Game of the Week

This is now the fourth week in a row that we’ve had a bird-team in the GOTW and the second week in a row that it’s been Kyler Murray’s bird-team. And make no mistake, this is his team. He is eighth in the league in rushing (not just quarterbacks), sixth in passing yards, ninth in completion percentage, and eighth in passing TDs. He is objectively a star and only in his second year. The biggest thing holding back this Cardinals team is the penalties. They lead the league in both the number of penalties and total penalty yards (interestingly enough they also lead the league in the number of penalties called in their favor).

The first half of this game was a kicker’s fever dream with six field goals. That said, all field goals are not created equal. The Bills’ defense had two monster defensive stands inside the 10-yard line, after letting the Cardinals drive the ball over 70 yards. Those drives resulted in Zane Gonzalez layups. On the other side of the ball, the Bills had a sixth-round draft pick out of Georgia Southern kicking personal bests THREE TIMES in just the first half. Tyler Bass started his day with a 54-, then a 55-, and then nailing a (!!) 59-yarder right before halftime. The biggest takeaway from this first half (besides being happy for Bass) is the lack of aggression from Klif. They kicked field goals from the 3- and the 5-yard lines with the aforementioned stellar Kyler Murray sitting on the sideline! Between that and all the penalties, there is plenty of room for improvement. </vent>

The third quarter saw the Bills pull ahead, and then let the Cardinals back into this game. After a handful of punts (including a 12 yarder) and each team failing to turn interceptions into points, the real game started. With about three and a half minutes on the clock, the Bills got the ball back after a bad interception on the previous drive trailing by three. Josh Allen did a great job of efficiently moving the ball and not giving up the big negative plays (he had a great stiff arm/throwaway early in the drive), and was helped out by Cole Beasley who had a highlight-reel one-handed catch as well as a key 2nd-and-13 conversion. Once they got inside field goal range, the Bills started getting very careful about the clock, getting out of bounds and burning a timeout, until all of a sudden Josh Allen delivers a 21-yard touchdown strike to Stefon Diggs to - by all appearances - win the game. Stefon got to bask in the limelight, high-fiving all of his teammates and explaining that was why he came to Buffalo… HOWEVA there were still 34 seconds on the clock…

Instead of working the sidelines from the get-go, Kyler connected on a few passes underneath, which moved them into the Bills side of the field but also burned their remaining timeouts. Then with 21 seconds on the clock, Kyler wasted 10 seconds searching downfield for what amounted to a short dump off to Larry Fitzgerald, who wisely got out of bounds after picking up the first down. That left 11 seconds just inside the 45-yard line. Enough for one or two throws at the endzone. He only needed one. Getting flushed from the pocket, Murray scrambled left, slipped a defender, and then uncorked a deep shot into the end zone. Somehow, someway, Deandre Hopkins (who is only 6’1”) levitated over the three surrounding defenders to come down with the “hail Murray” pass. Cardinals win (as does Jordan Brand)