Buffalo and Detroit kick off is 815pm at Highmark Stadium
By Chuck Pollock, Senior Sports Writer,
Last Sunday, the Bills and Lions, both slight favorites, won their NFL season openers.
Detroit, at home against New Orleans, survived a two-point Saints conversion attempt in overtime, to claim a 31-30 victory.
Buffalo got two huge sacks from tackle Deone Walker and edge rusher Greg Rousseau, the latter producing a fumble that linebacker Terrel Bernard recovered to end the game after Houston drove to the Bills’ 9-yard line, 1st-and-goal with 25 seconds left in a bid for the game-winning touchdown. Buffalo hung on for a 36-31 decision.
Tonight, those two Super Bowl hopefuls will meet in the first-ever regular-season game at the new Highmark Stadium (8:15, WKBW-TV, Prime Video and the Bills Radio Network).
The game opened at Bills by 3 and has escalated to Buffalo by 4.5.
STILL, there’s concern that new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, who was supposed to improve that unit, surrendered 31 points to a team with a suspect offense,albeit on the road.
Leonhard conceded, “I think it was awesome to get a win … find a way to close it out. I love the way we started, obviously, creating a turnover and then finishing it out with a big turnover. (But) there was a lot of ugly in between.”
He added, “I was excited for the play-style. The energy was there, the effort was there. The detail has got to get better. It was (not) up to the standards. In a lot ways, it did feel like Week 1 when things started to unravel a little bit, at times, or just feel a little bit off. I thought guys looked around like they weren’t sure what the answer should be.”
But Leonhard wasn’t feeling hopeless.
“I think it’s very correctable,” he said. “I left watching the tape going, ‘All right, we’re closer. We’re closer than it looked.’ And I’m excited for where we’re going.
“I didn’t like the two-minute (defense). I did not like the way I called the two-minute in the end of the half and kind of put us in some panicky situations.”
Leonhard added, “That’s the No. 1 thing that I’m like, all right, that’s on me and I’ll fix that. I have to learn this team. I have to (know) what we need.
“We got more aggressive in the run game as it went on, and that helped (Buffalo surrendered a generous 124 yards on the ground). The pass game, it was the opposite. When we pressured in the pass game, it didn’t necessarily help us. And in the run game, it calmed us down because we were able to play downhill a little bit faster.
“The beauty of this Thursday game being Week 2, you knew there’s only one game of new information that you had to scout,” Leonhard said. “So, you’re able to get ahead of a little bit of things in camp, in the offseason to where you’re able to look ahead. Not much different than Houston. When there’s no new information for months and months, really, outside of the preseason, you’re kind of able to get ahead of the game-planning a little bit.”
BUFFALO’S biggest concern is Detroit’s elite running back Jahmyr Gibbs.
“Number one with Gibbs,” Leonhard allowed, “it all runs through him. The run game, the play action, the boots, like everything plays off of what he can do. He touched the ball 34 times (Sunday against the Saints). That’s impressive for a guy his stature (5-foot-9, 200 pounds), to be able to do that.
“They’ve got some challenges. You have to know where they’re at. It’s difficult because there’s four (skilled pass catchers). They have that talent and they’re spread all over the place. You have to understand where they are because of such a unique skill set out of each one.”
MEANWHILE, Detroit’s defense had 26 quarterback pressures, in the opener and Lions edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson had an NFL-best 10 pressures and produced two sacks.
As Bills first-year head coach Joe Brady pointed out, “We don’t get a lot of time to be able to talk about the (previous) game, so how do the guys learn from it and make sure the same mistakes don’t show up this week (with only two days to prepare) and we continue to grow as a football team?” Brady said of the short week.
INJURY REPORT: The Bills had Wednesday off and three names were on the list: Bernard (calf), safety Cole Bishop (knee/groin) and running back Ty Johnson (hamstring) all practiced Tuesday on a limited basis. Defensive tackle T.J. Sanders (knee/illness) didn’t practice
WEATHER: Temperatures in the 60s with a 60% chance of rain.
POLLOCK’S PICK: Bills 24, Lions 20
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
