By Nick Wojton / Billswire.usatoday.com
The Bills took an important 20-3 AFC win against the Denver Broncos in Week 12 which saw an all-around effort from both the offense, and certainly the defense.
With that, here’s our latest stock report on the Bills following their win over the Broncos:
Stock up
CB Tre’Davious White
A week after a suspect outing for Tre’Davious White, which saw Dolphins receiver DeVante Parker muster up 100-plus yards against Buffalo’s defense, things were completely locked down. The secondary, as a whole, played well and was led by White. He had an interception and while following Courtland Sutton around at times, White shutdown the No. 1 wideout. On eight targets, Sutton had one catch for 27 yards on the Broncos’ opening drive. It looked like there was supposed to be some help over the top and the Broncos happened to find an opening in Buffalo’s zone defense. They didn’t find many more after.
DE Shaq Lawson
For the second time in his career, Shaq Lawson had a two-sack outing. His speed around the edge gave him an open look for his first takedown of Denver quarterback Brandon Allen, while his second came via a move to the middle of the Broncos’ offensive line. Lawson is now up to five sacks this season, a single-season career-high for him. He’ll look to continue adding to that as the season progresses, which will help him build his resume as free agency approaches for him.
QB Josh Allen
Josh Allen still didn’t hit the 300-yard passing mark. In fact, he wasn’t close. But it felt like he was just about there. In total, Allen was 15-for-25 passing for 185 yards. His interception-less streak came to end at five games after an errant throw over the middle, but Allen added two impressive touchdown passes as well. One was a seam pass to Cole Beasley, which he delivered while being hit, and the other was the long-awaited deep ball. His 34-yard strike to John Brown iced the game. Oh yeah, and 56 yards rushing which we neglected to mention because his passing stood out so much. Allen now has to consistency deliver such performances.
RB Devin Singletary
Buffalo’s rookie playmaker has his first 100-yard outing of his career. Against the Broncos, Singletary surpassed that century plateau with a 106-yard rushing game which came via 21 carries. That’s an average of five yards per carry. Once again, Singletary took more carries than his counterpart, Frank Gore, who also had an impressive day. It included some history for Gore, as he passed Barry Sanders for third all-time on the NFL’s rushing list.
Via Allen and Singletary, the Bills had an all-around effort which came via two youthful players, making it feel a bit sweeter.
WR Cole Beasley
Not youthful (sorry, Cole), but receiver Cole Beasley took the reigns for the Bills’ wideout room. John Brown had a productive game with 39 yards on two catches with a touchdown, but Beasley surpassed him.
We’ve gotten the catches from Beasley. Even some scores. What didn’t come was both of those together. The Bills got exactly that against the Broncos. Beasley had six catches for 76 yards with his mentioned touchdown. Easier said than done, but Beasley will look to continue that momentum against the his former team, the Cowboys, on Thursday.
P Corey Borjorquez
Even the special teamers came to play against the Broncos. Specifically, the punter.
Corey Bojorquez was only asked to boot the ball four times, but all four landed in a good position for the Bills. Those four started the Broncos out at the 13, 18, 11 and 10 yard lines. Not the heaviest workload for a kicker in a game, but credit where it’s due. The sometimes shaky-lefty kicker was consistent against Denver.
Cody Ford & the offensive line
A big day for Von Miller against a rookie? Not so fast. The Bills only passed the ball 25 times in a league where 40-plus is the norm. And yes, Miller did have a sack in the outing. But it could’ve been much, much worse.
Ty Nsekhe was sidelined due to an ankle injury, and Ford, who’s had his far share of struggles, played the whole contest. Ford looked good and the offensive line didn’t really ever look terrible. Allen made one remarkable escape out of a broken play in the game, but stood tall in the pocket multiple times and the running back couldn’t have done their job without this whole unit. The Bills averaged 5.2 yards per carry as a team.
Stock down
Coaching/ penalties
So it wasn’t all perfect for the Bills.
Penalties fall on coaching and Buffalo had a big total of those. The Bills had 12 total penalties which negated 90 total yards. In recent weeks the Bills have cleaned that up. In the past three games, respectively, the Bills have had seven, five and two penalties a game, respectively. The Bills had nine penalties in their first meeting with the Dolphins in Week 7 coming out of their bye, and their 12 against Denver was the most they’ve taken since then.
Red zone offense early
For the second week in a row, Buffalo offensive coordinator Brian Daboll called his plays to Josh Allen from the coaches booth upstairs in the stadium, as opposed to the sideline. The play-calling wasn’t a criticism of the Bills once again this week, however, Buffalo’s red zone offense early didn’t get the job done. That let the Broncos stick around. Having said that, Denver did enter the game as the No. 4 defense in the NFL.
The Bills settled for two Stephen Hauschka field goals early. He converted, which is good, but overall, the Bills were 1-for-3 in this category and will want to be better than that. To their credit, the Bills did enter the game as the third-best red zone team in the NFL, but they’re slowly slipping back a bit because they were the best team at one point.