Josh Allen leads the undermanned Bills to a tough win over the Colts

by Junna Base November 10, 2024

ORCHARD PARK — There aren’t many days the Buffalo Bills will win when Josh Allen is playing well below his MVP-talking level, which was the case for much of Sunday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium.

And there are even fewer days when they’ll win a game when Allen, who threw two interceptions in a game for the first time this season, tries to complete passes to the likes of Curtis Samuel, Mack Hollins, Tyrell Shavers and Jalen Virgil and Quintin Morris, who all had key roles against the Indianapolis Colts with Keon Coleman and Amari Cooper out, and Dalton Kincaid left early with a knee injury.

But Allen somehow found a way to get the Bills past a troublesome Colts team because he made just enough of those Allen-like plays to lead Buffalo to a 30-20 victory over the turnover-plagued Colts.

A case in point is what happened at the end of the first half. Many teams would have tried to run out the clock, cover at their own 11-yard line and settle for a 17-13 lead, but not the Allen-led Bills.

After gaining a third down with a short pass to Ty Johnson, time was not on Buffalo’s side as the clock ticked down to 18 seconds with just 18 seconds remaining. But Allen scrambled to his right and uncorked a pass downfield to Mack Hollins, who brought the catch down, got up before it was touched and raced out of bounds. The 44-yard lead gave the Bills eight seconds to play, and Tyler Bass kicked a 47-yard field goal to give the Bills a 20-13 halftime lead.

And then in the fourth quarter, the Bills held on to a 23-13 lead and got the ball back on a Taylor Rapp interception at the Bills 16 with 9:46 left.

Allen overcame two holding penalties and magically orchestrated a game-winning, 14-play, 84-yard drive that took 6:42 and ended with a 2-0 James Cook score that clinched the game.

Allen finished 22 of 37 for 280 yards and also ran eight times for 50 yards and a touchdown.

And now comes the biggest test of all. The undefeated 9-0 Kansas City Chiefs come to Highmark Stadium to take on the 8-2 Bills in a game between the teams with the AFC’s two best records.

Here are a few observations from Indianapolis:

Taron Johnson is the Bills’ best defender

The nickel cornerback continues to make his case every week because of his value as both a pass defender and a run stopper. He left his mark on this game on the Colts’ very first play. He slipped between Joe Flacco and Josh Downs and when Flacco didn’t see him, Johnson was in perfect position for an interception, which he returned 23 yards for a touchdown.

In the third quarter, Johnson sacked Flacco on a blitz, and it wasn’t easy as he had to work through the defense, although it was helped by Flacco’s lack of pocket awareness on the play. And later in the third, he almost had a second interception, but this time he dropped it. Add to that his usual series of hard stops on the run, not caring at all about his lack of size and playing with an aggressiveness that he needs to be successful.

The pick-six was Johnson’s third of his NFL career and Buffalo’s second of the season, as Ja’Marcus Ingram had one in Week 2 at Miami. Kudos also goes to Rasul Douglas, who made a key block that helped Johnson find his way to paydirt.

The pick made it 12 straight games and 17 of the last 18, counting the postseason, in which the Bills’ defense forced a turnover. And this was Buffalo’s first pick-six on an opening drive since Oct. 20, 2013 against the Dolphins, when Nickell Robey-Coleman picked off Ryan Tannehill and returned it for a touchdown.

The Bills could have had four turnovers in the first quarter alone. Austin Johnson made his second interception in three weeks, a play in which Von Miller flew past RT Braden Smith to pressure Flacco, who threw it directly into Johnson’s stomach. Later, three Bills failed fumbles and Terrel Bernard had an interception on his hands at the goal line.

For a while, run defense was a problem

We all know the Bills will maintain their stance but won’t break their mentality on defense because they’ve been playing like that since Sean McDermott came to town in 2017.

They know they’re likely to give up yards between the 20s, especially when a team focuses on the run, because Buffalo sticks to its nickel defense, meaning it plays easier than most teams. But they are betting that they can keep teams out of the end zone and make them settle for field goals.

But it can also lead to some ugly days for the run defense, and Jonathan Taylor killed the Bills just as I thought he would. But that was just the first half, as the Colts strangely moved away from the run game in the second half, even though it was a one-score game early in the fourth quarter.

The running back, who torched them for 185 yards and five touchdowns in 2021, beat them again as he had 107 yards at halftime, helping the Colts score 13 points. But he only managed seven more yards in the second half.

Tyler Bass had a strong game

Last week’s 61-yard game-winner could have potentially turned his season around. Bass was outstanding as he made all three of his field goals and three extra points, one from 48 yards out, because after Allen scored a touchdown late in the second quarter, Spencer Brown was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Bass hit field goals from 29, 47 and 28 yards, and there was no doubt about any of them. In total, he was responsible for 12 points on a day where the offense wasn’t easy.

Sal Maiorana has been covering the Buffalo Bills for four decades, including 35 years as a full-time beat writer for the D&C, and he has written numerous books on the team’s history. He can be reached at [email protected] and you can follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.

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