EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs said run it back.
The Buffalo Bills’ quarterback and No. 1 receiver would not be denied on an 80-yard touchdown drive in the second quarter Sunday against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium.
After the pair hooked up for a 57-yard completion to start the drive – which came after Diggs dusted Jets cornerback Brandin Echols with a double move to get open down the left sideline – they finished it off in style. An 11-yard run by Zack Moss on the next play set up the Bills with a first down at the Jets’ 12-yard line.
Allen threw a dangerous pass intended for Diggs that was almost intercepted, but on the play Echols was injured. That forced Jets reserve cornerback Javelin Guidry into the game, and he immediately had a target on his back.
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On second down, officials initially ruled Diggs came down with a touchdown catch, but a replay review showed he got just one foot in bounds.
No worries. The Bills went back to the same play on the next snap, and this time Diggs pulled in the 12-yard touchdown on a perfect pass from Allen, despite decent coverage from Guidry.
“I mean, we saw the matchup. We liked it,” Allen said. “Just a little communication to run the fade and give him a chance. That’s all I really need with him – just give him a chance, and he’s more than likely to come down with it. He had an amazing game today.”
Consider it a statement made. Diggs finished the first half with five catches for 88 yards and the touchdown. On the first play of the third quarter, Allen went right back to him for another 23-yard gain against Guidry, a second-year veteran who was undrafted out of Utah in 2020.
That’s what good offenses do – attack weak links with their best weapon. After Diggs got the opening drive of the second half started, the Bills capitalized with an 8-yard touchdown run by Isaiah McKenzie. Just like that, a 10-3 lead was extended to 24-3 and the Bills were on their way to a comfortable AFC East victory, their ninth consecutive win against division opponents.
The 45-17 victory and season-high 489 yards – even if it came against the league's worst defense – should silence some of the questions that cropped up about the Bills’ offense after an ugly showing in a Week 9 loss to Jacksonville.
“Just a really good week of practice,” Allen said. “Got some true veteran guys, true professionals that care about each other, care about their craft, and that’s just one thing that we’re not going to do as a team is ride this roller coaster of, ‘we’re the worst team to ever play, now we’re the best team to ever play.’ We’re going to stay consistent, steady and come into work each and every day and again try to put our best foot forward every Sunday, Monday or Thursday that we play. And as we continue to go forward, that’s all we can do.”
Getting Diggs involved to the level he was Sunday is a good sign in that regard. He finished with eight catches for 162 yards, the fifth-highest single-game total of his career and his highest in 25 regular-season games with the Bills. It was the most receiving yards in a game by a Bills receiver since Roberts Woods had 162 against Seattle in 2016.
“He’s an elite receiver for a reason,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said of Diggs.
The Bills, though, haven’t always forced the issue with Diggs. His 13 targets Sunday tied a season high, but it's a number he met or exceeded four times last year.
“It does make it easy to throw at a guy like that,” Allen said. “Works his tail off in practice, he does the right things. He’s a captain for a reason. We haven’t given him that much opportunity to be involved in our offense. I know throughout the year, he’s had a few games where he’s eclipsed 100 (yards), but the point of emphasis this week was ‘let’s get him the ball as early and often as possible.’
“He made some unbelievable plays today, some off-the-cuff plays – that one before the half, the long one … that was just something that he saw and he took off. Going back to last year, that’s just kind of how we were. We saw the same thing, he would make a play, and I’d just give him a chance for it. And the more opportunities that we give him to have here, we’re probably going to need, because he just continues to make play after play.”
2. The Bills were down another defensive tackle. After placing Justin Zimmer on injured reserve last week because of a knee injury, the Bills placed defensive tackle Star Lotulelei on the NFL's reserve/Covid-19 list just hours before kickoff.
It's his second stint on the reserve/Covid-19 list this year. He was on the list during training camp after being deemed a close contact of a member of the team's strength and conditioning staff who tested positive for Covid-19.
Lotulelei, who opted out of last season because of Covid-19 concerns, was not fully vaccinated in August, which led to him being placed on the reserve list for five days as a close contact. It's unknown if Lotulelei has since been vaccinated. If he has, Lotulelei would be eligible to return when he's free of symptoms and returns two negative tests at least 24 hours apart. If Lotulelei is not fully vaccinated, he's required to quarantine for 10 days, meaning he would also miss the Week 11 game against the Indianapolis Colts.
His return this season has given a substantial boost to the run defense, which ranked fourth in the NFL in both yards per game (85.6) and yards per play (3.83) allowed heading into Week 10.
With Lotulelei out and Zimmer on injured reserve, the Bills were down to just three defensive tackles in Ed Oliver, Harrison Phillips and Vernon Butler. In response, the team elevated defensive tackle Brandin Bryant from the practice squad. Bryant, 6-foot-3 and 294 pounds, has played in five NFL games in his career, including for the Bills last season against New England.
He'll have to wait for game No. 6, however, as he was on the list of inactive players against the Jets. Bryant was joined by cornerback Cam Lewis, who missed practice earlier in the week because of a non-Covid-19 illness, as well as offensive lineman Jamil Douglas and linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, who was previously ruled out because of a hamstring injury.
3. Gabe Davis showed up and showed out. The Bills’ second-year receiver had a quiet first half of the season, coming into the game with 10 catches for 133 yards. He nearly equaled that yardage total against the Jets, piling up 105 yards on just three catches – all of which came in the Bills' 21-point third quarter. Davis got open behind the Jets’ secondary for a 49-yard gain, then followed that with a juggling, 36-yard catch that came even after he was interfered with. He finished the quarter with a 20-yard catch on a play that started on the Bills’ 1-yard line.
Diggs and Davis became the first pair of Bills receivers to top 100 yards in the same game since Diggs and Cole Beasley did it against Denver on Dec. 20, 2020 – the game that clinched the AFC East for the Bills last year.
4. The offense took a big step forward in the red zone. One of the areas in which the Bills’ offense has struggled at times this season is when it makes it inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. Buffalo came into the game ranked tied for 20th in the NFL in red-zone touchdown percentage, at just 55.9. Early on, it looked as if it might continue to be an issue, as the team settled for a field goal in the first quarter. From there, however, the Bills punched it in for touchdowns on their next five trips, finishing the game 6 of 7 (86%).
“That's big,” McDermott said. “You've got to do that. I thought we struggled – I think we had another opportunity or two in the first quarter maybe to go up with a wider margin at that point – but red zone plays an important role every week and I was glad to see us do what we did this week.”
5. Ed Oliver continues to make a big impact – even without a sack. The Bills’ third-year defensive tackle is still looking for his first sack of the season. He very nearly got it in the second quarter, when officials initially ruled Oliver forced a fumble of Jets quarterback Mike White that was recovered by defensive end Mario Addison. After review, however, it was ruled that White’s arm was going forward and it was an incomplete pass.
“I don't know what's going on," Oliver said. “It seems like the harder I rush, the more they say, 'Nope, you can't have it. Nope, you can't have it.' I just keep rushing. Keep rushing as a unit and keep playing hard."
Oliver had a sack against Miami in Week 8 negated by an offsides call against Jerry Hughes.
Nonetheless, Oliver made a major impact in the middle of the defense. He finished with just one tackle, but he had three quarterback hits and a pass defensed. With Lotulelei out, the Bills needed Oliver to anchor the defense, and he did.
“I definitely feel like I'm playing at a high level,” he said. "I feel like the defense as a whole is playing at a high level, so if we can just continue that, we'll be all right.”
“Not only is he playing great gap-sound defense, he's also making big plays, whether that's hits on the quarterbacks, TFLs,” linebacker A.J. Klein said of Oliver. “We ask those D-linemen to do a lot. Obviously our defense, it runs off of those guys, so when Ed can go out there and have a day like he did today and in the past weeks, our entire defense feeds off of it and it shows up in the back seven.”
6. Davis Webb made his NFL debut. With the Bills comfortably ahead in the fourth quarter, Webb replaced Allen with 2:08 remaining. A 2017 third-round draft choice of the New York Giants, Webb has spent time on the active roster with the Giants, Jets and Bills, but had yet to take an NFL snap. His first pass attempt will have to wait, though, as he handed off to run out the clock. Webb finished the game with minus-3 rushing yards on two carries – the kneel downs to end the game.
7. Tyler Bass is making another run at a team record. With his 29-yard field goal in the first quarter, Bass has now made 16 consecutive field goals. That’s the fifth-longest made field goal streak in team history, and it's just two away from tying the team record of 18 set by Rian Lindell in 2007. Bass had a streak of 17 straight makes that ended earlier this year with his only miss of the season thus far, from 53 yards away against Miami in Week 2.
8. Isaiah McKenzie was hurt late. The danger in blowout games is a key contributor getting hurt. That happened for the Bills with 6:31 remaining when wide receiver Isaiah McKenzie stayed down after a 9-yard rush around right end took the ball to the Jets’ 2-yard line. McKenzie eventually walked off the field under his own power, but appeared to be in some discomfort as athletic trainers attended to him on the sideline.
McKenzie, though, was able to return to the game, and McDermott said afterward that the receiver was good to go. There were no other reported injuries for the Bills during the game.
9. The Bills avoided a losing streak. Buffalo is now 9-2 after a regular-season loss in the last three seasons. The only two-game losing streak in the last two years came against Tennessee and Kansas City in Weeks 5 and 6 of the 2020 season. The other one, at the end of the 2019 season, has an asterisk attached to it, because the second loss came to the Jets in a meaningless season finale. That winning percentage of .818 after losses is second best in the league over that span behind Green Bay's 8-0 mark.
10. Old friend Shaq Lawson made a play for the Jets. The former first-round draft pick, who is on his third team since leaving the Bills as a free agent in the 2020 offseason, finished with three tackles and a half sack.
