The Bills are going to be such a difficult team to beat come January. The Buffalo Bills swept aside the back-to-back MVP Aaron Rodgers and his Green Bay Packers as they trounced them earlier and often to win 27-17.
The Buffalo Bills are truly a fantastic team to watch as they play with so much confidence on both sides of the ball.
It doesn’t matter if they are facing off against Bill Belichick and the Patriots at Foxborough, or Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead, or even when they have to host the reining back-to-back MVP Aaron Rodgers at Orchard Park, the Bills will play their high-temp, smash-mouth game every down. And, more often than not, it gets them the win, just as it did last night,
Even though Aaron Rodgers and the Packers were in the midst of a three-game losing streak, I had a strange feeling that they would overcome all the odds and pull off a miraculous win in Buffalo to get their season back on track. There were so many doubters and critics of Rodgers and the way his offense has played that it was almost inevitable they would shock everyone and beat the then 5-1 Buffalo Bills.
I was wrong.
The Bills obliterated the Packers early on in that game as Josh Allen led two touchdowns drives. The first, where he connected to Dawson Knox for a 1-yard score, was all about Allen’s freakish strength and running skills as he was plowing over the Packers linebacker and safeties to get into the red zone. The second was all about Allen’s mental connection with Steffon Diggs.
Diggs put a double move on Packers CB Rasul Douglas as Allen lobbed a 30-yard pinpoint-pass into the endzone, which the former Vikings receiver caught with ease against the best pass defense in football. I’m saying it now: the Allen-Diggs relationship is the best QB-WR relationship in the NFL today.
Not only are these two guys able to connect with one another regularly for huge plays downfield, but they also have an intrinsic mental connection whenever they are on the field that makes it almost impossible for opposing defenses to stop them. Diggs ended up finishing the game with 6 REC for 108 yards and 1 TD, while Allen went 13/25, 218, 2 TD, 2 INT in what had to be his arguably worst game of the season.
And, when you’re still able to throw for 2 TDs, 200+ yards, and get your #1 target to over 100+ receiving yards, that’s when you know you’re good.
Speaking of really good, that’s something you can’t attribute to the Packers.
Aside from Aaron Jones, who went off for 20 CAR, 143 rushing yards, this Packers offense was disjointed and discombobulated from the start. Aaron Rodgers had a pretty pedestrian day (by his standards) with 17/30 completions, 201 yards, 2 TDs, and 1 INT, while his receiver had a torrid night.
Romeo Doubs only had 4 catches for 62 yards (and an incredible TD catch, but that was the only good thing he did), Robert Tonyan had 5 catches for 35 yards, and Christian Watson had 1 catch for 12 yards before he left the game with a concussion. Obviously, these stats are not good enough for Green Bay Packers wide receivers as this team will miss the playoffs if they don’t get more production out of these guys.
The Packers can’t just rely on Aaron Jones to bail them out of games as opposing teams will soon stack the box and make it impossible to run against them. And, what then? Watson, Doubs, and Tonyan have already proven they can’t step up when needed, while Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb are out with injuries.
The Packers desperately need to either sign a wide out (like OBJ) or trade for one (like NYJ’s Elijah Moore or Panthers’ D.J. Moore) or else this team is doomed.
As for Buffalo, they’re now 6-1 and are rolling towards the best record in the AFC.
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