berth.

The Dolphins

The Dolphins offense started the game firing on all cylinders and ended the game firing on all cylinders. Ryan Tannehill had a great game going 26/34 for 240 yards and 2 TDs. He was quickly moving through his reads and finding the open guy the majority of the time. It seemed like the Lazor offense is starting to finally figure everything out in the 2nd half as the Bills struggled to stop the Dolphins from moving down the field. The offensive line had a solid game as for the most part they neutralized an effective pass rush and only having Tannehill getting sacked 5 times, and even with Albert out, the line did not collapse, which is encouraging.

Now on to the defense. Week 2 the Dolphins had no answer for The Legend of Sammy who went off for 117 yards and a TD despite playing with injured ribs. This game, the Dolphins found a way to shut down the Bills passing offense, taking away the deep stuff and forcing Orton to go dink and dunk his way for a score. The first half they had trouble stopping the pass game, particularly Chris Hogan but they made those pesky second half adjustments.  The 2nd half the Fins pass rush started to do it’s job, while not sacking Orton directly, they rushed his throws and made him very uncomfortable and shut down the Bills offense for good. Overall the Fins defense played lights out and with a good offense, dominated a good Bills team.

That team from Buffalo

The Bills defense had a bend but not break approach and through the first half and most of the 3rd quarter it was working. While the Fins were moving down the field, the Bills were able to get either a crucial sack or hurry or force a turnover, keeping the Bills in the game. They were able to get 5 total sacks but there were a few times where they forced Tannehill to scramble and leave the pocket and either throw it out of bounds or force it into tight coverage.  But when they started to stay on the field too long due to a pathetic Bills offense, they started getting tired and the Dolphins pounced, scoring a TD to make it 10-9 which really was the turning point of the game and the Bills defense could not recover.

The 1st quarter the Bills offense was playing well. In their lone drive the offense was able to move down the field with ease, Kyle Orton was hitting a lot of underneath routes and checkdowns and the Bills were able to reach the red zone where yet again they got stopped and had to settle for a FG. That was the story of the 1st half as the Bills offense was able to move down the field, but once in the redzone either Orton makes a horrible throw or the oline forgets to block. The 2nd half is when things hit rock bottom. The offensive line started to get owned by the Fins pass rush and even though they weren’t getting sacks, they were harassing Orton and forcing him to make some really horrible throws. Speaking of Orton, that is 2 straight bad games for Orton and he is playing closer to his career norms now that teams are figuring him out again. It wasn’t all Orton’s fault in this game, the oline wasn’t able to run block and the Fins were just waiting for Orton to sling it, but he made some truly awful throws that for some miracle the Fin players dropped.

Overall this was a statement game that the Dolphins made on National Television. They showed that they aren’t a joke and should be taken seriously. The Bills showed why they haven’t made the playoffs in this century and why they probably will finish 6-10 again. But hey, at least they will have a high 1st round pick this year, oh wait…..