Buffalo Bills

Dolphins Beat Bills: Three Takeaways

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

Dolphins beat Bills ending their four-game winning streak. Here are three takeaways from the game.

VS.

	1	2	3	4	T
Dolphins	3	3	8	13	28
Bills	3	7	7	8	25

Takeaway 1: LeSean McCoy should not have been in the game

LeSean McCoy injured his hamstring five days before the Bills squared off with the Miami Dolphins. There were some initial reports floating around that he wouldn’t be able to suit up, but he ended up being a game-time decision and the team thought he was healthy enough to play.

If you watched the game, it was obvious that he was not. He lacked the burst and cutback ability that has led to his success all season and throughout his career. He was pulled from the game after having issues with the hamstring and in hindsight, it seems like it was a bad idea to have played him in the first place.

Since the team decided to play McCoy, who was clearly at less than 100 percent, Bills number two running back Mike Gillislee never got a chance to get the Bills running game going. Gillislee didn’t get his first carry of the game until 3:41 left in the first half and only managed to get five total carries on the game.

Buffalo only rushed the ball 22 times against Miami and Tyrod Taylor was their leading rusher with 35 yards on seven carries. The week before they rushed the ball 44 times which is a much better recipe for success for the team especially considering the injuries they have at wide receiver and their struggles in the passing game.

Putting their best player at risk to re-aggravate his hamstring injury was a poor decision and it should have never happened.

Takeaway 2: Miami Outmatched the Bills in the trenches

The Dolphins won the battle in the trenches this past week. The Miami offensive line created huge holes for Jay Ajayi who became just the fourth running back in NFL history to rush for over 200 yards in back to back weeks.

The last player to do it, Ricky Williams, was also a Miami Dolphin. The other two players to accomplish this feat are two of the greatest backs to ever play the game, Earl Campbell and former Buffalo Bill O.J. Simpson. O.J. is the only player to do it twice which happened in the 1973 and 1976 seasons.

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The Bills defense was a bit too aggressive in pursuing the run and constantly overshot their gaps. It felt like watching the reverse of prior weeks where the Bills were the ones rushing on other teams who couldn’t contain Buffalo’s rushing attack. There were a couple runs up the middle including draws which hurt Buffalo and were reminiscent of their rushing performance last week against San Francisco.

On the other side of the ball, Miami’s defensive line was able to consistently get pressure on Tyrod Taylor. Jordan Mills could not contain Cameron Wake, Ndamukong Suh wreaked havoc on the center of the Bills line and former Buffalo Bill, Mario Williams actually tried for once and had two tackles which were both for a loss and a quarterback hit to boot. He did most of his work in the second half but he certainly got his revenge on his former team.

Buffalo was “bullied” in the trenches and it was a disappointing performance for both their offensive and defensive lines.

Takeaway 3: The Buffalo Bills flat out couldn’t tackle the Dolphins

Imagine how San Francisco 49ers fans felt after the Bills rushed for 312 yards against them last week. LeSean McCoy made several players miss and broke many tackles on his way to 140 yards and three touchdowns. Well, that got a lot easier to imagine after seeing Jay Ajayi put up over 200 yards rushing against Buffalo.

Jay Ajayi torched the Bills for 214 yards on 28 carries for a 7.6 yard per carry average. While Ajayi had great blocking in front of him, it was his ten broken tackles that really hurt the Bills. According to Pro Football Focus, he averaged 4.4 yards after contact which is just absurd.

You could point to the fact that the Bills offense was unable to sustain drives leaving the defense gassed and on the field for over 37 out of the 60 minutes in the game. While a fair point, this is not an excuse for Buffalo’s poor tackling on Sunday.

They failed to wrap up Ajayi and on too many occasions they hit the back half-heartedly. It wasn’t enough to trip up the back or bring him the ground. There were a few plays where Buffalo slowed up Ajayi but he was able to push a pile of Bills defenders backward in order to gain several more yards.

Rex Ryan has talked about wanting to “build a bully” with his team after coming to Buffalo, but the Bills were the ones who were bullied on Sunday by a much more physical team in Miami.

At the end of the day, Buffalo made it a close game and came within three points by the finish. Despite that fact, it was obvious the Dolphins were the better team on Sunday. The Bills were coming off four straight wins and it’s tough to keep a streak like that going in the NFL with so much parity between teams.

Buffalo is now faced with the hardest part of their schedule with games against New England, Seattle, and Cincinnati coming up. If the Bills want to remain in the playoff hunt they are going to need to resume the role of the “bully” over the next three weeks rather than the “bullied”.