Even though the Buffalo Bills walked away with a win on Sunday night, their performance against the Green Bay Packers was perhaps their least inspiring one of the season. They used a hot three-possession stretch to shoot out to a big league and then essentially just held on against a clearly inferior opponent. So while they still remain the top seed in the AFC, it wasn’t as emphatic a performance as we’ve come to expect from Buffalo.
While we take stock of the win and what the performance on the field means for the rest of the season, we’ll dive into another edition of Studs and Duds.
As a reminder, this column looks simply at the performance in the most recent week, identifying who stepped up and who struggled and what those performances might mean for the Buffalo Bills going forward. Some heroes will just have one-off great games while some struggles could signal major issues, so we’ll make sense of that together here.
Duds
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.
Run Defense
You knew we were going to start here. I mean, the Packers ran for 208 yards on 31 carries (6.7 yards per carry), so we were clearly going to start here.
I know some people have been saying that the Bills just allowed a lot of damage on the ground late in the game, with the game all but decided, but I don’t believe that’s the case. Aaron Jones ripped off massive chunks of yardage against this Buffalo run defense all game, finishing with 143 yards on 20 carries. AJ Dillon also got in on the fun with 54 yards on 10 carries.
The Packers seemed to have a lot of success stretching the Bills wide a bit and running just off tackle. Jones was able to plant his foot in the ground and cut upfield quickly, usually not even being met until about four or five yards downfield. Once he got a full head of steam going, he was tough to bring down, and Bills players seemed to be hanging off of him for most of the night.
Now, some of that is likely due to the scheme. It was clear from Von Miller’s quotes after the game that Buffalo was taken aback that the Packers basically refused to pass the ball. Buffalo had their safeties off the line of scrimmage often, playing the pass, which gave Jones and Dillon more room to run. However, this was still a failure on the part of the front seven to make more of an impact in the run game.
Yet, it was a one-game failure. The Bills had not allowed a running back to gain over 50 yards all season coming into Sunday night. While part of that is because teams need to pass to keep up with the offense, the other part is that the Bills’ defense has been good against the run this year. They just weren’t on Sunday night.
Josh Allen
Listen, Josh Allen is here based on the level of play we know he can bring. He wasn’t necessarily bad last night, but the second-half performance was really poor, and he would admit to that himself.
His red zone interception with the Bills up 27-10 was the old version of Josh Allen that scrambled around with a clear plan of what to do and then threw an ill-advised pass off of his back foot.
Jaire Alexander PICKS OFF Josh Allen in the end zone 🚨
That's 3 straight possessions that end with interceptions.pic.twitter.com/0etc1cnoEo
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) October 31, 2022
His other interception was similar, rolling out of the pocket and trying to make a big play instead of taking the ten yards or so that seemed to be available to him on the ground.
When you add that to finishing just 13-for-25 on the night, it’s a subpar game for the NFL’s leading MVP candidate. But Allen has proven that he learns from his mistakes and comes back better, so there’s no reason for Bills fans to think that any drop in his level of play is incoming.
Ken Dorsey’s Play-calling
Ken Dorsey did it again, getting the offense into the red zone and then calling some trick play that totally backfired.
On Buffalo’s second drive, they had a 2nd-and-9 from the Green Bay 16-yard line. After Devin Singletary had been ripping off chunks of yardage against the Packers’ run defense on the drive, Dorsey called a reverse to slot receiver Isaiah McKenzie. The play ended in McKenzie running back and forth behind the line of scrimmage, trying to find any hint of light before being tackled for a five-yard loss.
Had Josh Allen not gone nuclear on the next play with a 20-yard run down to the 1-yard line, Dorsey’s play call could have cost the Bills a chance at a touchdown. Again.
However, that wasn’t it for Dorsey. He also kept the Bills dropping back to pass with a 17-point lead in the middle of the fourth quarter. That alone isn’t overly egregious, but Singletary had rushed for over five yards per carry against the Packers, so it didn’t make sense that Buffalo would come out and call a pass play on six of seven plays on their first drive of the fourth quarter
Lastly, Dorsey seemed to scheme up relatively little usage for his slot receivers in a game in which they had a massive advantage. The Packers’ boundary corners, led by Jaire Alexander, are solid, but opponents had been taking advantage of the slot matchups for much of the year. But McKenzie and Khalil Shakir combined for three targets, one catch, and eight yards on 45 total snaps. Perhaps Josh Allen simply chose to throw elsewhere, but it seems like a scheme and strategy misfire.
Studs
Now for the good news.
Greg Rousseau
We’ve seen plenty of clips of Buffalo’s second-year defensive end getting extra tutelage from veteran Von Miller at practice, so it’s no surprise to see him here as a stud. Rousseau may have only had one sack on the night, but he seemed to consistently be in Aaron Rodgers’ face. He received a 70.9 pass rush grade from Pro Football Focus and has an 83.6 pass rush grade on the season.
He has continued to get better from his strong rookie season and is learning, thanks to Miller, how to use his 6’6″ height and length to his advantage. His continued development is huge for the Bills, and there’s a chance he could become a real problem off of the edge in the future.
James Cook
Another young Bills player had a good game on Sunday. In fact, it was easily Cook’s best game of the season, and I know he scored a touchdown last game.
Cook was on the field for 15 snaps on Sunday, his second-most of the season, and carried the ball five times for 35 yards. He showed good speed and vision on his carries and earned a 71.5 rushing grade from PFF which was his second-best of the season. However, he also showed his ability to rip off big plays in the passing game, which is why the Bills drafted him, when he took his lone catch for 41 yards.
The rookie has come a long way since he fumbled his first career snap and has now clearly surpassed Zack Moss as the second running back on the team. If he continues to show this kind of decisiveness and big-play ability, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bills started scheming more ways to get him the ball.
Stefon Diggs
Stefon Diggs is a stud this week for two seasons. For starters, he finished with six catches for 108 yards and a touchdown. Josh Allen had a 156.3 passer rating when throwing his way on Sunday night. He’s tied for the NFL lead in touchdowns, is second in receiving yards, and third in receptions.
If that wasn’t enough, he also gets anointed as a stud because Packers’ cornerback Jaire Alexander admitted to calling Diggs a “little boy” before the start of the game and said Diggs couldn’t mess with him. Despite his performance on the field, Alexander would only admit that Diggs was a “decent” receiver, but it’s pretty clear that, as Diggs said after the game, he’s not sure who started the beef, but he finished it.
