Bills report card: Josh Allen’s receivers can’t get open, run defense battered by Dolphins

Wednesday afternoon when Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane conducted separate press conferences at One Bills Drive, both men were asked about the disappointment of not being able to pull off a trade deadline deal to add much-needed pieces to the roster.

And while they both said it was unfortunate, especially given all the injuries they are dealing with, they also said they had all the faith in the world that this iteration of their Buffalo Bills, as currently constructed, was good enough to win that elusive Super Bowl championship.

In the wake of Sunday’s 30-13 flogging at the hands of the Miami Dolphins, it’s pretty tough to think of the Bills as a true Super Bowl contender.

Yes, every team in the NFL is going to have a terrible day, there’s really no way around it with all the talent spread around the league. As they always say in the NFL, “On any given Sunday.”

However, the Bills now have two clunkers on their resume because in retrospect, their Week 6 loss at Atlanta looks horrible given how poorly the now 3-6 Falcons have played since then, and then you add this abomination of a performance on top of that one.

“Credit to the Dolphins,” McDermott said. “We didn’t play well enough today and didn’t play a complementary game. We came out, started slow, and we had four or five three-and-outs there in the first half. Picked it up a little bit in the second half, but turned the ball over. Defensively I thought we did some good things, but then we gave up two big runs towards the end there. A lot to work on, a lot to improve. So we learn from it.”

Here’s how I graded the Bills:

PASS OFFENSE: D

It’s not too often that Josh Allen piles up garbage time passing yards, but that was the case in this one. Ignore the fact that his stat line looked pretty good – 28 of 40 for 306 yards and two TDs – because none of it meant anything. What mattered much more was the interception he threw in the end zone in the third quarter that cost the Bills points, and then the fumble he lost in the fourth quarter which probably cost the Bills additional points.

This was not all on Allen, though. Once again, before the game got out of hand and the Dolphins played loose prevent coverage in the fourth quarter, the Bills had zero points through three quarters because the same issues were once again prevalent – their wide receivers aren’t doing enough. Keon Coleman, congrats, you finally made a play as he caught a 35-yard TD. Khalil Shakir had seven catches, but again, a low volume of impact totaling just 58 yards.

Add it up and Coleman, Shakir, Elijah Moore, Curtis Samuel and Tyrell Shavers caught 14 passes for 158 yards. Sorry, that’s not enough from five players combined, with much of that coming when the game was already decided. Oh, and now for the worst news, TE Dalton Kincaid suffered a hamstring injury so that’s probably going to cost him some time.

RUN OFFENSE: D

The last thing anyone would have expected – well, outside of the Bills getting boat-raced by Miami – was that James Cook would be a non-factor against one of the worst run defenses in the NFL. But that’s what happened. Cook never got on track, and just when it seemed like he might, he lost his first fumble of the season which took points off the board in the second quarter. And then playing from behind rendered him irrelevant in the second half and he finished with just 53 yards. One good development is he caught five passes, but they went for just 24 yards.

Allen was forced to scramble a few times and made some nice runs, but on one designed run he converted a third down midway through the fourth quarter when the score was 16-6, and then he lost the ball for a killer fumble that effectively killed any chance the Bills had of rallying. Ray Davis and Ty Johnson’s contribution was three carries for zero yards. The Bills’ offensive line had it’s first truly rough day in the run game.

PASS DEFENSE: C

The Dolphins have what the Bills don’t – a stud No. 1 wideout and Jaylen Waddle played like it as he caught five passes for 84 yards including a 38-yard TD where he burned rookie CB Max Hairston who was pressed into starting duty because of the Christian Benford injury. Tua Tagovailoa also took advantage in the first quarter when Tre’Davious White left the field briefly and he found Malik Washington for a touchdown with practice squader Dane Jackson and aging Jordan Poyer in coverage.

Hairston got better as the game went along and he intercepted his second pass in two weeks, another arm punt type pass, this one by Tagovailoa on a third-down in the face of a corner blitz. Still, he caught the ball and at the time it was 16-6 so the Bills were still in it.

Tagovailoa threw for only 173 yards and he also tossed an interception to Cole Bishop on the third play of the game, but Miami really didn’t need much from its passing game because the Bills’ run defense was its typically porous self.

RUN DEFENSE: F

Because he plays for a bad team, RB De’Von Achane doesn’t draw much attention, but the truth is that he’s one of the best two-way RBs in the league and he killed the Bills all day. The coup de gras were his game-clinching 59- and 35-yard TD runs in the fourth quarter which turned the game into a rout.

Achane rushed for 174 yards, the second-highest total of his career, taking advantage of one of the biggest ongoing problems with the Buffalo defense – missed tackles. NextGenStats charted Achane as forcing 11 missed tackles on his 22 carries, an absurd number that explained a lot as to why he shredded Buffalo’s injury-ravaged defense.

Achane was all the Dolphins needed as Jaylen Wright did almost nothing, and Tagovailoa never even needed to scramble because there was no pass rush. The Bills’ defense gave up 197 yards, the fourth time they have yielded at least 180 on the ground this year.

SPECIAL TEAMS: C

Maiorana: This was an egregiously bad performance by the Bills

Sal Maiorana shares some post-game thoughts on the Bills’ brutal 30-13 loss to the Dolphins.

The Bills finally got a good kickoff return as Ray Davis ripped the second-half kickoff out to the 44, but Jackson Hawes was caught for holding and that cost the Bills 23 yards of field position. It was that kind of day for the Bills.

It was curious that Davis attempted the late-game onside kick, but I think the idea was there to have an extra man on the field for the recovery as opposed to 41-year-old Matt Prater. Clearly, Davis was trying to go straight ahead and recover it himself, but he didn’t execute it.

With the exception of Davis one good return, there was really nothing else as the return game remains unproductive because the Bills don’t have anyone explosive handling those duties.

As is often the case in losses like this, the punter was the best player. Mitch Wishnowsky averaged 51 net on four punts with two downed inside the 10.

COACHING: F

You don’t lose to the Dolphins by 17 points and not get dinged on the report card. The Bills were not ready to play this game, and they never found a way to get into it which is just as disappointing. They allowed the Dolphins to own them from start to finish.

The run defense is still awful, and a big reason is because of all the reserve players on the field, but another reason is the continued poor tackling that has plagued Bobby Babich’s unit.

Offensively, Joe Brady is drawing fire from all corners of the fan base and rightly so. But I often say, and I will again, it’s not all on the coaches. For some reason, fans are too quick to let the players off the hook and in this game, the offense was terrible and Brady was partly to blame, but so were the players. It was a lousy effort all day.

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 36 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 36 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.