The Buffalo Bills beat the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday in a sloppy game dotted with strange decisions, inopportune turnovers, and some truly mystifying clock management. But the old saying goes that a win is a win and we’ll take it, for sure. The Bills held on for a 27-17 victory to stay in the lead in the AFC East.
Here are my takeaways:
Five more questionable throws from Josh Allen
It’s a thing. Josh Allen makes some very poor decisions. When in the grasp of a defender, it’s not a great time to try and throw it down the field. Only one of the five questionable passes was picked off—a throw down the middle of the field while Allen was backpedaling—but these are dangerous throws that have little chance of being completed. He has hero ball in him, and we like that, but there’s a time and place for it.
Three straight fourth-quarter turnovers over seven plays
What an uninspiring sequence from the Bills’ offense. With three chances to put more nails in the Chargers’ coffin, they turned over the ball three times in the fourth quarter. A Devin Singletary fumble, a Josh Allen fumbled snap, and a very bad Allen interception gave the Chargers life. Luckily they were playing the Chargers and not a better team today. It was individual mistakes, not a collective slacking, that were the cause of these miscues.
The Chargers out-sucked the Bills in the fourth
I legitimately have no idea what Anthony Lynn was doing with his game management. Calling a run play after their Hail Mary bomb is inexcusable. Continuing to try to go for it on fourth down in field goal range down 10. Calling timeouts instead of taking a delay of game. It was absolutely terrible game management. That’s even before you take into account the interception thrown by Justin Herbert.
Joey Bosa game takeover
Bosa is the one who hit Josh Allen to force him from the game in the second quarter and followed it up with a big sack of Matt Barkley. He tackled Allen on 3rd-and-1 on a first-quarter run. He had another sack, this time on Allen, on 3rd-and-3 in the third quarter. In all, he had three sacks and was simply everywhere making his presence felt and no one on the Bills’ offensive line could control him, let alone stop him. He also tacked on the fumbled recovery in the fourth quarter.
Offensive line not great
Mitch Morse missed a pulling block on a 3rd-and-1. Dion Dawkins was called for holding on a third-down conversion that would have been successful. Brian Winters has continued to struggle. Josh Allen was harassed all day. Sure, you can chalk it up to Bosa being great, but at some point you need to mitigate that one player.
A.J. Klein is always here
I’ve written more takeaways about this dude than anyone else on the Bills’ roster not named Josh Allen. Klein allowed a long third-down conversion in the first half and had several miscues. Then in the second half, he played great with some good run defense stops and a big sack—yet he also whiffed on a screen play tackle. At this point, you probably have to take the good with the bad. I’m not sure he sticks in 2021, but his contract makes it likely he’s around. It’s a play-by-play proposition on whether or not he’s gonna do well, though—in 2020.