ORCHARD PARK – It would be quite difficult to find a week that went much better for the Buffalo Bills as Week 7 of the 2024 NFL season.
Not only did the Bills smoke the Tennessee Titans 34-10 to improve to 5-2, but the rest of their AFC East brethren all lost – Miami (2-4) lost 16-10 against Indianapolis, New England (1-6). ) were beaten 32-16 by previously lifeless Jacksonville, and perhaps more importantly, the Aaron Rodgers/Davante Adams Jets (2-5) were destroyed 37-15 by Pittsburgh.
Even though we haven’t reached the halfway point of the schedule, the tenor of the divisional race has certainly changed dramatically. On the evening of October 14, the Bills were in New York and if they had lost that Monday night to the Jets, they would have been 3-3 at that point, on a three-game losing streak and technically at second place in the ranking. the division as the Jets would have been 3-3 and owned the head-to-head tiebreaker.
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NOW? The Bills are cruising in the division, up three games plus head-to-head tiebreaker against the Jets, and they are 2 1/2 games plus head-to-head tiebreaker ahead of the Dolphins. Yes, things happen fast in the NFL, and Buffalo’s Week 8 opponent, the Seattle Seahawks, can attest to that as well.
They opened the season with three straight wins, then lost the next three before waking up to a 34-14 rout in Atlanta. The Seahawks are 4-3, and because the 49ers, heavy preseason division favorites, are decimated by injuries and can’t seem to figure things out, Seattle leads the NFC West under rookie head coach Mike MacDonald.
It will be a tough test for Buffalo, especially at Lumen Field where the Seahawks have one of the best home field advantages in the NFL, but even if things don’t go well, there are two things that should calm the Bills fan nerves: Obviously every win counts, but losing to an NFC opponent on the road is the lowest level of concern; and thanks to their big wins the last two weeks and the collapse of the Jets and Dolphins, the Bills have created some breathing room if they stub their toes in the Pacific Northwest.
Here are three questions ahead of the Seahawks game:
1. Is Keon Coleman ready to take off?
While it’s exciting for the Bills to have injected Amari Cooper into the offense, the reality is this: he’s the present, but he’s probably not the future as it doesn’t appear the Bills would be looking to pay him a considerable sum. Much of the change in free agency before 2025. Coleman, the 2024 second-round pick, is the future, a future that looked much brighter on Sunday.
The rookie had two huge plays totaling 101 yards, and he almost had a great TD catch, but he barely managed to keep his toe off the sideline in the end zone and so he was knocked down by instant replay.
The first came in the second quarter when Coleman got open when the Titans missed a coverage, Josh Allen found him and he turned it into a 44-yard gain that set up the Bills’ first touchdown to score the game. start of their comeback and reduce their deficit to 10. -7.
The second came as the Bills looked to close the game with a 27-10 lead with 4:37 to play, so the stakes were lower, but it was a nice individual effort nonetheless. He caught a quick pass just a yard from the line of scrimmage, broke a tackle attempt from fellow rookie Jarvis Brownlee and sprinted 57 yards to set up Ray Davis’ touchdown.
“We just have to continue to emphasize consistency and all the little details and little things,” offensive coordinator Joe Brady said of Coleman’s development. “I think sometimes it’s very important for guys to not get caught up in production or results and to understand all the little things. I’m proud of the way he managed to play with the ball. Keon is confident, he can be coached hard and I like the way he approaches it.
It was the first 100-yard game of Coleman’s career and he now leads the Bills with 326 receiving yards, a whopping 20.4 average on his 16 receptions, and two of them were touchdowns.
Just for fun, here’s what the Chiefs’ Xavier Worthy – the player drafted by Kansas City with the first-round pick acquired from Buffalo last April – has accomplished in six games (the Chiefs already had their bye): 15 catches for 198 yards, an average of 13.2, plus seven carries for 47 yards and a total of four touchdowns.
I have no idea who will have the best season, or for that matter the best career. Yes, Worthy is a fast and electric player, but Coleman has done some great things in seven games, and with Cooper getting more involved in the coming weeks, Coleman should be able to take advantage.
“I liked it,” Coleman said of Cooper’s presence on the field. “He brings a different dynamic to the offense. Another guy who can do similar things to what I do at a very high level, and he’s proven himself in the league for a very long time. Just another threat. You have to respect him.
2. How did Geno Smith become a quality QB?
Smith entered the NFL as a promising second-round pick of the Jets in 2013, coach Rex Ryan made him the starter in his first season and kept him at that position in 2014 as well. lost 18 of 29 games Smith started, he completed only 55% of his passes and threw 25 touchdowns, compared to a horrible 34 interceptions.
Ryan was fired after 2014, took the head job in Buffalo and his replacement in New York, Todd Bowles, pulled the plug on Smith. Over the next six seasons (not counting 2019 which he missed), Smith was a little-used backup for the Jets, Giants, Chargers and Seahawks and his career seemed over.
But in 2022, he beat Drew Lock in a heated competition at Seattle’s training camp, and suddenly he was a different guy. That year, he led the NFL with a 69.8 completion percentage, totaling 4,282 yards with 30 touchdowns and 11 picks. He won the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year award and he never looked back, saying of his detractors: “They wrote me off, but I won’t talk back though.” »
He is now in his third season as a starter, and in 2024 he leads the NFL in completions (191), attempts (279) and passing yards (1,985).
“His arm and his accuracy is impressive,” Chris Simms said on the Sunday Night Football pregame show last Sunday. “(The Seahawks) don’t run the ball very well and they’re in the middle of the defense, but they’re 4-3 because of this guy’s ability to push the football down the field.”
It’s been quite a second act for Smith, whose most famous moment in the NFL before all his success probably came during Jets 2015 training camp when he got into a locker room fight with teammate IK Enemkpali and suffered a broken jaw, the same Enemkpali. that Ryan convinced Bills general manager Doug Whaley to sign the very next day when the Jets waived him.
This will be the first game Smith starts against the Bills in 10 years, so they have their work cut out for them in terms of film study trying to figure out how to slow down him and Seattle’s explosive passing game.
3. Can the Bills exploit the Seahawks offensive line?
Seattle’s passing game has been excellent, but it succeeds despite substandard play from an offensive line that has struggled to protect for most of the season. According to NextGenStats, the Seahawks allowed Smith to be pressured on 36.2 percent of his dropbacks, the 11th-highest rate in the league. And that’s happening even though Smith has only faced blitzes on 26 percent of his attempts, the ninth-lowest amount.
Teams assign it with a four-man rush, and that’s how Buffalo plays. The Bills blitzed just 17.9% of the time, which is third lowest in the league, and although they are an average pressure team (ranked 16th with a 33.7% rate), in rushing just four allows them to cover with seven. As a result, they rank tied for fourth in passing yards allowed per attempt (6.4) and third in yards per catch (9.8).
For most of the season, the Seahawks started LT Charles Cross, LG Laken Tomlinson, C Connor Williams, RG Anthony Bradford and RT Stone Forsythe, although rookie sixth-round pick Michael Jerrell was started against the Falcons because Forsythe was out with one hand. injury. Pro Football Focus ranks this line 28th in its weekly offensive line rankings and as I often say, while I don’t put much stock in these grades, they at least provide a little context.
The Bills just won a game against a Titans offensive line that PFF had ranked 30th, and the Bills dominated. PFF credited Buffalo with 23 pressures on Mason Rudolph including 11 from Greg Rousseau, three of which resulted in sacks from DaQuan Jones, AJ Epenesa and a split between Rousseau and Dawuane Smoot.
And in the running game, one of the reasons the Seahawks are throwing so much is because their line hasn’t been great in that aspect either. Seattle has hit a league-low 33.5% of the time and its runners have been stuffed (zero or negative yardage) on 17.9% of attempts, which ranks ninth in the league.
McDermott talks about winning the line of scrimmage all the time, and his defense will have an opportunity to do that in this game, and that could pave the way for a victory.
Sal Maiorana covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades, including 35 years as a full-time writer for D&C, and he wrote numerous books on the team’s history. He can be reached at [email protected] and you can follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast
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This article originally appeared on the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills vs. Seahawks Questions: Is Keon Coleman Ready to Take Off?
