Bills Report Card: Defense Earns top Honors Following Domination of Jets
The score was uncomfortably tight for three-plus quarters on Sunday. But in the end, the New York Jets had little to no chance for victory over the Buffalo Bills, thanks to a Bills' defense that limited them to 53 net yards on its way to a 27-10 victory.
The win turned out to be icing on the cake for the Bills, who would have won the AFC East anyway because second-place New England was eliminated from championship contention minutes earlier in a loss at Miami.
But it did help them secure the No. 3 seed in the playoffs, which they will open next Saturday night at home against the sixth-seeded Patriots.
With that, let's get to the grades:
Quarterback: B-
Just because Josh Allen wasn't very accurate in this contest doesn't mean he wasn't the most important and valuable player on the field for them once again. The wind at Highmark Stadium made throwing (and punting) extremely difficult.
Still, Allen stayed poised enough to finish off the win with his second touchdown pass of the day and 36th of the season. And he added 63 yards on the ground on just five carries.
Sure, he completed only 24 of 45 attempts for 239 yards, but he could have been a lot worse. He could have been Jets quarterback Zach Wilson.
As Steve Buscemi famously said in Fargo, "you should see the other guy."
Jets QB Zach Wilson had it much worse than Bills counterpart Josh Allen on Sunday.
Wilson was 7-for-20 for 87 yards while taking eight sacks.
Running back: A
A 40-yard burst by Devin Singletary set up a go-ahead touchdown on the game's first series and Bills never trailed.
He finished with 88 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries and 24 receiving yards in two catches to surpass 1,000 yards from scrimmage for the first time in his three-year career.
Tight end: B
Dawson Knox finished the game with three receptions on five targets for 49 yards. He finished the regular season with career highs in catches (49),
There was one timing pattern where he turned one way and Allen threw the other. Not sure who was to blame there.
Nevertheless, if his blocking catches up to his receiving, he could be an All-Pro one day. But it hasn't, and that was especially evident in this game.
Wide receiver: B
Where would the Bills be without Stefon Diggs?
Out of the playoffs, for sure.
Diggs once again proved his worth with nine catches for 81 yards, including Buffalo's first TD. He did drop another ball in the end zone but it would have been a spectacular catch.
On the other end of the spectrum, Allen targeted Gabriel Davis 14 times with only three completions. That doesn't all fall on Davis, though. Like we said earlier, throwing in Sunday's wind tunnel was, ahem, difficult.
Offensive line: B
The Bills finished the season by holding opponents without a sack for three weeks in a row.
The protection and the run-blocking were far from perfect, however.
But Allen may be the toughest quarterback in the league to drop these days because of his combination of size and scrambling ability. He's so much better at sniffing trouble now than he was even at the beginning of the season.
Nevertheless, the Bills performed well overall against an ascending defense that played hard all the way to the end.
Defensive line: A
What more can you say about a group that helped limit a strong rushing attack to 48 yards on 17 attempts. Included in those totals were 9 yards on nine carries for Michael Carter, who was averaging 4.5 yards per attempt coming in.
Then there were the impressive sack totals. Mario Addison led the way with 2.0, followed by Ed Oliver (1.5), Boogie Basham (1.0), A.J. Epenesa (1.0) and Jerry Hughes (0.5).
Rookie Greg Rousseau led the team with five solo tackles.
Linebacker: B+
Hard to find fault with anyone when an opponent gains just four first downs.
So even though the tackles totals of Matt Milano (three) and Tremaine Edmunds (five) were lower than usual, it's important to keep in mind that the Jets were able to run just 46 plays.
Milano added a sack and Edmunds a pass breakup.
Secondary: A-
Safety Jordan Poyer blamed himself for the Jets' lone touchdown when he whiffed on an interception attempt over the middle that landed in the hands of Jets receiver Keelan Cole, who sprinted the rest of the way to the end zone for a gain of 40 yards.
It was the lone burp for this traditionally fabulous group, which contributed heavily to the pass rushers being able to get home so many times.
Poyer even had 2.0 sacks.
Special teams: C-
Where to begin?
Before the game, rookie Marquez Stevenson was a healthy scratch, thanks to muffing a punt return that resulted in a safety the week before.
Isaiah McKenzie and Matt Breida were the deep men on the opening kickoff, and McKenzie appeared to have his punt-return job back -- until safety Micah Hyde replaced him later in the game.
Punter Matt Haack had all kinds of trouble going into the wind, shanking three attempts, though one was wiped out because of a penalty, and fumbling the snap on another, leading to a deflected kick.
Amazingly, he finished with a net average of 30.3 on seven attempts.
On the other hand, the punt and kick coverage units were outstanding, Cam Lewis blocked a punt and Tyler Bass was perfect on both field-goal attempts and all three extra points.
Coaching: C-
Not sure what Sean McDermott was thinking when he kept the offense on the field on a fourth-and-1 from the Buffalo 39 in an attempt to draw the Jets offside, then called a timeout just before the play clock expired and sent the punt team on.
If that was his intent all along, why not just take the 5-yard, delay-of-game penalty there and save the timeout?
That decision proved costly during the Bills' final drive of the first half, when they were out of timeouts and it affected their playcalling in the red zone, limiting them to pass attempts without the option of Allen taking off on any scrambles as time was winding down.
They wound up being forced to kick a field goal after three straight incompletions from the 13.
The defensive game plan worked to near-perfection, however.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
