Thad Brown: Miami tricks no match for McDermott way

This game was best summed by one play.

It’s 17-7, late second quarter. Dolphins face a 4th and 2 at the Buffalo 45. Miami goes with a quick snap to try and catch the Bills off guard. However, off guard is exactly where Ed Oliver barreled in to catch Tua Tagovailoa for a drive killing sack.

“He tried to jump up on me when I wasn’t really ready,” Oliver said. “I kinda saw Tua stepping up (in the pocket) while (the guard) was try to maul me out of there. I just caught the inside shoulder and threw him on by.”

The quick count was one of many wrinkles Mike McDaniel had in the game plan for Buffalo. A lot of them worked, especially in the running game. De’von Achane still had 96 yards rushing in a three touchdown loss without getting a carry in the fourth quarter.

It seemed like the Dolphins game plan for Buffalo was tricks and misdirection. It’s the nature of their head coach. It’s what he does best.

Sean McDermott’s teams have never needed any such deception. His teams are about authenticity. Each player being the “best version of yourself”. And the Bills kicked Miami’s tail doing exactly that.

No matter which players were on the field.

McDermott had to be wearing an ear to ear smile for the plane ride home Thursday night. This game was oozing with his various mantra’s. Guys doing their 1/11th. The next man up making plays. The Bills trusting the process.

His defense jettisoned an All-Pro corner, an All-Pro safety and a ten-sack edge rusher in the offseason. One of which was on the other sideline Thursday night. Another All-Pro safety left via de facto retirement. Then, their All-Pro linebacker gets hurt in preseason. Their All-Pro nickel corner gets hurt in week one. Their second best linebacker gets hurt in the first quarter.

And Buffalo still stoned one of the most dangerous offenses in the NFL.

Bobby Babich, of course, also deserves a healthy bouquet of flowers here. Even with Baylon Spector taking over for Terrel Bernard handling defensive signals in the first quarter, Babich still called circles around McDaniel for most of the night. Imagine how good Babich might be at this coordinating thing with more than one game of experience.

There’s probably nothing more perfect for McDermott about this Buffalo win than the star being a backup from a mid-major who made the team on a rookie try out. Ja’Marcus Ingram became the first UB player ever to make two interceptions in the same game. It’s a shake your head and laugh type of accomplishment that maybe we should have seen coming.

Ingram had a really good training camp that flew under the radar while the career resuscitation of first round pick Kaiir Elam was stealing headlines. The two interceptions were a bit fluky on their own, but it was no fluke that Ingram was on the field to make those plays. He had earned it.

“These guys work hard. Good things happen when you work hard,” McDermott said. “Sometimes the ball finds you like that.”

It doesn’t matter that Ingram bounced through two other college programs before landing at UB or that no NFL team wanted him during or after the draft or that he spent the last two years mostly on the practice squad. McDermott–and Babich–continue to operate maybe the NFL’s best incubator of defensive talent.

Look at the rest of the Bills defense on Thursday night. Damar Hamlin probably would have been a better bet to miss the 53-man cut than start week one. Taylor Rapp was a near minimum free agent signing. Dorian Williams is a second year player making his fourth career start. Christian Benford was a sixth round pick. Spector was a 7th round pick who will probably make his first career start next week.

Every single one of them had a better game than NFL superstar Tyreek Hill. Hamlin, Williams and Spector led the Bills with 10 tackles and each had one for a loss. They held Hill and Waddle to only 65 yards receiving combined. Heck, the still wet-behind-the-ears Bills defenders even scored more bleeping touchdowns than Miami’s dynamic receiver duo Thursday night.

The Bills got plenty of impact from their remaining healthy defensive stars. Oliver’s sack killed one Miami fourth down. Von Miller’s killed another. Of all the encouraging performances mentioned above, two sacks in two games for Miller might be the one that has the Bills the most giddy. Josh Allen said “Von Miller was Von Miller tonight”. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but Miller is, for sure, no longer the irrelevant Von Miller from last year.

Speaking of Allen, it was good to see the Bills also prove they could dominate a road division game without Allen needing to grab the Superman cape. He made a couple plays when needed. The throw to Ty Johnson on the run that set up Buffalo’s second TD was vintage Allen ridiculousness, but his night at the office only required 141 yards of offense.

More important, Allen spent the whole evening without much any contact. He had one real rush that ended with a slide (he’s listed with two carries because of a first half kneel down) and did not take a sack. A perfect game for a quarterback who clearly has a hand injury that needs some healing.

All you need to know about the Bills offense was that all of us in the photographers room Thursday night were frantically checking our fantasy teams at halftime, desperately hoping James Cook and his three touchdowns were not on the other side of this week’s game (I caught him in only one of my four leagues and that felt like a win).

The numbers for Cook weren’t gaudy. He had 78 yards rushing and only reception. As Allen pointed out, it helped that the Bills defense kept presenting the offense with short fields. Or even no field at all. This is still the second time in the last six regular season games that Cook shouldered the offense in a dominant win. All those defensive turnovers help, but the Bills proved another time that relying on the run game is a winning strategy they have in the bag.

This was two pretty good games in a row to start for Joe Brady. I loved the play call on fourth down to score the first touchdown on the opening drive. It was little lucky. Allen said afterward he had called that play incorrectly before burning Buffalo’s first time out. After the time out, Buffalo stuck with the same play and Miami switched to exactly the defense the Bills wanted for the play. At the very least, Brady proved he has the answers to what a defense can present.

There are so many new players in Buffalo, it’s going to take a while to know who this team is. It was an incredible win, but we are only five days into the season. Three of the next four are going to be against likely better competition than the perhaps more fraudulent than expected Dolphins team on the other sideline Thursday night. (Those questions about Miami legitimacy probably will never be answered after Tagovailoa left with the scary injury in the third quarter).

We still learned some things Thursday night. We learned that the defense is going to be formidable, so long as McDermott and Babich are calling the shots. We learned the offense doesn’t need Hero Ball Josh to be successful. We learned this Bills team might, once again, be pretty darn good.

It’s gonna be a good week and a half for BillsMafia. The Bills now have the longest possible break on the NFL calendar without a bye–11 days–and they get to sit on an absolute attention grabbing statement of a win. The Bills are going to either be alone in first place the next time they take the field or trailing the only team in the division no one takes seriously (New England).

The Bills didn’t need any tricks to put together this 2-0 start. They didn’t need all of the stars they parted ways with since last year. They only have to do exactly what McDermott has been telling us he wants from the first day he arrived in Buffalo: their 1/11th.

“If everyone does their job, then it makes things easy on everyone,” Oliver said. That win in Miami certainly looked pretty easy. Just like Oliver’s fourth down sack.

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