We can all retell #becauseitsbuffalo games with the Bills. I’m not going to bore you with the laundry list, but if there’s been one good thing about those games, its that I never saw them in person. Last night’s game almost became the 1st one for me. I ventured to MetLife stadium and sat in the upper deck and what seemed to be an eternity in the 3rd and 4th quarter, I felt I was going to see that #becauseitsbuffalo moment. Leodis McKelvin’s fumble against New England was going to be replaced by Colton Schmidt’s botched punt attempt.
Its always more crushing to watch this in person than on TV because you are right there in the heat of the moment and Jets fans going crazy didn’t help that moment. Jets fans were loud as hell and I know I was in Jet hell while sitting there after the botched punt snap. Somehow, someway, the Bills won. Phew. Please don’t ever do that to me again in person.
So, getting away from it being about me, I think you can crystallize this game as being the Jets were worse than the Bills. Yeah, it may not be a super positive take and I’ll get to some pros momentarily, but that was some bad football by both teams. Both teams made mistakes, but the Jets were much worse. Still, you take it. The Bills need wins and with the AFC not being that good, the wild card is right there for the taking for the Bills.
—The Bills have the best 1-2 punch in the NFL at running back. The duo had 203 yards in total offense while the rest of the team had just 77 yards. Shady was dynamite as there were so many runs that he seemed to be buried in, but somehow he made guys miss. According to PFF, McCoy forced 6 miss tackles. That’s a hell of a missed tackle stat for a game. McCoy’s YPC prior to the Miami game last week was 3.9 and now it has risen to 4.7. While Karlos Williams didn’t have a big day rushing, he’s proving to be a nice asset in the passing game.
Feel free to pull the Flutie/Johnson debate with these guys, but I thinks that’s a lot of ballyhoo if you go down that path. The best thing about the duo is that they need each other. I don’t know if its an accident that Williams’ worse game came when McCoy wasn’t playing (2.2YPC against the Giants) and McCoy had 158 yards combined rushing against the Jags/Bengals when Williams was out. Its your classic thunder/lightning approach where both are getting stronger when the change of pace occurs. Right now, the Bills running game resembles a storm that is pouring acid rain all over defenses.
—The 159 yards in total offense by McCoy was the most by a Bills running back since CJ Spiller in 2012.
—McCoy had 16 carries out of shotgun and gained 97 yards on them. Keep doing that. Shotgun is McCoy’s best friend as it keeps defenses guessing as the whether they will run/pass and gives him more space to make guys miss.
—Loved the secondary tonight. When you can keep the opposition’s QB to less than 50% completion, you are doing your job. Between Darby/Gilmore, the duo was targeted 14 times and gave up just 5 catches for 43yards and 3 PDs. I wrote this week in the preview section that Darby/Gilmore vs. Decker/Marshall was going to be a key matchup and the Bills won that outright. Marshall is a freak and holding him to just 3 catches on 10 targets is an accomplishment.
As for Rambo, the dude kind of sucks for most of the time, but like he did against Green Bay last year, he came up HUGE in the turnover game. 3 forced turnovers by him is what ultimately won the game for the Bills.
—Overall, I thought this was the best performance by the Bills defense this year. You hold the Jets to just 318 yards in total offense and you do it without Mario Williams, is quite an accomplishment.
—Jerry Hughes had 6 QB pressures last night and now has 11 QB hurries over his last 2 games.
—The Bills have held 4 teams this year to under 211 yards passing.
—In their last 2 games in NY, the Bills have forced 10 turnovers.
—I swear, watching the Fitz/Gailey last night was liking take a trip in a time machine to 2012. The Jets were running the ball all over the Bills and yet, Gailey kept calling passing plays when Fitz obviously was struggling. Chris Ivory may as well have been CJ Spiller in 2012 with averaging 5.5 yards a carry on just 18 carries, but Chan just wanted to get Fitzpatrick into the hall of fame with his arm. Some things never change. Also, what the hell were the Jets thinking with going for it when a FG would get them within 2 points? They had all 3 timeouts and the Bills offense was a wreck at that point. Also, you call a fade to the backup FB? WHAT?! Once they missed that, the defense for the Jets seemed to just lose the wind out of their sails with giving up 2 straight first downs.
#Bills @CutonDime25 has 4th career streak of 100+ yd rush gms; 1st 100-yd. rushing streak by Bill since C.J. Spiller (games 14-15, ’12) #NFL
— Mike Haim (@mikehaim) November 13, 2015
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Karlos Williams: 26-yd rec gives him TD in his 1st 6 games, ties NFL record (Robert Edwards, N.E., 6 games in 1998) #Bills lead #NYJets 19-3 — Mike Haim (@mikehaim) November 13, 2015
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—Now for the bad, I hated the offense in the 2nd half. After the Bills got up 22-3, their next 4 drives looked like this: 3 plays/8 yards, 3 plays/8yards, 3 plays/9yards, and 4 plays/-8 yards. The Bills had just 3 1st downs after scoring a TD on the opening drive of the 2nd half. The Bills need to do a much better job in holding onto leads because they were just trying to give this game away.
—The Bills kept calling rollouts for Tyrod Taylor and the Jets did their homework and just buried those plays. Tyrod either would get killed or he’d throw the ball out of bounds. If you are going to do the rollouts, I’d prefer it on a playaction form to slow the defense down and not just have Tyrod rolling out. As for his overall game, it wasn’t his best game obviously, but he didn’t make mistakes and he let the running game do the talking for them. This is exactly what we wanted out of the offense before the season started.
—How the hell did we win that game?
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/232861982″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”181″ iframe=”true” /]—Good for Rex to give shit to Vic Carucci about his POV on giving the players off during the bye week. Vic was probably pissed cause he wouldn’t be able to get player quotes for a week. Even if the Bills were 0-2 out of the bye, giving them a week off wouldn’t have made a fricken difference.
As for Rex vs. the Jets, obviously this game meant EVERYTHING to him since he threw down 6 F-Bombs after Rambo picked off Fitz. I guess I can say I’m happy for him, but really, I’d take a win against anyone at this point.
Final word: The Bills are 5-4 and the only way they beat the Pats is if the #Billsmafia kidnaps Tom Brady. The have a tough road ahead of them with the Chiefs and could very easily be 5-6 heading back to RWS against the Texans. Still, the Chiefs game is winnable and if there’s anything you can enjoy about these Bills wins, its that they are doing it differently every week. One week, the offense is running on all cylinders…the next week, the defense is saving their asses…the week after that…its the Tyrod or Sammy show. The Bills have a nice balanced team when they are healthy and a new hero seems to emerge after their wins.
Anyways, enjoy the weekend Bills fans #becauseitsbuffalo!!!
Some stats from PFF/ESPN
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