Josh Allen didn’t exactly stroll into Thursday night at full strength.
Richard Sherman, speaking from Amazon’s Thursday Night Football set, said Allen was shivering in the team’s hot tub before the Buffalo Bills faced the Detroit Lions and needed an IV pregame. Then Allen went out and looked every bit like the player Buffalo has built its offense around, throwing and running his way to five touchdowns in a 41-31 win at the new Highmark Stadium.
It was the kind of performance that overpowered Detroit from the jump. Buffalo rolled up 446 total yards, converted 9 of 12 third downs and kept forcing the Lions to chase. James Cook added 135 rushing yards and scored the Bills’ other touchdown as Buffalo moved to 2-0.
The Bills set the tone early, and that started with Joe Brady’s approach. After spending the past two and a half seasons calling plays from the coaches’ box as coordinator, Brady is now seeing things from the sideline as head coach. He said he wanted his team to empty the tank on a short week after last Sunday’s road game against the Houston Texans.
“You watch how (Josh) plays, and it’s like, how does everyone else not feel like they need to empty it out,” Brady said. “Because he literally gave everything he had out there. He put the team on his back in a lot of those situations.”
Brady was still talking through Allen’s night when the quarterback walked into the interview room, prompting a grin and a pause.
“I mean, golly. Can I get a sec,” Brady said jokingly to Allen off to the side.
“I can’t talk about him now. ... Any time the ball’s in his hands, good things happen.
Love that guy.”
Buffalo’s offensive identity under Brady is showing up fast. Left tackle Dion Dawkins said on the “Speakeasy” podcast with Emmanuel Acho and LeSean McCoy after the game that the new coach has changed the energy and the mindset.
“We have a head coach that’s like, we want the ball first,” Dawkins said. “We just don’t pick plays that we have in the playbook. We look at personnels, and we’re like, all right, cool, whatever the defense wants to give us, we’re going to take it, and we’re going to remix it, and we’re gonna capitalize off what they’re giving us.”
That showed up immediately Thursday. Buffalo won the coin toss and chose to receive, breaking from the old Sean McDermott tendency to defer and start with the defense. The Bills turned that opening stretch into touchdowns on their first four possessions and were up 14-0 before the first quarter ended.
“I’m having the most fun playing football I’ve ever had playing ball,” Dawkins said. “It’s no thumb down to McDermott, but McDermott is a defensive coach. So we tip our caps to those guys, but now it’s in offensive hands.”
The Bills did take a hit when No. 1 wide receiver D.J. Moore left in the second quarter with a shoulder injury, but Keon Coleman filled in well enough to keep the offense moving. Coleman caught six passes for 63 yards and came through on several important third-down snaps.
Detroit kept pushing and got within 10 points early in the third quarter, but Allen answered with the kind of drive that never lets an opponent breathe. Buffalo went 15 plays for 75 yards in 8:22, and Allen finished it with a two-yard rushing touchdown.
“(I’m) Seeing it really well right now,” Allen said. “Still a couple times, maybe trying to do too much and put the ball in harm’s way.
So I gotta keep just again letting the game come to me. And our guys doing such a great job in man and zone, finding windows and catching the ball.
So just keep doing that.”
Through two games, Allen has five passing touchdowns and four rushing touchdowns. The source notes that only four such two-game stretches have ever happened in NFL history, and Allen has done it three times, along with Eric Hipple in 1981.
Asked how he managed such a big night while dealing with the flu, Allen kept it simple.
“My job is the coolest thing in the world,” Allen said. “Everything that I’ve ever wanted to be is the quarterback of an NFL franchise, and I’m just very fortunate that I ended up here in Buffalo and got to be the first quarterback to open this stadium, which is a special spot.”
In Other News...
Josh Allen Had Bills Fans Doing A Double Take On The Sideline
The Bills first regular-season game at their new Highmark Stadium already had the usual opening-day buzz, but Josh Allen added a moment that had fans doing a double take on the sideline. During the game against the Detroit Lions, the Buffalo quarterback was seen using smelling salts, a brief oddity in an afternoon that also carried the weight of a new era for the franchise.
Allen later gave reporters a peek at a pregame routine that is as unusual as it is specific, with vomiting, music and water all part of the mix. Coming in at 1-0 after the recent win over the Houston Texans, Buffalo had every reason to feel good about the start, even if its quarterback kept reminding everyone that his game-day preparation is still a little different from most. [Read more 🡒]
Josh Allen Played Through A Scare Before Buffalo's Biggest Win Yet
Josh Allen wasnt at full strength Sunday, but the Bills hardly looked like a team dealing with uncertainty at quarterback. Playing through an illness, Allen still powered Buffalo to a 41-31 win over the Lions and accounted for five touchdowns, while the offense came out humming with scores on its first four possessions. For a team trying to keep building momentum, it was the kind of complete early statement that can change the tone of a season.
Joe Brady praised Allens effort and the way Buffalo kept attacking, even as the game brought its own complications. Wide receiver D.J. Moore went down with a shoulder injury, yet the offense kept rolling and found answers in a high-scoring matchup that tested depth as much as execution. The bigger question now is whether the Bills can carry that level of pace and efficiency forward if Allen is managing anything more serious than a one-game scare. [Read more 🡒]
Bills Passing Game Takes A Hit With DJ Moore Suddenly Out
Buffalos passing game got a jolt it did not need late in the first half against Detroit, when DJ Moore went down with a shoulder injury while laying out for a diving catch. He was taken to the locker room for X-rays, and the Bills initially listed him as questionable before ruling him out after halftime.
For a team trying to keep its offense moving, losing a receiver in that spot changes the feel of the game immediately. It leaves Buffalo waiting on word about the shoulder, while also forcing the staff to adjust on the fly against a Lions defense that had already seen enough of Moore to know how much of a factor he can be when he is on the field. [Read more 🡒]