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00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsGrid, quick turnaround as always for the National
00:07Football League.
00:08Dan Fates is with us to preview the game coming up this week, Bills and Dolphins in South
00:13Florida.
00:14Dan, of course, covering the Bills in Rochester for ABC 13.
00:18And Dan, I mean, this is going to be one of those classic matchups I feel like on Thursday
00:23night football added with, you know, some extra stuff, I guess is the easiest way to
00:28say it with what happened with the Dolphins off the field before the game.
00:31So naturally, I think high ratings are in store for Thursday night.
00:34Yeah.
00:35And there's always high ratings when it's Josh Allen and it's against the Dolphins.
00:39For whatever reason, Josh has owned the Dolphins.
00:42He is 11 and two in his career against Miami and the two seem to constantly take subtle
00:48jabs at one another.
00:49It was last year, the Bills post or the Dolphins posted all their social media with the thinking
00:54emoji.
00:55Josh Allen runs in a touchdown.
00:56His celebration is the emoji as well.
00:58So there's never a shortage of storylines when these two teams meet.
01:03That's for sure.
01:04Yeah.
01:05And coming off, let's go back to the Bills here and then we'll go to the matchup here.
01:07But you know, the Bills did not play well in that first half against Arizona.
01:12I mean, Kyler Murray was having his way with the defense of the Buffalo Bills.
01:16And then the second half, of course, was a different story.
01:20The Bills played a lot better.
01:21They gave up that kickoff return.
01:22I think that's what, you know, kept them in the game.
01:24They ended up covering the spread, by the way, six and a half was the point spread there.
01:29Anything to be concerned about with the Bills defense here?
01:31Because certainly giving up several touchdowns, albeit one on a kick return, was not, I think,
01:36what people expected.
01:37Yeah, I think the defensive line was a little bit of a concern for me.
01:41Obviously, I knew that Arizona had a good running game.
01:44James Conner ran the ball extremely well.
01:46And it's funny, could we call that vintage Kyler Murray?
01:49I know he's not been in the league that long, but when Kyler Murray is really good, that's
01:53what he looks like.
01:54But they had the Bills off balance, and it was the first game that defensive coordinator
01:58Bobby Babich was calling play.
02:00So I expected a little bit of a learning curve.
02:03But in classic Sean McDermott fashion, they made adjustments at halftime.
02:07We saw that a lot last year, Craig.
02:09There were times when the opening kickoff would go, the other team would march down
02:13the field, score on the opening drive.
02:15And I'm on the field, and my phone's blowing up in my mention saying Sean McDermott can't
02:18coach, that he doesn't know what he's doing, can't make any plays.
02:22And then he'd give up like six points the rest of the game.
02:25The Bills defense is really good at making adjustments.
02:28And it's funny because they always talk about, oh, halftime adjustments aren't really a thing.
02:32You know, it's just a couple minutes.
02:33You go to the bathroom, you go back out in the field.
02:35But the Bills have done a really good job in the Sean McDermott era of making those
02:39adjustments.
02:40So the secondary was really good with Damar Hamlin getting to start, Taylor Rapp in place.
02:45I think there was only something like three passes that were thrown against the two corners
02:49and Rasul Douglas and Christian Benford, and only allowed two catches.
02:52Like the back half of the defense, even without Poyer and Micah Hyde, was still really good.
02:57Yeah.
02:58And I think that that's the key here, because the Dolphins are going to try and throw on
03:02the Bills.
03:03There's no question about that.
03:04Before we get to that, so you saw what happened last night on Monday Night Football, I'm sure,
03:08with Christian McCaffrey being declared out right before the game, running back afterwards
03:12said he knew he was starting.
03:13We don't know if that's the case.
03:14I'm always very careful with injuries in the NFL, just to say this is much ado about nothing.
03:20So you tell me.
03:21I mean, Josh Allen scores that touchdown, looks at his wrist, says he's going to play,
03:25he's going to be fine.
03:27You know, I don't buy anything anymore, Dan, honestly.
03:30Like at this point, I don't know what to believe in the NFL, because they're able to keep this
03:34stuff so secretive.
03:35I know that's not going to affect his throwing at all, but what I don't want to say is, Dan,
03:39this is going to be a nothing.
03:40And then all of a sudden, the snap is fumbled, and we go, hey, maybe he's not OK, you know?
03:45So what is the latest there?
03:47Well, he runs in, he hurdles another, he hurdles Buda Baker, goes to the end zone.
03:50And as I'm watching it, it almost looks like he got up before to celebrate to, like, make
03:55sure he still had all of his arms and hands and was kind of looking around.
04:00And then we see him get taped up like an offensive lineman gets taped up on his left wrist.
04:05And again, Josh is as tough as they come.
04:08And Sean McDermott is usually pretty coy with the injury report.
04:13We know Taron Johnson's out, but he says we still have to do further research on the timetable
04:16for when he returns.
04:17But with Josh, he said he was clear to go.
04:20Josh didn't wear any brace or anything like that when he went to the postgame press conference,
04:23got x-rays.
04:24He landed on his wrist, like, there's no question.
04:26And more than anything, it seemed to impede his handoffs.
04:29I know that sounds weird, but it's his left hand.
04:31You're still handing the ball off on runs to the right side with your left hand as a
04:34quarterback.
04:35So that was a little clunky.
04:37And obviously, Craig, you can't do this all the time, right?
04:42It looked like Josh was playing in a playoff game that they needed to win to go to the
04:45Super Bowl.
04:47That was a little bit more of the concern, as we know that Josh is a cyborg.
04:52He's a mutant when it comes to being 6'5 and 230 and being able to run over linebackers.
04:58But it was week one, and we're already talking about an injury to Josh Allen.
05:02I know it's his non-throwing hand, but it's still hard not to think of the back of your
05:06head.
05:07There's something to think of there.
05:09But again, clear to practice.
05:11We'll play Thursday night.
05:12Yeah.
05:13No, I mean, we spent the whole preseason hearing again how this wasn't going to happen, and
05:17it happened immediately in week one of the NFL season.
05:20So this is an interesting prop here for his passing total, 240 and a half going into this
05:24week.
05:25I didn't know that against the Dolphins over on FanDuel that he's gone over this total
05:29six games in a row against Miami.
05:32And so I still don't think we necessarily, Dan, have the answer to, who is Josh Allen
05:36going to throw it to all the time?
05:37I don't feel like we got that in this past game, but maybe we'll learn a little bit more
05:41on Thursday night.
05:42Yeah.
05:43That was, again, I said I wasn't going to overreact on the Buffalo Plus YouTube channel
05:47about the fact of, I wasn't going to overreact to week one, one way or another.
05:51Josh took 10 stamps in the preseason.
05:53He only threw three passes and all of these new weapons.
05:56I think the last time I was on your show, we talked about all these new wide receivers
05:59and how would they function.
06:01We didn't know anything more before the preseason than we did after the preseason.
06:05And I don't know anything more about who Josh Allen's go-to guy is heading into week
06:09two than I did into week one.
06:12The plus side is 10 different players, 10 different bills, I believe caught passes,
06:16but Dalton Kincaid only caught one.
06:19No wide receiver had more than three.
06:21Like there is some concern that when the bills get down and Josh needs to make a play on
06:27third and 14, he's just going to go back into the phone booth, put on the Superman cape
06:31and try and run over 10 dolphins on Thursday night.
06:35It didn't look like you said a slow start.
06:37It didn't look like there was the rhythm and you can talk about, they should have played
06:41in the preseason or whatever.
06:42I don't buy that.
06:44It's about executing.
06:45And for the most part, it wasn't there yet.
06:49When will they get there?
06:50Hopefully soon, but again, it helps when you have Josh Allen, who is a unicorn on the football
06:55field.
06:56No, it really is.
06:57I mean, I was told it would be Kincaid by default.
06:59That was not the case in week one where Buffalo scored a million points either.
07:03So we'll just keep watching, Dan.
07:05I know you will be too.
07:06Thanks again for coming on Newswire as always.
07:09Thanks again, guys.