It was a wild, hard-fought opener
For the first 27 minutes of Sunday’s game, the Buffalo Bills looked like they wanted a game reset against the Arizona Cardinals. Trailing 17-3 in the home opener wasn’t exactly what head coach Sean McDermott would have wanted, and it appeared that his defense had no answers for the Cardinals offense.
Then, quarterback Josh Allen and the Buffalo offense went to work. In an 18-minute span, the Bills turned that 17-3 deficit into a 24-17 lead, as the Bills rattled off 21 unanswered points thanks to a strong rushing attack combined with typical Josh Allen theatrics.
It wasn’t easy—what Buffalo game ever is?—as the Cardinals had the ball with a chance to win with just under two minutes remaining. However, the defense held, and Ja’Marcus Ingram broke up what looked like could have been a Hail Murray Redux to preserve Buffalo’s 34-28 victory.
While it wasn’t all good, I’m a pretty positive person in general, so today’s recap is a happy one. Feel free to bring me back down to Earth in the comments if you’d like, but here are a few bullet-points from today’s victory.
Coleman Makes His Mark
Buffalo’s top wideout was drafted for his ability to win contested catches, and he showed that ability in a huge moment today. With right around nine minutes left in the fourth quarter, Josh Allen lofted a beautiful ball to Coleman up the right sideline. The rookie fought through tight coverage from quarterback Starling Thomas, where Thomas had Coleman held tightly, to haul in a great sideline catch. A few plays later, Allen scored to give the Bills an 11-point advantage. Coleman finished his day with four catches for 51 yards.
Josh Allen is Superman
Buffalo’s quarterback is an absolute animal. There’s no other way to explain him. Allen was locked in from the start, hurling accurate passes through a cutting wind and running with no regard for his body. Trailing 17-3 with three minutes left in the first half, Allen went to work. He engineered a scoring drive punctuated by a rushing touchdown with under 20 seconds left to cut the lead to 17-10. Then, to open the second half, he threw a strike to wide receiver Mack Hollins for his first passing touchdown of the season to tie it up. Buffalo scored again on their next drive, with Allen hitting Khalil Shakir to make it 24-17. Allen punctuated his day by hurdling a Cardinals defender into the end zone to give the Bills a 31-20 lead. Allen hurt his left hand on the play, but he was able to continue. He finished 18-of-23 passing for 223 yards, two passing touchdowns, nine carries for 39 rushing yards and two more touchdowns, and a lost fumble in the first quarter.
Greg Rousseau Steps Up
Groot made a few huge plays in this one, collecting three sacks against Kyler Murray. He was able to strip Murray of the football in the third quarter, giving the Bills excellent field position to set up their go-ahead score. Rousseau had six tackles to go along wth those three sacks in what was a dominating performance.
Von Miller!
Hey, credit for the veteran—after an absolutely abysmal season in 2023, it was nice to see him break the schneid, as Chris Berman would say, and log a sack in his first 2024 contest. Miller played quite a bit this week, and he was around the pocket and around the quarterback quite often.
Tyler Bass Looks Good
After a whole lot of worrying, Bass came out in blustery conditions and nailed every kick he took today. Bass hit two field goals, with his longest coming from 39 yards out, and four extra points. Granted, his final two kickoffs weren’t good, as he came up short of the end zone twice in the fourth quarter and gave the Cardinals good situations each time. First, DeeJay Dallas returned a Bass kickoff 96 yards for a score, and after a successful two-point try, the Cardinals were within three points at 31-28. Second, Bass came up short of the end zone again on his final kickoff, and the ball bounced out of bounds to give Arizona the ball at the 40-yard line.
Injuries a Story Heading into Thursday Night
Buffalo may not have suffered a slew of injuries today, but there were two rather noteworthy names to leave today’s contest with injuries.
We touched on Allen’s hand injury, which was heavily taped and seemed to cause some discomfort for the star QB for Buffalo’s final possession. While he didn’t come out of the game, this is going to be something to monitor heading into a short week.
Nickel corner Taron Johnson was injured on the game’s first possession, as well. The team called it a forearm injury, and he did not return to play. UB product Cam Lewis stepped in and stepped up in Johnson’s place, logging ten tackles in a fantastic performance.