It may not have been as dominant or one-sided as everybody expected it to be, but the Buffalo Bills still took care of business on Thursday night and improved to 3-0 with a 31-21 win over the Miami Dolphins. While the Bills remain undefeated, the Dolphins remain winless in what has turned into a nightmare start to the season where nothing has gone right.
Miami’s mistakes way too much to overcome
It’s not so much the fact that the Dolphins lost — again — to open the season. It’s the way they looked in losing that is the problem. They could not consistently get stops on defense, they could not consistently move the ball on offense and the number of dumb, unforced mistakes that they made were not only too much to overcome, they were the sign of a poorly coached, poorly disciplined team.
The most game-changing mistake of the game came in the fourth quarter after it appeared that the Dolphins had forced a three-and-out with a chance to get the ball back in a tie game. Miami seemed to have momentum and was going to be in a position to potentially take the lead.
Except a roughing the punter penalty on one of Miami’s best defensive players, Zach Sieler, extended the drive and set the stage for Buffalo’s game-winning touchdown.
On the ensuing drive, with Miami looking to re-tie the game, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa threw yet another crippling interception in the red zone that all but locked up the win for Buffalo.
The need for change in Miami is obvious
Head coach Mike McDaniel’s seat was already hot coming into this game, and it’s hard to imagine anything that happened here changing that. Aside from the crushing, game-changing mistakes, Miami demonstrated all of the same problems that have existed both in the early part of this season and past seasons. Specifically on defense.
Miami came into Thursday’s game having recorded just one stop on defense that was not a kneeldown at the end of a half or game. While Miami did make a few more stops on Thursday, it was still the third consecutive game where an opponent put more than 30 points on the scoreboard. It is the fourth consecutive game going back to the end of the 2024 season.
McDaniel’s entire Miami tenure has been defined by mediocrity. Now that mediocrity is turning into just plain bad football.
Buffalo wasn’t at its best, but it was still good enough
This was not the most dominant showing of the year for the Bills. Putting 30 points on the board is always a positive, but they allowed Miami to hang around a lot longer than anybody expected and the outcome of this game was in doubt right up until the final few minutes.
But that’s a testament to how good this Bills team is that it can put less than its best effort on the field and still score 31 points and win by double digits. Josh Allen didn’t throw much downfield, but still tossed three touchdown passes, while James Cook rushed for 100 yards on only 19 carries.
Nobody threw the ball downfield
One other random thing that stood out in this game is neither offense seemed interested in throwing the ball downfield.