Plenty of NFL fans didn’t make this week’s Thursday night game priority viewing. After all, the Buffalo Bills were expected to blow out the Miami Dolphins.
Instead, the Dolphins put a pretty big scare into the Bills.
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The Bills didn’t blow out the Dolphins. If not for a brutal roughing the punter penalty and a late interception by Tua Tagovailoa in the fourth quarter, Miami might have pulled off the first massive upset of the NFL season.
The Bills survived. Josh Allen threw three touchdowns, including a go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter, and Buffalo held on to a 31-21 win that was closer than the final score would indicate. The Bills are 3-0 and the Dolphins are 0-3 but you wouldn’t have known it Thursday night. Other than the Dolphins making the type of back-breaking mistakes that bad teams usually make when it matters.
While Amazon Prime Video and the NFL probably appreciate the Dolphins for making something out of what looked like a bad matchup, Miami isn’t getting much satisfaction from moral victories.
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Dolphins hang around
The Dolphins were big underdogs but they let it be known right away it wouldn’t be a walkover for the Bills. Miami began the game with a 54-yard kickoff return. That led to a 10-play drive and Ollie Gordon II scoring a 2-yard touchdown for a quick 7-0 Dolphins lead.
The problem was that the Dolphins defense was overwhelmed in the first half, as it had been for the first two weeks of the season. Buffalo got a touchdown from tight end Dalton Kincaid on its first drive, a backhanded flip touchdown pass from Josh Allen to Jackson Hawes on its second drive and got into field goal range on its third drive. But Matt Prater missed that field goal, technically giving Miami’s defense a rare stop.
The Dolphins took advantage. They went downfield and Jaylen Waddle scored a touchdown in the final minute of the half.
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Somehow, despite being a huge underdog and never really slowing down Buffalo’s offense, the Dolphins were tied 14-14 at halftime. Weird things can happen on Thursday night, and the Bills had a tough time shaking an inferior Dolphins team.
Bills keep scoring
When the second half started, the Dolphins’ defense still couldn’t get a stop. Buffalo took the opening drive of the game 61 yards on eight plays, with James Cook rushing for a touchdown. Moving the ball was very easy to that point for the Bills. That had been the case for Buffalo’s offense and everyone facing Miami’s defense this season.
Then something odd happened. The Dolphins forced two straight punts. Miami picked up a fourth-and-4 with a pass to Waddle after the second punt, and that got their drive going deep into Bills territory. Tyreek Hill caught a touchdown and with 12:18 left, the Dolphins had tied it up, 21-21.
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The Dolphins seemed to have forced another punt and had everything going for them, but they took a game-changing penalty. Zach Sieler tried for the punt block and crashed into the punter, drawing a 15-yard penalty and giving the Bills a first down. For a team that was battling against a much better team on the road, that penalty crushed its momentum. Khalil Shakir scored on a 15-yard swing pass after the penalty, and the Bills led 28-21.
Still, the Dolphins weren’t going away. They had first-and-10 at the Bills’ 21-yard line with a little more than three minutes to go, trailing by seven points. But then Miami made its second huge mistake of the fourth quarter, as linebacker Terrel Bernard read Tagovailoa and jumped in front of a pass to Waddle, picking it off. The Bills were able to run out most of the clock after that, kicking a field goal in the last 30 seconds to put it out of reach.
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Miami had a shot at an upset that would have stunned the NFL world and ruined plenty of survival pool picks. But the Bills avoided the crucial mistakes that would have cost them the win. Miami couldn’t stay out of its own way.
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