There was no discussion during Thursday night’s game about whether officials erred with their handling of a kneeldown by Bills quarterback Josh Allen at the end of the first half, but the Dolphins would like an explanation from the league.
Allen fumbled the snap while going to a knee, picked it up and flipped it to one of the officials. The play was blown dead, but, as noted on PFT Friday morning, that decision was discussed on social media because it appeared that the play should have been allowed to continue.
Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel agrees with that interpretation and said at a Friday press conference that he will speak to the league about it. He also explained why he didn’t make a bigger deal of it at the time.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to have an adult temper tantrum,” McDaniel said, via Omar Kelly of the Miami Herald.
Once officials rule a player has given himself up and the play is blown dead, there’s nothing that can be done on the field. That decision is generally made quickly in order to avoid any hits that could lead to larger scuffles, but it was too quick for Miami’s liking this time.
Kneeldowns at the end of a half are usually the most uneventful plays in football, but Bills quarterback Josh Allen nearly experienced a kneeldown disaster on Thursday night.
With two seconds remaining in the first half, Allen lined up for a kneeldown, but he fumbled the snap and it hit the ground. Allen knelt down to pick the ball up, and the officials blew the play dead, ending the first half. Allen tossed the ball to an official and jogged to the locker room, while most players on both teams seemed not to notice that the ball had been on the ground.
But some viewers at home thought Allen had tossed a live ball to the official, and that the play should have gone on. One Dolphin, cornerback Jack Jones, also appeared to think the play was still live and began to pursue Allen before he saw the officials signal that the play was over.
Ultimately, if the officials rule that the quarterback gave himself up, that ends the play. But this kneeldown was a closer call than most, and a reminder that every play, even a play as mundane as a kneeldown, can have something consequential happen.
Thursday night’s win over the Dolphins was Bills quarterback Josh Allen’s 127th career game. And his three touchdown passes took him to 301 total touchdowns. No player in NFL history has reached that milestone, that quickly.
The previous record belonged to Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who reached 300 total touchdowns in 128 career games.
Allen has played a total of 114 regular-season games and 13 playoff games. He has thrown 200 regular-season touchdown passes and 25 in the playoffs. He has 67 rushing touchdowns in the regular season and seven in the playoffs. And he has also caught two touchdown passes.
Allen is the NFL’s reigning MVP, and three games into the season he’s the favorite to win the award again. And he’s doing things to this point in his career that no one else has ever done.
Plenty of NFL games come down to a small handful of moments.
Last night, there were two that turned a potential Miami upset into a Buffalo win: (1) Zach Sieler’s inexplicable roughing the punter penalty, which fueled the go-ahead touchdown drive; and (2) Terrel Bernard’s interception of Tua Tagovailoa, as the Dolphins were driving for a late score, down by seven points.
From the first replay, it was obvious based on the way Bernard broke on the ball that he didn’t read Tua’s eyes or otherwise figure it out on the fly. It was a film-study interception.
Basically, the Bills cracked the code on Miami’s tendencies and tells. And the Dolphins failed to self-scout themselves.
Speaking to reporters, Bernard basically confirmed the point.
“It’s honestly something that we had seen on tape,” Bernard said regarding the biggest play of the game. “It’s a common route around the league. But, you know, I want to give a shout out to Al Holcomb, the linebackers coach. He put it on tape a few times. You know, we’ve worked that play, our offense runs that play. And, you know, he basically told me, like, if I see it, go. . . . It’s one of their top quick game concepts.”
Good for the Bills. But bad for the Dolphins. It’s critical for every team to understand the plays they’ve used in the past, and to know when to pull the rug out from under a defense that believes it had diagnosed a given play.
In that spot, for example, the Dolphins could have (and perhaps should have) realized that their game film included too many clues about what would happen. It was an opportunity to pull an okey-doke, with a receiver going to the spot Bernard would vacate when he made the decisive move on the ball, before it was even thrown.
One play. One moment. It’s the payoff for devoting so many hours scouring film for patterns that will, if an offense isn’t careful, repeat themselves.
The Dolphins weren’t careful. The Bills were smart. It’s one of the main reasons Buffalo is now 3-0, and Miami is 0-3.
The Bills improved to 3-0 with Thursday night’s 31-21 win over the Dolphins and they gave themselves something to work on during their extended break heading into Week 4.
Miami converted 10-of-15 third-down conversions over the course of the evening. That success helped keep them in the game and they were driving to try to tie the score late in the fourth quarter before Bills linebacker Terrel Bernard picked off Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to seal the victory.
Winning makes everything look better in the NFL, but Bills cornerback Taron Johnson said that the failure to get off the field is the kind of thing that can take a team down the wrong path.
“Third and long! We want that!” Johnson said, via Tim Graham of TheAthletic.com. “It’s a little demoralizing, but at the end of the day you just got to keep playing because there’s still a chance we can get a turnover, still a chance that we can stop them on the next drive.”
Defensive tackle Ed Oliver and linebacker Matt Milano didn’t play on Thursday, so the Bills defense wasn’t at full strength against a Dolphins team desperate for its first win of the season. Those things factored into the third-down issues that will keep the Bills from getting too full of themselves over the next 10 days.
