ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. - The Buffalo Bills won a game Sunday that was begging to slip away, and it took a huge fourth-quarter interception from C.J. Gardner-Johnson to keep the Chargers from seizing control.
Buffalo had already coughed up its fifth turnover of the afternoon when Josh Allen was sacked by Khalil Mack and the ball came loose before he hit the ground. Los Angeles was deep in Bills territory, and a touchdown there would have made it a two-score game.
Instead, Justin Herbert helped Buffalo escape. On a 3rd-and-5 snap from the Bills’ 23-yard line, Herbert tried to push the ball downfield near the end zone to Marques Valdez-Scantling. Gardner-Johnson read it, stepped in front of the throw and returned the interception 41 yards to flip the field and set Buffalo up near midfield.
It was exactly the kind of play Gardner-Johnson is known for. He has six interceptions in two different seasons, 2022 and 2024, and that 2024 total came during the Philadelphia Eagles’ run to the Super Bowl.
Herbert had already shown trouble on deep throws this season. On passes of 20 yards or more downfield, he came into the game 1-for-12 with three interceptions.
Buffalo had other chances to create takeaways, too. Maxwell Hairston missed an interception in the first quarter, and Gardner-Johnson also had a pick erased by a Christian Benford holding penalty.
The Bills, though, made life hard on themselves in plenty of other ways. Allen repeatedly put the ball in danger, Buffalo lost the turnover battle by four, and still walked away with a 24-16 win. According to ESPN, the last time the Bills won while losing the turnover battle by four or more was in 1997 against the Indianapolis Colts, whose starting quarterback was Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh.
Buffalo is 3-0 despite a sloppy, uneven start. The defense got the biggest stop when it mattered most, and the pass rush kept building on its early-season momentum.
Greg Rousseau recorded his fifth and sixth sacks of the season, becoming the only Bills player besides Bruce Smith - in 1992 and 1996 - to reach at least five sacks through the first three games of a season. Rousseau was all over the Chargers’ front, and his second sack came in the fourth quarter after Buffalo had taken its first lead. DeWayne Carter helped force the issue with pressure on a second-down rush, and Rousseau finished Herbert off.
Carter’s rise has been one of the quieter developments for Buffalo. He entered the summer as a roster bubble candidate, but he has kept earning more work and more trust.
Pro Football Focus gave him a 74.7 in-game grade against the Chargers, the best run-defense mark on the Bills. Rousseau, meanwhile, led Buffalo with five pressures.
James Cook also answered after an early mistake. His fumble on the opening drive fit an uncomfortable pattern for the reigning rushing champion, who now has eight fumbles in his last 18 games. He also put the ball on the ground in Houston in the opener, and head coach Joe Brady said Cook was “pissed off” on the flight back to Buffalo.
Cook made up for it in a big way. He ran for nearly 150 yards, finished with the game-winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter and averaged more than 6 yards per carry against a Chargers run defense that bottled up Raiders second-year back Ashton Jeanty last week.
The Bills’ offense was not clean anywhere else, either. Dalton Kincaid fumbled after a third-down catch while trying to squeeze out extra yards, and Allen threw two interceptions in addition to his lost fumble. Buffalo turned it over five times in all.
The offensive line had a rough afternoon as well. After two strong performances to start the season, the unit struggled against Los Angeles’ defensive front, allowing three sacks and putting Allen under pressure early and often. The line also drew multiple penalties.
Max Hairston had a chance to deliver his first big play of the season after Cook’s early fumble, but he couldn’t finish off an interception opportunity on an errant Herbert throw. The Chargers scored a few plays later.
Buffalo also lost Benford for part of the second half. He left with a toe injury and was later ruled out.
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Bills Escaped 3-0 But This Win Felt Like A Warning
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Los Angeles opened with enough energy to make Buffalo pay for its mistakes, but the Chargers could not turn those takeaways into a result and fell to 0-3. For the Bills, the bigger takeaway is not the record, which remains perfect, but how narrow the margin already felt in a game they could have lost if the giveaways had been met with any more urgency from the other side. [Read more 🡒]