Bills vs Titans Recap
The Bills overcame a slow start and an early 10-0 deficit with 34 unanswered points to defeat the Tennessee Titans 34-10. Josh Allen eclipsed the 300-yard mark for the first time this season while extending his streak of games without an interception to 9, including last year's playoffs. The Bills moved to 5-2 and benefited from the rest of the AFC East teams going winless on Sunday to expand their division lead.
Bills vs Titans Sunday, October 20, 2024
The Titans dropped to 1-5 with questions surrounding their future at the quarterback position. In a surprise move, Mason Rudolph started in place of the injured Will Levis. The surprise was that Levis was a full participant in Thursday’s injury report but was questionable on Friday. On Saturday, the team announced Rudolph would start with Levis not dressing. The other interesting piece that came out of this game was the use or lack thereof regarding DeAndre Hopkins. Hopkins appeared to be benched in the second half and reported “soreness” when asked about it post-game.
5 Things I Liked
Half-time Adjustments - Joe Brady and Bobby Babich again made half-time adjustments to complete the comeback victory on Sunday. The Bills have outscored opponents 98 to 41 in the second half this season. In five of their seven games, opponents have been held to a touchdown or less while being shut out twice after halftime. The coaching staff has shown the ability to adjust their game plans when necessary.
Receivers Showing Up - Keon Coleman, Amari Cooper, Dalton Kincaid, and Khalil Shakir started slow but showed up in the passing game when the Bills needed it. All four players went over 50 receiving yards. Coleman led the group with 125 yards, and Shakir pulled in a game-high, seven catches. Cooper rebounded from his early drop, which would have been a first down to finish with four catches, including a touchdown. Kincaid made timely catches, with none prettier than his 3rd down sideline catch to set the Bills up with a first and goal at the Tennessee two-yard line. The Bills were the first team to exceed 200 yards passing against the Titans’ number-one defense in passing yards allowed heading into yesterday’s matchup. These four made up for 308 of the team’s 323 passing yards.
Tyler Bass Bounce Back - Bass went 4/4 on PATs and 2/2 on FGs yesterday. He received a lot of criticism since the start of this season, so it was nice to see him bounce back and be perfect on the day. “I’m going to be honest with you, when I got out there for pregame, there was a lot of love,” Bass said, per WGRZ’s Jonathan Acosta. More from Bass can be found here.
Second - Half Clamp Down - I’m not sure what Bobby Babich and Sean McDermott said to the defense at halftime, but it worked. The Bills held the Titans’ offense to 66 yards and 0 points in the second half. Their six drives went: turnover on downs, punt, punt, punt, interception, and the end of the game. They had 18 first downs in the game, only 4 in the second half.
Red Zone Results - The Bills ended the day with six red zone trips, resulting in four touchdowns and two field goals.
5 Things I Didn’t Like
First-Half Offense - The offense early in the game was confusing. They had six drives in the first half, four of which resulted in plays of at least five yards. They went three and out on three of those four drives. You could see that Josh Allen was not taking the routes and check-downs that were open underneath. Plays took too long to develop, and receivers were not getting open downfield. They ended the first half with 85 yards on their six drives. Fortunately, they were only down 10-7 at halftime, but the slow starts must be corrected before they face better competition.
Critical Penalties - The Bills only had five penalties on the day, but three resulted in Titans first downs. The most costly one came on the Titans’ touchdown drive when Taron Johnson hit Tony Pollard helmet to helmet, giving the Titans a new set of downs at the Bills’ eleven-yard line. Three plays later, they scored to go up 10-0.
Injuries - Terrel Bernard, DeWayne Carter, Curtis Samuel, and Dorian Williams all left the game yesterday at some point due to injury. There were a few minor injuries to other players, but these four may be longer-lasting and will be something to watch this week.
Special Teams Coverage - two plays come to mind that fortunately didn’t come back to bite the Bills. Sam Martin’s last punt of the first half was nearly blocked by the Titans when a defender evaded his block and sped up Martin, leading to a 27-yard punt and giving the Titans the ball at their own 40 with 44 seconds remaining in the half. The second-half kickoff was fielded at the two-yard line and returned for 34 yards by the Titans. If the Bills plan to kick the ball short of the end zone, their coverage team needs to be more disciplined as a unit. Fortunately for the Bills, neither of these plays ended up hurting them.
Third Down Offense - The Bills finished the game 3 for 10 on third down, continuing a season-long trend of converting 33.77% of the time, 25th in the NFL. The offense will continue to have problems if it cannot sustain drives in tight games. Surprisingly, they're tied for first on fourth-down conversions at 100% on the season.
Critical Plays From the Game
On the second play of the Titans’ second drive, A.J. Epenesa dropped an interception on the Tony Pollard screenplay. I’m not saying that Epenesa would have returned it for a touchdown, but this would have given the Bills the ball at the Titan's 35 or 40-yard line after back-to-back three-and-outs to start the game. Instead, the Titans picked up the third down on the following play and ended the drive with a 25-yard Nick Folk field goal to go up 3-0.
The Titans received the ball to start the second half with good field position after a 34-yard return. On third and one from their own 45, Pollard took a direct snap and was stopped for a loss of 1 yard by Terrel Bernard and Dorian Williams. The Titans lined up to go for it on fourth and two, with Pollard getting met in the backfield by rookie DeWayne Carter. The Bills took over on downs, and six plays later, Josh Allen found Amari Cooper in the end zone for his first catch and touchdown as a Bill.
Stat of the Game
BillsBanter Group Chat Quote of the Game
“Joe B and Bob B MVPs of the day in 2nd half.” - Buff
Postgame Quote of the Game
Postgame Perspective
The Bills have a lot of positives that they can take away from the second half of this game. They also have a lot of work to do. I expected a learning curve for Cooper and that it may stall the offense if they tried to force the ball to him yesterday at the start. They didn’t do that, but the offense played poorly early on. I am excited to see how the offense progresses now that Cooper has a game under his belt and will get a whole week of practice before their next game. The addition of Cooper will only help other receivers get open, as we saw yesterday when the game wore on. Hopefully the injuries yesterday were minor, and everyone can heal up for the trip out west to Seattle.
Up Next: Buffalo at Seattle - Sunday 4:05 PM
