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Buffalo Bills beat Jacksonville Jaguars, look like the best team in the NFL

Vaseline September 24, 2024

ORCHARD PARK — For a team that many football analysts thought was past its Super Bowl run, the Buffalo Bills now appear to be the best team in the NFL three weeks into the 2024 season.

The Bills put on a stunning display of football in the first half at Highmark Stadium on Monday night, scoring touchdowns in all five stadiums to take a 34-3 lead over the Jacksonville Jaguars before effortlessly winning 47-10 in the final 30 minutes.

“I saw us working together, all three phases supporting each other at times, and that was good to see,” coach Sean McDermott said. “We’re going to need more of that going forward.”

That’s certainly true, as the Bills face a tough stretch: three straight road games against playoff teams like the Ravens, Texans and Jets.

But for now, the performance against Jacksonville was a savory one, one reminiscent of the Bills’ 47-17 playoff decimation of the Patriots in 2021, when they played a perfect game by scoring touchdowns on all seven possessions while not taking a knee to end a half. So it was rather fitting that Mac Jones, the Patriots’ quarterback in that game, was called upon by his new team, the Jaguars, to clean it up.

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Instead of playing like a dangerous 0-2 team trying to salvage the season, the Jaguars have proven themselves to be a bad 0-3 team that, barring a major turnaround, will get nowhere this year. The $245 million investment in quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft, looks pretty ominous.

The Jaguars entered the NFL in 1995 and have allowed a first-half lead of 34 points ever. This is only the third time in NFL history that a team has had a 31-point lead at halftime with 34 or more points scored.

Who is better than the Bills as September draws to a close? The Chiefs are 3-0, and they could easily be 0-3. The Steelers are 3-0, but they have only scored 51 points. In the NFC, the Seahawks are 3-0, but they have beaten the Broncos with a rookie quarterback, the Patriots, and the Dolphins without Tua Tagovailoa. The 3-0 Vikings are legit, but are they better than the Bills with Sam Darnold?

Josh Allen, who threw for just 371 yards in the first two games, completed 22 of 28 passes for 247 yards and four touchdowns to Dalton Kincaid, Keon Coleman, Khalil Shakir and Ty Johnson. That was just the first half.

And to top it all off, after the Jaguars kicked off the second half and scored a touchdown, Allen responded with a nice drive. Although it ended in a Tyler Bass field goal, the drive took more than six minutes into the third quarter.

It was scary how easily Allen picked apart the Jaguars, and all that overrated talk about the Bills quarterback, or the thought that he would be lost this year without Stefon Diggs? Looks a little ridiculous now.

“I think Joe (Brady) has done a really good job,” McDermott said. “He understands the players he has and their strengths and that’s a big part of it week after week. And he’s shown, which I think is important, that he’s willing to do whatever it takes, run, pass, throw deep, throw short, to win.”

The Top Reasons the Bills Won

▶ Allen was simply beautiful: You could tell he was ready from the start. The Jaguars were missing two starting corners, Tyson Campbell and Darnell Savage, and offensive coordinator Joe Brady clearly had plans to take advantage of that. His play design was flawless on several of his calls, and his execution was equally flawless.

Brady got everyone involved in the first two quarters as Allen targeted 10 different receivers and completed passes to nine of them. After leaning on the running game the first two weeks, Brady called just 11 runs compared to 28 passes in the first half.

▶ The pass defense was suffocating: Lawrence took advantage of the Bills’ defense, which scored in the second half, but he couldn’t keep up with Allen in the first half, leaving the field with a 31-point deficit.

Cornerbacks Rasul Douglas and Christian Benford were in lockdown mode on the outside, and none of the Jaguars’ talented receivers — Gabe Davis, Brian Thomas and Christian Kirk — could get open. And once, when Thomas got free, Lawrence airmailed a throw right into the arms of Bills safety Damar Hamlin for his first career interception.

What’s impressive is that no team has been able to capitalize on the loss of Sternickel cornerback Taron Johnson, as Cam Lewis has held up remarkably well. Defensive coordinator Bobby Babich even called a safety blitz that resulted in a sack of Ja’Marcus Ingram.

▶ History didn’t matter: There was a lot of talk leading up to the game that the Jaguars seemed to have the better cards for the Bills, especially given the way the last two meetings went: the Jaguars won 9-6 in 2021, but also the fiasco in London last year, when half of the Bills’ defense was injured.

There have been some strange games in the series between these teams since the 1996 playoffs when the two-year-old Jaguars stunned the Bills. On Monday night, the Bills made sure nothing strange would happen.

Plays that proved crucial

▶ No one can complain that Sean McDermott doesn’t take risks. He remains one of the most aggressive coaches when it comes to going for fourth downs, and just like last week in Miami, he did it on Buffalo’s first possession Monday. Six plays into the game, the Bills had fourth-and-3 at the Jaguars 44 and Allen threw a 12-yard pass on a well-designed call to Shakir and from there the Bills went the distance to take a quick 6-0 lead.

▶ On the second offensive possession, the Bills faced a third-and-3 at the Jaguars 48. Brady drew up a great play when Kincaid got open along the left seam and Allen hit him in stride for 28 yards. After another fourth-down conversion when Allen pushed forward on a QB sneak, he and Kincaid teamed up on another great play.

On third-and-goal from the 6, Allen was under pressure, but he bought time in the pocket, which gave Kincaid the opportunity to work from left to right, where he got open in the back of the end zone. Allen threw a perfect pass, and Kincaid hauled it in for a 13-0 lead.

▶ Rookie receiver Keon Coleman started the game on the bench. He didn’t play on the first possession, only got one snap on the second, but on the third, Brady brought him in and called his number on a first-down play from the Jaguars 24.

Coleman lined up on the left side and the Jaguars went man-to-man with Montaric Brown. He ran a crossing route, beat Brown clean and Allen hit him in stride and Coleman finished the play by reaching the end zone for his first NFL touchdown. It extended the Bills’ lead to 20-3. “Great play call by Joe,” Coleman said. “Adam (Henry, the receivers coach) and I were watching the film, it came together. Deep crossing, got outside leverage and just beat him to the spot.”

▶ If the Jaguars had a chance to make it a game, it went south on the ensuing series. There was still 4:28 left in the first half, time to make something work. Lawrence converted a fourth-and-1 with a sneak, but on the next play he shot wide by Thomas and Hamlin made the pick. And of course the Bills turned that into a touchdown when Allen found Shakir open on third-and-9 from the 27 five plays later on the right sideline for the touchdown that essentially put the game out of reach.

Bills Most Valuable Player

There’s no point in getting worked up about it. Allen played like the superstar that he is, and it didn’t matter that he essentially took the second half off. He had just 16 yards passing after halftime, because the game was clearly in hand. So he finished with 263, and he also ran six times for 44 yards, five of those runs for first downs. “He leads from the front with our football team, with our offense, and then he gets some great support,” McDermott said.

Bill’s least valuable player

OK, if we’re going to nitpick here, it was the Bills’ protective unit that blocked Bass’ first extra point of the game. There was some sort of malfunction, and while fans blamed Bass, it’s not his fault. Once again, the Bills’ special teams made a costly play, albeit one that was relatively inconsequential at the end of the night. “We had the one that unfortunately got blocked. We’ve got to look at that,” McDermott said.

Report of injury

As expected, nickel cornerback Taron Johnson and linebacker Terrel Bernard are out, but it’s still a good sign that neither player has been placed on the injured list. That means the Bills’ medical staff should expect both of them to return to action in the near future, perhaps even this week against the Ravens.

Lewis had to go to the first aid tent to be checked for a head wound, but he was quickly back and able to participate in the race again.

What they say in the locker room

▶ WR Khalil Shakir on the Jaguars’ man-to-man defense: “We knew they were a man team going into the game. When they were running zone looks, they were pretty much evenly matched and man-to-man. So I mean honestly, that was the first time we got that and I think it was more of a mindset of all the wideouts and tight ends and everybody getting man-to-man coverage, just like, ‘It’s time to show up.’ Man-to-man coverage is your best chance to make plays.”

▶ QB Josh Allen on six different players who scored touchdowns: “I think it pays off from what we’ve been working on all offseason and training camp with the eat-everybody mentality. You might make this play, you never know when it’s going to happen and that’s the beauty of it when guys buy into it and really understand that I might not get the ball thrown to me four or five times a game, but the one or two times I do, I have a chance to get in the end zone.”

▶ S Damar Hamlin on his teammates: “It’s special, man. They were a huge part of my ability to make this kind of comeback. They pushed me, they gave me love, they gave me grace. They gave me everything I needed on the journey. And they were even happier than I was to get my first interception. But that just shows the community and the bond that we have here in Buffalo. It’s a really special place and I’m glad to be a part of it.”

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades, including 35 years as a full-time beat writer for the D&C, and has written numerous books about the team’s history. You can reach him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast