Can we really ask much more from the Bills win over Houston

0:00It's Mike Shope and the Bulldog. Bill's her truck. Allen buys time. Allen is got room to run. He's going to take it. Allen inside the bar and Allen takes it in for the touchdown. Allen ships a downfield and a tail on. Nobody there. Moore breaks away for the touchdown. Those last drives, the gap in talent between a very solid playoff quarterback CDace drought and Josh Allen, it is the Grand Canyon. Allen on 30 to 11. The head of the rush. It's rush to downfield. It's hot. Plummer touchdown. Buffalo. Josh Allen delivers. Josh Allen is something special. And if they can do that, drop 36 points on a defense like Houston's, which by the way, gave up the most points since the Miko Ryan's rookie year. I got to look at that and say, this is a statement by the Buffalo bills. It's Mike Shope and the Bulldog.

1:01We do like Reliance Stadium. Woo! Now WGR sports radio 550. Yes, Mike Shope and the Bulldog at our new time. This is the earliest I've ever been up. Everything is sideways for me right now. It really is. I mean, it's been 24 years. And it might seem ridiculous. I don't know. You and I were both fine with this. And I think maybe you were eager for it. Yes. This is something I've wanted for five years or more. I've never wanted it. But I never hated the idea. Yeah. It's just like all morning, I was an hour, an hour less time. It was like turning the clocks ahead. Right. I had an hour less time. My process, you don't even want to, you might want to know, I don't want to tell you what it is. It's so lazy and bad. It's embarrassing, right? Same, same. But cutting the grass, I won't cut the grass before 10 a.m. That's a personal rule of mine. All right. I don't like it when my neighbors cut the grass.

2:02Well, they don't cut their own grass. But when the landscape is coming and cut the grass before 10 a.m. It's annoying to you. The one house can be like eight o'clock. And maybe I'm up, usually I'm up. Yeah. Really, this is really not the earliest I've ever been up. But, you know, 10 is my personal rule. So today was like, you know, at 10, I'll do it. And then it was 10. And I was in the middle of something else, I'm like, oh, oh, I better get this done. All right. Because, you know, I want to be here by one. I had, I had, I went to see my, my barber, oral robberts from Trinidad and Tobago. I went to see him today for, I have every six weeks 11 a.m. He's nice enough just like punch that in. I get a text message in an email a few days in advance reminding me, hey, your appointment's coming up. It's always Mondays and it's always 11 a.m. And yes, as I'm leaving today, I said, can we maybe move these? No, it's fine for now, but in my head, I'm going to want to, I'm going to want to go there at 10. Now 11 because I get, I'm just like everything's all just, it's all a jar right now.

3:06I don't get my haircut at a set time, but because there is one. But when I, like Friday, I got my haircut and then at the end, like, all right, let's make your next appointment. And anything she says, like up to one, I'm like, okay, right. That's different now. Like I can't get my haircut at one. That's right. No, like that's different now. There are ways I haven't even thought of that. There are ways I haven't even thought of yet. Yeah, that are going to have to be a little bit tweaked, you know, assuming this lasts. And here's to it lasting. Oh, we just say that. I'm so with you. I'm very happy to be on an hour earlier because it means we get done an hour earlier. And that's what I was seeking. So I'm excited about that. That seems good too. I hope it all, I hope everyone else is happy with the rescheduling that's happened, especially you out there. And if you're tuning in, like, where's Brad? Brad's been on Noon to two. We already get to where's Brad? Noon to three or one to three. He's been here that long already.

4:06I don't know. So we got to where's Brad? This is, this is new for us. We're all here. Portions of Buffalo Football Monday are brought to you by Tim Hortons, the official coffee of the Jeremy and Joe Morning Show on WGR. Start your day strong with Tim Hortons and the bills. Well, the bills. I don't think you really have the right to ask for anything more than yesterday. And I know it wasn't perfect. I mean, they got pretty lucky. I think they did great. Alan's great. Pulled it out. Big plays. I mean, you got every bounce with the turnovers, right? You got all the fumbles, both sides. Alan fumbled, cook fumbled, stride twice. You recovered all of them. That's right. You have the Lassiter play at the end, which is almost a blooper that he doesn't catch. How about the, you know, Josh Allen scores his second rushing touchdown on a sneak? What was the play before meant to accomplish?

5:07That quick, that quick snap throw to Shakir that a guy got his hand on that could have been a 99 yard. I mean, there were three Texans right there that that was an interesting one. That was a little scary. So they got away with some stuff. But I think, you know, again, starting with Alan as always, they were good. It wasn't like they deserve to be blown out or anything like that. But you got all the little stuff, the random stuff you got. The tip passes and the fumbles and whatever else. Yeah, even even as great a play. It's a great throw. It's a great job by Moore to keep his concentration on his long touchdown. I mean, that is just a hair from being either incomplete or also maybe a pick six. Yeah, it was like a chip over there. I mean, so, you know, you know, that's one I think where you have to give it to him. The might get right. The margins are they did. They did, you know, they cut it close in spots.

6:07But yeah, I don't think it would be fair to ask for any. It's called 36. Let me finish the sentence. Fair to ask for anything more. They scored 36 points in a place where I mean going in. No, I think I probably said Thursday and Friday. I get to 24. I think I'm probably home. Like this, they're offense is not that scary. And even with a new Bill's defense, I just wouldn't expect this team to be able to race up and down the field. I knew what they kind of did. And you needed to be able to score like that. You know, you tell me Houston gets to 31 points in this game going into it. Before seeing a single snap of it, I'm like, well, we're all in one. I just don't I don't expect the bills to be able to score 30 points on this team. And the ship. I mean, they obviously did. And the offense really did. It was a very good day if you have been in the camp of wait till you get a load of Joe Brady without having to answer to a boss above him.

7:09I'm the coaching staff way. You know, McDermott is gone. Brady's in charge. And maybe they're going to really air it out. And they really kind of aired it out. I mean, I don't know that that'll be some sort of a stamp that is there every week. I mean, different opponents, whatever. But they they're guys beat their guys. The, you know, Josh Palmer beats Lasseter at the end there more beat like they did the thing that they have not been able to do, which is get open on sticky and demand coverage. And it worked. So if you've been thinking wait until you see Josh Allen and Joe Brady in this offense without the defensive minded head coach, maybe standing in the way for a week, it's a very good day for that stance. And you even heard if you paid attention to the telecast, the crew on CBS reference maybe more than once that Josh Allen thought likewise that Joe Brady was going to be

8:10kind of sort of like the cuffs are off kind of mentality. I don't remember what the exact quote used by CBS was, but they intimated that Allen was looking forward to seeing what the game plan and the play calls would be. Well, with Brady completely in charge. I'm interesting in kind of tracking that. We'll have Ross on every week again. Ross Tucker. He's the one who said it. So what? Allen says it to Ross in a meeting. I imagine that's how that happens. I think publicly that's what you would always say. I mean, Allen is really good at being diplomatic about whatever counts as being controversial. I think back to like when digs was here and that was sketchy at times. And he would always sort of find a way to negotiate that without completely dismissing any possibility that the player was disgruntled. But then also, you know, like I'm good. We're good. He's got a good way of that of doing that. And so I wonder how authoritative he might have been on that.

9:13I think publicly he would be like, you know, he'd say both things like these guys do when they're really kind of quote good at it is. Yeah. Well, Sean was great. His record speaks for himself itself. Brady maybe certain things will always be different when you're not trying to. Not trying to quote an imaginary Allen quote, but you know, I think there's a way you would do that. I think the point I want to make is I think ultimately that is the message he would want you to believe. That's the message we all kind of wanted to believe before yesterday was that. Well, not that the bills were ever bad. I mean, they've been great on offense. Maybe, right. Maybe I'm wrong to think that everybody wanted to believe that their offense would be less shackled without McDermott. But I think most people probably would hope for it. You know, it's also really fun when Allen is out in the wild like yesterday kind of.

10:13So I think that would be what they would think we want to hear. And then you got a game. Well, I mean, this is really separate because that conversation was Saturday or whenever Ross meets with players. And then then you got the game that you got. And I sort of still wonder if it happened mostly or more because of this or because of just kind of like circumstances. I mean, you had you had to race with Houston maybe with cook like there was something about the matchup that they didn't like. So or maybe there's something out wide in the passing game that they did like. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, what we're going to do this week is or at least today because there's another game on Thursday. I'm kind of happy about that because week one is when we tend to overreact to everything. And like, are they a juggernaut? I don't know. But yesterday was a great day.

11:14Every season is different with defense. Not to sort of ramble on to another point, but you know, like Houston and defense. What have we known or thought we've known for years when it comes to defense quarterback. And by extension offense. If you're good, you're good. And guys like Alan don't have bad ears. I mean, they just it's like almost it's permanent. What he gives you. Barrow and Jackson and the like what they give you is it's permanent. The bar is very high. If the bar doesn't move like the they're offense. I mean, you had what last year we've got the lowest average depth of target in the NFL. I mean, how many games did they win? And it wasn't because of their defense. They still kill 12 games, right? So offense is really reliable when you have it. Defense isn't. And to an extent, we've seen that with the bills even like with the same good players. It's been less consistent. All I'm saying is Houston doesn't have to be good.

12:15Like it's still a league where offense is going to dictate. And maybe they'll be great again and let yesterday will seem to them like a fluke. But yeah, I don't know. I never want to assume that defense is going to be the same year to year. It's not that it wasn't a great day. Right. Right. I mean, the thing about them though is that there's no there. Usually there's more. I've been pointing it out. You know, we talked a few different Houston people in the run up to this game because we had, you know, so much more time for, you know, the opener. And looking at their depth charts, there's only one change on the defensive side of the ball. And it's a guy that has tons of experience and won a Super Bowl and fill it up. You know, like it's, they've got like some fly by night guy like reblinch at ships a respectable idea. Maybe even viewed as an upgrade for what they already had. So I was expecting maybe very similar to what we got last year, not eight sacks and 12 quarterback hits necessarily. But like they're going to win their share of downs.

13:16It's going to be hard. But I'll be alive at the end and I'll have a chance because that was even as bad as last year's game was there. That was still the game where, you know, they had the ball and had a chance. So I thought it would be more like that with like, you know, 10 fewer points each, right? Like 26, 21 is a lot more reasonable idea for how this game would have ended. And that's very similar to last year's game. And instead we got like nobody is stopping anyone. And, you know, how much that played into what the bills did in their passing game. You know, I don't know, like maybe once it's 24, 21 at half, right? It's 24, 21 at half time. Do you come out in the second half thing? Like, all right, we're just going to have to, we're going to have to get to 40 maybe. Like we're going to have to get to 35. We're going to have to score. So let's just keep going here. And because they really did not keep at the running game in the second half. I still have been gone and looked at night, but I will. It just felt like very early in the second half thing when I'm like, all right, that's not really working.

14:20Let's not waste our time. And it was really on the passing game to make the offense go. I mean, cook only had 13 carries on the day. And I got a guess like 10 of those are in the first half. But again, I got to go look and make it. Because they were running it effectively. Like when the game started like, okay, well, you know, I'm all about, get me DJ more, establish early, give them something to worry about and all that kind of stuff. And- That didn't happen. No. And when they started out running effectively, I'm like, I don't know, I guess we're gonna have to press pause on that for now. But boy, as soon as that dried up, they- they seemed ready to do something else. And that- they know that's to their credit. And again, maybe that's a part of the loosening of the whole thing without McDermott, you know, standing atop the pyramid. Because it certainly, circumstantially, it would be easy to understand Joe Brady feeling like, by instinct, here's to throw it more.

15:21But, you know, the game plan was this. And I wanna, you know, I have a boss to please. Now I don't. We'll see if it isn't a good question for our four-clock guest. Like maybe he'll tell us, Dawkins. Yep. You know, he likes to say things. But will he like to say them with us? That's the question. About yesterday's game every Monday. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Because this is a new relationship. The only time I've ever interacted with him was at the roast. Same. And, you know, I don't really even barely- I said something about like, don't answer our calls, dude. You're good. You're young. You're up and coming. People seem to like you. You don't need to be tied to us. Like, you know, being so- But now he's stiff. Now he is. Now he's not young enough and coming. But now he's tied to- I'm a fan. I've said many times on the air, Dawkins, whenever we have a sound bite from Dawkins, like, he's the most interesting guy to listen to. Alan is so, you know, safe all the time, you know, whatever, fine.

16:23It's not like it's a problem for him. But Dawkins will be a little bit more- He's just different. So I'm excited about that. How much of the Bill's willingness to throw the ball down field in this game came from there. Either learning as the game was starting or even confidence and, you know, feeling like going into the game that this would be a good, a good thing for them is that they could block Houston. Like, for me, this game was not- I was not optimistic for what we got offensively because of the hell that Houston raises on defense up front. And that the last two years, especially last year, is why anybody would have said that is that Alan just got destroyed in that game. And so how do you game plan? How do you expect to go down there and basically try to win the same way as you went in there last year?

17:28Like, you know, they probably didn't. But they got the job done. I mean, there were a lot of these- You always need- I mean, you always need the pocket to hold up for long enough. I mean, the past of Palmer, a lot of the big plays yesterday, it's close to breaking down. I mean, Alan just gets it off in time. But you know, what I'm saying is they were able to block the Texans. And then, okay, now I can wait for DJ Moore to get open, you know, 20 yards or concave, 20 yards down field or Palmer. Without that, those guys are moot. Like, there's no game there. If you can't hold up in the pocket. So, but that happened. You know, that was a big result for them yesterday is that they were not, you know, under- It was just breakdowns. They were under duress every time he dropped back. Like, really is how it felt last year. And yeah, I mean, I haven't even seen what the official countdown hurries was. But it had to be like half a dozen, I think.

18:31It was a very calm day back there. Easy for me to say, you know, Alan did get bumped by I think one of his own guys on one play. Where he had, I think, Shakir breaking in the middle of the end zone. I think they ended up with a field goal on that was before Houston took, you know, took the lead late. The drive that preceded that for the bills, I think he had Shakir, but he got bumped into. It's not the time he looked like he heard his hand. It was another time. So, I don't know, even if that counts as a pressure, but like his lineman, kind of like the Dawkins play from the Chief Playoff game a couple years ago where Chris Jones pushes him into Alan. And that knocks him a little bit and it makes the throw Aaron. There was one of those. But yeah, man, I mean, he really, he operated a lot more cleanly. That more cleanly than I would have ever expected. Let's go to Chris here. Hi Chris. Hey, I was going guys. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. Hey, listen, I just want to say great play by Greg Russo.

19:33Von Miller called it out a few years ago saying this guy's going to be the guy. I'm just hoping that this resolves a 30 year problem of having a Bruce Smith on the line that can dial one up in the games on the line. What's the problem or just the bills not having a all time great pass rusher, you mean that part? Yeah, well, no, I just mean like it seemed like back in the day, Bruce Smith game on the line when we needed that play, he could dial it up. Yeah, he's the best ever. He was the best ever. Absolutely. Yeah, you're not always going to have the best ever. So, but Russo came through big yesterday. I mean, the both he and Dion Walker, like what I think you really want. Look, I don't think the bills will see how this all unfurls with Jim Leonard. You know, maybe they end up with some just hair on fire, hell raising defense. Even with this personnel or maybe it takes a draft or two, whatever, but they a lot did not go right for them on that side.

20:38They gave a lot of yards, they have a lot of third downs, they gave up this gave up a lot. But the game is on the line and Dion Walker beats the doors off his guy to like set Houston back right away. They got to burn a time out of them. Russo wins. So, and that's not even that's really not Leonard versus McDermott passive versus aggressive. That's just the guys one like both of those guys's job would have been the same last year or for the case of Russo is entire career. Go beat your guy, get to the quarterback. Murray's lining up might be different and that could impact it. But as far as Walker goes, he's in the middle of the defensive line and he just he just drummed his guy and made a play. Well, also Russo had a great start to the game. I mean, he has two, two tackles on running plays. If I remember right, maybe one was a a shroud stop. But then you have a fumble on the third play too. Like the first three plays, he was bookends. He did it. Yeah, but come on. Thank you, Chris.

21:38Like, I don't know. Don't we have a book on Russo? Like, don't we? Maybe it's different. Maybe they'll be different. Different views. Yeah, I don't know. Different numbers. Different, you know, weights in some cases. I think probably it's because I gave myself the credit yesterday for Russo because of that blackjack tournament we played in together. Oh, I see. And I feel like he gained some confidence from that. That probably was why he's not Bruce Smith. The color didn't say he was Bruce Smith. But I mean, yeah, we haven't had the best defensive and pass rusher in history for 40 years. Correct. 30 years. Correct. But that's not a fair comp for any player, you know. All he's saying there, I think was. Like, it's nice to see somebody make a play in the ass. Right. That's right. And that can write a lot of wrongs for you. You know, I mean, most of these games, you know, they had one guy who called us yesterday. Like, I just would have liked them to be in more control and more like, oh, so you wanted them to be ahead by 15 points all game long.

22:42I mean, that happens sometimes when you play the jets. Usually or some other like Carolina last year, it's just like very early. Like, wow, rocking chair, city, no stress at all. That's not usually how it's going to go. No, that's why I said first about this game yesterday is I just don't think we have the right to ask for anything more than that. And they easily could have lost any one of those bounces. If the last hitter, if he just makes an interception, maybe you would have made, you know, assuming you get down there. Like he was down there. Right. You'd have to run all that distance. But if somehow I just get to be standing there, I catch that ball. Yeah, you're just standing there. I can catch that ball. You might, you know, yeah. If that happens, where are we today? Like, no, we're not, phones are off the hook with how easily they got gassed in the air and just whatever else you want to pick at. That's not what happened. I mean, that's, I feel like they got away with one yesterday because of the turnover bounces and the drop there at the end by Houston.

23:48Yeah, no, we're, we're, if the, if the last hitter picks that pass off, we're at like, oh, great. You want to be bold and you want to challenge air it out and like you were in position to kick a go ahead field goal. And it's Drake May on Wednesday night in Seattle. Like it's not, you know, it's, it's close enough anyway. You cost your team a chance. In that case, it was to tie the game. In this case, it would have been to go ahead. You, you know, you wouldn't have been in, I wouldn't have felt great about kicking a field goal there because now they can still beat you with a goal. And they easily got into field goal range. The fact that they needed to touch down is why you got the, the plays you got from Rousseau because they're not even trying to throw anymore. If they're down there, they're just running the clock down to zero and just run, you know, basically kneeling. They, I mean, we don't have to go forward with this, but just like also, however, they would have been playing with the lead. And what you got there from Houston on that last drive was they were aggressive and they made a couple plays through the air. Even maybe one on, you know, I guess there wasn't a four down play.

24:50They, they would have had to run out the clock on the probably and that's what they couldn't do previously. Like they had a drive with the lead, the drive before that. The bills punt down 31 30 with 545 left. And Houston goes to ring out, run, run, dump off to Schultz. You know, you might have gotten that from Houston after the last hit or pick if there had been one. You know, conservative. That's what usually you get. Anyway, we don't know and it doesn't matter because none of that actually happened. Thanks again, Chris for the call 803 05 50 if you want to join us next. So yep, we're two to six now. I keep looking up there and it looks weird, but it's two. It's right, right? So, okay, we have Dion Dawkins Mondays starting today, four o'clock, all times Eastern. And Sal will join us at five. And that's it, right? That's the list that is who we've got on the show today.

25:51Okay. And it ends at six. And it ends at six. So, so hurry. Don't miss this opportunity. Get down to that store right now because tomorrow will be open again, but right now you need to call to action. All right. Mike's open the bulldog here. Bill's over the Texans yesterday a lot to talk about from it. We'll be back to do more of that after this break. This is WGR.