On a blustery day in Orchard Park, the Buffalo Bills starters delivered a complete, impressive performance against the team’s backups in their Thursday scrimmage. Josh Allen completed 70% of his passes and threw for 300 yards. He threw two touchdown passes and ran in another score (he also had an interception, deflected off the hands of his receiver). Meanwhile, the backup offense was constantly under duress by the starting defense. Aside from a 25-yard carry by T.J. Yeldon, they managed almost nothing in each drive.
Despite Stefon Diggs sitting out practice with lower back soreness, the Bills’ offense didn’t skip a beat. They scored touchdowns on each of their first three drives. John Brown continued to set an impressive standard, but rookie Gabriel Davis also caught six passes for 60 yards. He did, however, misplay the ball on one catch attempt, leading to Allen’s interception.
Defensively, Quinton Jefferson had a sack and tackle for loss for the starting defense, and Tre’Davious White had a few pass breakups. But the most impressive performance was probably Mike Love. The third year defensive end had two sacks against the starting offense. Love may have dropped into an afterthought, between newcomers like A.J. Epenesa and Mario Addison, but he was very close to a roster spot last preseason, and could be making a late push to stick in 2020.
Back-and-forth kicking battle
Because this scrimmage involved true game situations, it didn’t offer the same type of balanced kicking situation as a typical practice. Both players saw opportunities, and both had hits and misses.
Rookie Tyler Bass probably came away with a slight lead. He converted two extra point attempts, scored a 41-yard field goal, and missed a 55-yard attempt. After practice, he also scored one from 43 yards.
Stephen Hauschka didn’t receive any field goal attempts. He did attempt two extra points, but missed one of them.
Injury notes
As mentioned above, Stefon Diggs sat out with lower back soreness. We’ll see how much that lingers into the next week of practice.
Robert Foster was a full participant in practice and appears to have (just about) cleared the concussion protocol.
The rest of the players missing practice remained consistent. That includes Patrick DiMarco (neck), Jon Feliciano (pectoral), Josh Norman (hamstring), Tommy Sweeney (foot), Corey Thompson (sore knee), Christian Wade (quad) and Taiwan Jones (knee).
Miscellaneous
- With several professional teams postponing or cancelling their games and practices in the wake of a police shooting, and the murder of two protesters, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Buffalo Bills held their scrimmage as scheduled. Devin Singletary spoke with reporters after practice, mentioning that the team was discussing possible solutions on how to move forward.
- In addition to Mike Love, Darryl Johnson also made his way into the backfield on multiple occasions.
- Good day for the Singletary-Moss tandem. Moss had the run of the day, powering over Dean Marlowe.
- The train horn is still here. Rejoice.