ORCHARD PARK, NY. (WKBW) — After a regular season opening win the Buffalo Bills now focus on an AFC East divisional road showdown, on a short week against the Miami Dolphins.
Knowing you’ll have Josh Allen available to play is a huge plus after coming into Monday unsure of how serious his injury to his non-throwing hand/wrist was.
Like Buffalo, Miami is also coming off a comeback win in week one and showed that they are still playing to one of their biggest strengths offensively which is speed.
"They have probably the best team speed in the league in all three phrases quite frankly, says head coach Sean McDermott. It'll be a big challenge for us going down there and they're a really good team with a lot of talent."
We said it when he was a member of the Kansas City Chiefs and we’ve been saying it ever since he's been on the Dolphins, you won’t ever stop Tyreek Hill completely.
But you can limit his explosive play-making ability. Game-planning for Hill is nothing new for first-year defensive coordinator Bobby Babich. But it’s not just Hill he has to plan for at the end of the day.
"Everything about them is a challenge. Mike (McDaniel) does a great job and we've seen them quite a few times. Every time we prepare for them we know the challenge and we just have to make sure we're executing our plan going in."
When you go up against an offense with the potential like the Dolphins, you have to be able to fire back. We’ve seen the Bills do this plenty of times and offensive coordinator Joe Brady knows it’ll take another rock-solid game plan to make that happen.
"It's going to be a great opportunity going down there, it'll be a great environment," Brady said on Monday. "Our guys came in with the right mindset that what happened yesterday has no bearing on this week and they're going to need to be ready to go."
Lastly, this is the first time the Bills have had to play in Miami during the first month of the season since 2022.
If you remember, that game in late September two seasons ago was a scorcher and while Thursday game will be played at night. The temperature will still be in the 80’s with 82 % humidity and a chance of rain leading right up to kickoff.
So while I don’t expect weather to play as significant of a role come Thursday. It’ll still be something to monitor as we get closer to kickoff.
