By Alex “MereKat” LeMere
Josh Allen and the Bills outduel Russell Wilson and the Seahawks to earnt their 7th win in 9 games.
Two early season MVP candidates at QB. Two teams atop their divisions with eyes on the conference titles. Two defenses who have both been underperforming this season…it’s the Bills vs. Seahawks folks, and this one was shaping up to be a doozy (it was).
It was a beautiful day for football in Orchard Park where Russell Wilson and the 6-1 Seattle Seahawks comes to town to take on our 6-2 Buffalo Bills. A lot of storylines and key matchups to be had here , especially at quarterback. Josh Allen and Russell Wilson were considered by many to be the two favorites for NFL MVP after leading their teams to 4-0 starts behind some crazy numbers. With both defenses in this matchup struggling this year more than me on a Sunday morning prepping for a game after a night on Elmwood. A prime chance for both of these quarterbacks to take advantage and put up some real points today. Who doesn’t love points? Couldn’t be me.
You’ll have to read through the recap and my takeaways at the end for my full thoughts on this game…but it was such a nice win that featured consistent action and was just an absolute pleasure to watch. Up against an opponent that has earned it’s respect, the Bills delivered a meaningful win that showcased Josh Allen’s ability to go toe-to-toe with anyone in the NFL. If this win doesn’t have you excited for this team, I don’t know what will.
The lines right before kickoff down at The Creek had the Seahawks as three point favorites (-117) with their money line sitting at a heavy -180. Vegas and the public love Seattle today.
Personally, I thought the Bills had a good chance to win but didn’t want to gamble with my heart (that never goes well for me) and avoided any winner action…but I couldn’t resist the over. With an over of 55 points (-110) with the potential for a shootout in this one…I wish I had taken the Bills but the over was #FreeMoney here folks!
Here we go into the action:
The Bills receive the opening kickoff….AND THERE GOES ANDRE ROBERTS AGAIN! The Buffalo kickoff specialist takes the opening kickoff 60 yards to the Seattle 45 for a MASSIVE return to get things rolling for Buffalo. Building off of the huge return, Allen made his mark early on. Going 3-of-3 passing Allen hits Singletary for six, Diggs for 14 and then a gorgeous throw to Isaiah McKenzie for a 25-yard touchdown just 1:25 into the game. An incredible opening drive for Buffalo that takes advantage of generous field position and scores in just three plays with Allen’s arm. The statement we needed and Buffalo leads 7-0 early on.
Russell Wilson and his offense takes the field for the first time down seven less than two minutes into the game. Dean Marlowe builds off his strong play last game and jumps Wilson’s first pass, swatting it down. After an early timeout by Buffalo on third-and-5, Tre White makes a great play on pass intended for Moore to force a quick punt. Roberts stays hot and gets a nice little return on the punt to set Buffalo up at their own 28-yard line.
Allen opens things up with a short pass to Gabriel (not Gabe) Davis who scoops it and gets up for 15 yards. A fully recovered John Brown gets his first catch for 13 yards on second-and-15 and Allen converts on third down to Beasley for 9 yards and the first down. Allen was spreading the ball around early and that’s when he had his most success. After eight passes to kick things off, Zack Moss gets the first carry of the game to convert a second-and-2 before Singletary takes a short dump from a pressured Allen for 22 yards to the Seahawks’ 5-yard line. A Buffalo holding penalty takes us back 10 yards though to the 15-yard line…penalties in the red zone continue to hurt us but we get one in our favor as Allen gets taken by with a horse collar to give us a short first and goal. Allen takes the ball and rolls right, shifts his focus and drills Tyler Kroft for the touchdown. Allen does a great job of extending the play and moving the read from his first target. Buffalo takes a strong 14-0 lead just under 8 minutes into the contest. #BillsMafia is fired up folks.
Seattle starts off quick, needing to get their offense to stay on the field, going 61 yards on their first six plays on the ground and in the air. When DeeJay Dallas is taking your defense for big chunks, you start to worry. Seattle, facing a third-and-1, after a couple short completions get stuffed on their run forcing a fourth-and-1 at Buffalo’s 5-yard line. After a timeout, Pete Carroll elects to go for it on fourth down. Russell Wilson drops backs for the pass and fires to the right corner of the end zone but Jordan Poyer jumps the pass and makes the crucial interception in the end zone! Turnovers have been few and far between for Buffalo’s defense this year and a beautifully defended play forces one here.
Allen continues to slice through the Seattle secondary like a hot knife through butter hitting John Brown for 18 yards to start the drive and then Diggs for 9 yards. Getting a play off before the end of the first quarter, Allen scrambles and delivers a perfect sideline pass to Zack Moss to the Seattle 36-yard line for 10 yards. Allen finishes the quarter 13-15 for 154 yards and 2 TDS in the air. Buffalo gets into the red zone after Gabriel (not Gabe) Davis gets open for 12 yards and his second catch. Allen gets sacked twice next set of downs, including on third-and-12, to force Tyler Bass and the field goal team to come out. Bass Man drills it home from 44 yards on his first attempt of the day to extend the Bills’ lead over the Seahawks 17-0.
Buffalo’s special teams continue shine after a BOOM from Darryl Johnson to pin Seattle at their own 15 yard line. After a few short rushes, Seattle found themselves facing a third-and-3, but penalties come to screw the Bills again and a pass interference gives them 25 yards and a fresh set of downs. Wilson makes his first big play of the day as he drops a dime into DK Metcalf, who flat out beat Tre White, to the Buffalo 9-yard line for 41 yards. Lockett takes his second catch to the Buffalo 1-yard line but DeeJay Dallas is stuffed at the goal line and Seattle had yet another short fourth and goal to overcome. A huge push by the Seattle offensive line gives Wilson his first rushing score of the season on a QB sneak. Seattle lessens their deficit and now trail 17-7. A huge penalty and a big completion make this one easier than it needed to be for Seattle.
6:40 left on the clock for the first half there was plenty of time for Buffalo to draw this drive out and head into half up another score…but not at the cost of limiting our offense. Allen hits Brown again for 18 yards for the first play of the drive but Darryl Williams leaves the field hurt. The third lineman to be out for Buffalo now following Morse’s inactive status and Ford’s earlier injury. Allen follow things up with a short pass to Diggs who takes it for 21 yards and then the next play does the same thing taking it for another 21 yards. Some swagger and great route running on full display from the Bills’ superstar receiver. After another completion to Brown, Allen executes a picture perfect play, hitting Gabriel (not Gabe) for the open 4-yard touchdown. Allen’s third TD of the half puts Buffalo up a COMMANDING 24-7 in the second quarter. Another great drive, with some smart play calls, has Josh Allen hotter than a Jalapeno’s armpit.
Buffalo’s defense starts to heat things up for Wilson with an Edmunds sack on their first play and then collapsing his pocket to force a throw away. Wilson, on third-and-2, stays composed and hits Hollister for 19 yards to get things moving into Buffalo territory. Another short third down with time ticking, Wilson chucks one up to an open Swain in the end zone that gets broken up by Levi Wallace to force a FG. A great read and recovery by Wallace against a bigger target to prevent a touchdown. Seattle cuts into Buffalo’s lead by three and trail 24-10 with just over a minute in the half.
Instead of running out the clock, Buffalo looks to extend on their lead before halftime and come out throwing. An incompletion and short completion to Diggs force Allen to extend this drive as he avoids big pressure and somehow gets the balls to a falling Beasley for 22 yards. An incredible play by Allen and great, savvy catch by Beasley there. After taking a sack on third down to bring out Bass for the LOOOONNNGGGG field goal attempt after some confusion regarding timeouts and ball spotting. From a daunting 61 yards, the rookie kicker, Bass comes up short and just wide on a decent attempt to send this into halftime with a 24-10 Buffalo lead.
Josh Allen makes an opening half statement with his arm to give Buffalo a strong 24-10 lead.
Halftime Grades:
Bills – A … This would be an A+ had there not been costly penalties that almost stalled one of our scoring drives and extended Seattle’s drive leading to their first TD….but what a performance against one of the best teams in the NFL by Buffalo. Josh Allen was 24/28 for 282 yards and 3 TDs against an awful Seattle secondary. The run game was non-existent with just two carries from Moss for 13 yards but does that matter with three first half touchdowns? Not really. McDermott severely outcoached Carroll thus far and our defense was stout.
Seattle – C … I think Pete Carroll and crew underestimated what Josh Allen could do after a shaky last couple weeks as it looked like they wanted to make Allen beat them with his arm. Awful secondary play and an inability to take advantage of the Bills’ injured offensive line had their defense reeling in this one. Russell Wilson had done all he could against a Buffalo defense that had been bringing the heat and covering downfield well. Seattle looked unprepared and was letting this one get away.
Seattle starts the half with a couple of incompletions leading up to third down where Russell Wilson is strip sacked by Jerry HugheS and Buffalo recovers the ball to take possession in the first minute of the half! Buffalo’s pass rush continues its strong play of late that was so needed.
Allen is sacked immediately to start the Bills’ drive and then hits John Brown for a first down that is negated due to a rare penalty by Cole Beasley creating a second-and-27 for Buffalo. Doesn’t matter though…Allen hits Gabriel (not Gabe) Davis for the long 39 yards catch and run to Seattle’s goal line! The rookie is having a DAY with four catches for 70 yards and a score to this point. It looked like he may have been in on the replay but McDermott has a history of losing challenges and doesn’t throw the flag. The engine that is Buffalo’s offense sputters a bit with two negative plays (including Singletary’s first carry for a yard loss) and an incompletion and elect to play it safe and bring out Bass for the first time today. Tyler Bass hits his second FG of the day, this time from 22 yards out, and Buffalo leads 27-10.
Down three scores early in the third quarter Russell Wilson and Seattle’s offense looked desperate to close the gap in this one. Wilson hits Moore on third down and he battles for every inch and converts for the first down where. Metcalf hauls in another deep ball for 27 yards bringing Seattle onto Buffalo’s side of the field. Converting on a long second down, Wilson targets Metcalf up against Tre White again, who gets the first after bowling over White. Seattle keeps moving as Wilson gets two straight first down completions to his tight ends, Olsen and Hollister on third down, to march to the Buffalo 4-yard line where DeeJay Dallas cruises into the end zone for the easy score. Seattle chips away at Buffalo’s lead which is now just 10 with the score sitting at 27-17.
Zack Moss takes the opening carry for five yards but the injuries to Buffalo’s offensive line start to catch up to them as Allen is sacked on consecutive plays to bring out the punting unit. A bad sequence where Allen couldn’t do much and we saw Dawson Knox get blown by on third down in a poor blocking effort. Bojo’s first punt of the day goes for goes for 53 yards and Seattle gets it at their 30-yard line.
Another Seattle tight end breaks through the Matt Milano-less defense as Will Dissly takes the first play of the drive from Wilson for 26 yards. Then penalties come back to haunt us as Levi Wallace breaks up a deep Wilson pass but Jerry Hughes gets a roughing the passer. A soft call that backs my theory the NFL protects their babies (Mahomes, Brady, Wilson, etc..) really hurts us there. After two runs by…Travis Homer? for just three total yards Wilsons chalks one up deep for Lockett in the end zone under a heavy rush that goes incomplete. Seattle settles and hits a 44 yard field goal and cuts deeper into the Buffalo lead now with the score 27-20.
Zack Moss stays hot along with his QB as he takes a short pass for 20 yards to get Buffalo’s drive rolling. A play later, our king, Stefon Diggs takes a pass from the also king worthy Allen for 25 yards. A couple big plays get Buffalo from their own 18-yard line to Seattle’s 35-yard in just three plays and pose a serious scoring threat in response to Seattle’s offensive surges. The fourth quarter starts out with some sketchiness as Allen is sacked for the seventh time today and nearly fumbles, but holds on. Another penalty by Buffalo puts Allen up against a second-and-20 who promptly delivers a pass to Diggs for 10-yards and creates a third-and-10. A huge break for the Bills as Allen is sacked again on third down but a Jamal Adams penalty gives Buffalo an automatic first down. After some more rough plays Allen makes a bounce back throw and hits Josh Brown who absolutely zooms down the field to Seattle’s goal line for a huge 33 yards. A play later rookie RB Zack Moss powers his way through the Seattle front for his third career touchdown to build on the Bills lead, 34-20. If the Bills win this game, this will be the pivotal drive of the game. Allen and the receivers stepped up big here when needing to cut Seattle’s comeback down.
Buffalo continues their best pass rushing reformance of the season as Mario Addison takes down Wilson first down and A.J. Klein cleans up Wilson for another sack to force a Seattle third-and-25. Targeting his favorite target, DK Metcalf, Wilson’s pass is read like a Dr. Seuss book by Tre White, who intercepts the balls and takes just short of the end zone to the Seattle 3-yard line.
Josh Allen takes the ball just moments later and takes it himself and leaps into the end zone for his fifth touchdown of the day! Buffalo might have struck the nail in Seattle’s coffin with a 41-20 lead and less than 10 minutes left.
Seemingly out of this game down three scores late, Russell Wilson shows he is not to be taken lightly. Wilson chalks up a deep bomb to a disgustingly open David Moore for the touchdown. That was quick, but you can’t count out Wilson. Seattle trails just 41-27 with 8:50 left in the game.
Singletary opens things up with his second carry of the day for just two yards. After an incompletion to Diggs on second down, Allen goes to Diggs again who takes it and dives forward just short of the first down after some crafty moves to make it close. Instead of going for it on fourth-and-1 at midfield, Bojo booms another kick that bounces into the end zone for a touchback.
A Seattle offense that has three of their last four drives takes the field down 14 and looking for a rally. What they didn’t consider was the defensive juggernaut that is Bills’ LB A.J. Klein who tears the ball from Russell Wilson’s arms as he sacked him to force yet another turnover in favor of Buffalo. The defense has stepped up today against on of the biggest tests they’ll face all season and that’s encouraging for sure.
In field goal range and approaching the end of the game, Buffalo plays it safe and decides to just run the ball and kill a little clock to set up a Tyler Bass FG attempt for the fourth time today. Buffalo jumps to a 44-27 late in the game after the Bass Man’s kick is through the uprights from 31 yards out.
I’ll say it again though, you can’t count out Russell Wilson in a game. Wilson kicks off the drive, desperate to score, with a 50-yard completion to Travis Homer and get to the Buffalo 25-yard line in one play. Tre White is down on the field after the play which would be a potentially devastating loss to the Bills as he hobbles off the field. A.J. Klein continues to tell Twitter to shut up (shout out Maniac) and brings the heat on Wilson on third down and hits him as he throws to force the fourth down. Don’t matter to Danger Russ thooooo as he hits DK Metcalf, once again, for the 7-yard touch down. Seattle brings the deficit back to just 10 points and trail 44-34 with under 2 minutes left in the game.
Seattle brings out their onside kick formation and try to dribble it in a spot to recover but Buffalo gets the ball cleanly. Seattles gets a bad penalty on third down with Buffalo just running the clock down to gift Buffalo a third-and-1 that they convert with short Moss dive. That ends it folks! The victory fomation comes out (one of the best feelings in sports), Josh Allen takes a knee and the Buffalo Bills win!
The Buffalo Bills move to 7-2 on the season after defeating Russell Wilson and the Seahawks 44-34!
Fulltime Grades:
Bills – A-… Josh Allen was absolutely phenomenal I’m tacking on the minus here as the defense did allow Seattle to make this a close one for a bit. A 10 point win against a great team, led by and MVP caliber QB, is a huge accomplishment for this Bills team but there were issues. Allowing 33 points is less than ideal, although Seattle had abandoned the run completely and the penalties were always at the worst times. Forcing four turnovers and committing 0 was a huge factor but let’s give a standing ovation for Josh Allen here folks. Four touchdowns and 429 total yards has me back on the Josh Allen for MVP hype train.
Seahawks – B- … They made us sweat a bit in the end due to Russell Wilson’s ability to make plays whenever and wherever…but he also lost his team this game. A rare, dare I say, “bad” performance that was highlighted by four turnovers. Seattle’s secondary proved why they’re considered the worst in the league as they got abused by not just Allen, but the Bills’ receivers ability to get open and get yards after the catch. They need some serious defensive help if they really want to be a contender.
Kat’s Korner Takeaways:
- Josh Allen should be right back i the middle of the MVP consideration he found himself in the first four weeks of the season. An incredible performance by Allen who took advantage of a bad Seattle secondary all day with his arm. Allen did a great job of distributing the ball all over the field with five receivers having at least three receptions. A staggering stat line through the air of 31/38 for 415 yards and three TDs a rushing score, Allen haters were awfully quiet today.
- A great game plan by Leslie Frazier today paved the way to a defensive performance that featured five sacks and four turnovers from the Bills’ defense. There are still some concerns without Matt Milano or Josh Norman in the secondary and Tre White may be hurt, but guys stepped up today when needed. We kept the pressure on Wilson all day and made “the big play” multiple times in crucial situations. Allowing 34 points is a slight cause of concern but 14 of those did come in “garbage time” as Wilson started to really air it out.
- Stemming off of the defensive performance, what stood out to me the most today was the linebacker play. Do we need an A.J. Klein apology form? Because after a few rough weeks he became the scapegoat for the Buffalo defense that was struggling but showed up in a big way today. Klein had two sacks (four QB hits), five tackles (1 for a loss) and the game sealing forced fumble and recovery….my player of the game behind Josh Allen. Tremaine Edmunds also had his best game of the season in my opinion with a sack, 11 tackles (1 for a loss) and a defended pass. This unit is still missing Matt Milano but showed up in a big way today.
- It’s not all positives today folks though as penalties are an issue. We still won handedly today but it’s the small problems like penalties that can keep a good team from making a run. McDermott preaches discipline for his squad but they need to clean it up at times. A Cody Ford holding call almost killed a Buffalo scoring drive, the Jerry Hughes roughing the passer in the third, the pass interference call and some minor calls all stack up and seem to happen at the worst times. Not nitpicking here but it’s an issue we need cleaned up.
- The running game was non-existent today after their best showing of the season last week. Zack Moss led the way with nine carries and a score but could only muster 18 yards on the ground, Devin Singletary, who almost looks like is being phased out slowly, had just two carries for 1 yard. I know the game plan led to Allen throwing the ball 38 times…but this is discouraging out of the streaky running attack.
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