Despite five costly turnovers and uncharacteristic errors, Buffalo escaped with a gritty home victory fueled by Greg Rousseau’s relentless pass rush and James Cook’s resilient ground game.
It was all set up for the Buffalo Bills to move to 3-0. They were coming off back-to-back games where the offense put up 36 points or more; Josh Allen was playing at an MVP level; they were at home against an 0-2 team in the Los Angeles Chargers; and they were favored by 7.5 points. Naturally, it was a game the Bills should easily win.
Of course, that's not what happened.
The Bills made mistake after mistake on both sides of the ball. Whether it was the three Allen turnovers, the 3rd-and-longs given up by the defense, or the penalties that kept drives alive, everything that could go wrong did for Buffalo. But it's not about how you win, only that you do. And the Bills found a way to steal a game that many teams would lose, beating the Chargers 24-16 to move to 3-0 on the season.
Here are the positives and negatives from Buffalo's loss to Los Angeles.
Bills vs. Chargers Instant Reactions
Positives
Greg Rousseau - With yet another two-sack performance, Rousseau is on pace for 34 sacks this season. Will he get there? It's unlikely, but you can't help but be impressed with his start to the season. It's making my prediction of 11.5 sacks for the season look like the low end.
Trusting Cook - It would've been easy to give James Cook limited touches after he fumbled on the first play of the game. That's not what head coach Joe Brady did. Instead, he kept feeding the NFL's leading rusher from a year ago. And he rewarded them with 154 yards and a touchdown on 24 carries. He's had over 100 yards rushing in back-to-back weeks.
DJ Moore - You could tell that his shoulder was bothering him all afternoon, but even while playing hurt, Moore had himself a strong game for Buffalo. He finished with 6 catches for 67 yards. No catch was bigger than his 16-yard catch on 3rd and 10 with just over three minutes left to play.
The first interception - He almost had one in the end zone earlier in the day, but C.J. Gardner-Johnson got it back in the 4th quarter. Reading Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert's eyes, Gardner-Johnson jumped a route at the Buffalo one, picking off the pass and running it back to near midfield. The Bills would take their first lead of the game on the ensuing drive.
Red Zone offense - The Bills continued their strong red zone offense, going 3-for-4 when inside the 20. This season, they're 9-of-12 in the red zone.
Just win, baby - When you lose the turnover battle 5-1, most teams are going to lose that game. Apparently, not the Bills. It made the game closer than it needed to be, but Buffalo has a two-game lead in the AFC East, with the 1-2 New England Patriots coming to town next weekend.
It's the first time the Bills have won a game after committing five turnovers since 1997 against the Indianapolis Colts. The quarterback of that team? Jim Harbaugh.
Negatives
More turnovers than a bakery - After no turnovers over the first two weeks, Allen had a game he'll want to forget. Two interceptions and a fumble gave the Chargers short fields numerous times. And you can't forget James Cook's opening-play fumble and Dalton Kincaid's fumble that ended a promising Bills drive.
Penalties - It doesn't matter who's the coach; Buffalo just can't help itself when it comes to piling up penalties. Whether it was defensive penalties that negated interceptions or offensive ones that took away touchdowns that would've given the Bills the lead, it didn't matter.
There was a stretch during one drive where the Bills, instead of being set up with first and goal, took three straight holding penalties that made it 2nd and 26. Buffalo finished with 10 penalties for 88 yards.
2nd and 26 - This deserves its own section in the negatives. The Chargers were facing 2nd and 26 at the Buffalo 36. On 2nd down, Los Angeles picked up 11 yards to set up a 3rd and 15, which the Chargers picked up with a pass to the Bills' one.
Luckily, Los Angeles got into their own penalty troubles, leading to the drive stalling and ending in a field goal rather than a touchdown.
The "Chosen One's dropped interception - If you're going to call yourself the "Chosen One", you may want to come down with the ball when it's in your hands for an interception. Yes, it was a hard play to make, but you set yourself up when you give yourself a nickname like that.
Those jerseys - The "Nickel City" jerseys stink. Nothing about them look good. It's a shame they'll be wearing them again.
