BILLS DESTROY PANTHERS, JAMES COOK CAREER DAY

BILLS DESTROY PANTHERS, JAMES COOK CAREER DAY

James Cook was electric. No doubt. And this hurts. Dan was right. This is the Buffalo Plus podcast. Welcome back to the Buffalo Plus YouTube channel. Mike Catalana. I am Jenna Kautrol. Dan Fates in Rochester. Please be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share. Mike, what a win. The Bills dominating the Panthers 40 to9. James Cook, a career afternoon. Great day from the defense. The offense gets on track. What was your takeaway from what we witnessed here in Charlotte? That Dan got what he wanted. Dan wanted a blowout. Dan, you got a blowout. They did. They dominated in all phases. There’s a few things I have concerns about, but look, it’s hard to complain. 40 to9, James Cook got the ball, was awesome. The defense was all over a very bad quarterback and Andy Dalton, but they dominated him. And I thought they played the run better. The young guys played, the new guys played. Like, it was a get-right game. It was the biggest get-right game they could have, at least to this point, against a team that they they should have dominated. Didn’t that feel good though? Like we talked about, hey, if the Bills just need to get a win, whatever, but to have them come down to Charlotte after the buy, we knew they didn’t play well before. And to have them just be so good in so many phases of the game. And look, I know the Chiefs are coming to Orchard Park coming up, but it just seemed nice for this team to get some confidence after what they did out here today. I said during the week, I just wanted to see them be better. and whatever the result was, if it was they were good, they were going to be good. And I think we all got what we wanted because they were a lot better. They were better against the run. They were dominant in the past uh rush. Those young guys all got to play or new guys got to play and they were smart on offense. James Cook, I I swear, Jenna, he could have had 300 if they left him in the game. Don’t you think? Absolutely. It was so cool to watch because we’ve talked about James Cook so much on this channel and just how dynamic he is. And we talked about before this game, James Joey Brady to have the game plan you wanted would be to give James Cook the ball early and often. And you saw you talk about he could have had 300 yards. What he is able to do. I always love too just the reaction from his teammates. James Cook a career day 19 carries. How many yards? 20 what? 14 yards. Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. And you know he did it with a with a bomb. The 65 64 yder. He’s been so close to doing that and then he did it and then he put the game away. And did you notice how many times they ran that like toss sweep, that’s like a that’s like a college play, but whatever they saw against the Panthers defense and this Panthers defense had been good against the run. Dion mentioned that to me, talked to him in the locker room and and he about how they did it and he goes, “You know, we looked at the numbers. We knew this team had been really stingy against the run. Took it as a challenge. They saw some things and it was good to see the offensive line. Now after the game, Shawn McDermott was asked about it and our friend Sal Mayorana asked him says, “We know you love the run game.” And Shawn pushed back on that. He just was like, I never really remember saying, “I love the run game cuz you know he loves the physical brand of football. He also loves when James Cook gets 200 yards.” Yeah. But I think he loved that it was working and it was and they made Cook and Cook made them all look so much better. He talked about it’s that physicality. It’s that attitude. He said the word attitude of like what that does, imposing your will, those types of things. Sean McDermott said, “I love physical football.” Which made me crack up. James started out his press conference, too. The classy move, thanking his O line, and I think it does start up there. Yeah, Aaron Chromemer deserves a lot of credit. This line was ready to play. This line was not great the last couple of weeks, but when you’re running it well, they’re not coming at you with a blitz. I mean, you want the negative, the pass game’s just not good enough. And it was plenty good enough to beat the Panthers. Yeah, they were terrible. Andy Dalton looked like a rookie who had never played before. He did so many stupid things in this game that made it easier. So, when I say that, they didn’t really need it, but for a while, I mean, the pass game was doing nothing. Then Shakir made his play to put it away. So, so that part was was not great, and it’s going to need to be better. Yeah, but to your point to get back to running it the O line and Dion says, “Man, we like it when we’re going forward.” That’s what he said. We like it when we’re running the ball. And I thought they were great at doing and only 19 carries. Yeah. I mean, 11.8 yards a carry. Like ridiculous. He was fantastic. Kyle Shakir, you mentioned his touchdown. Uh, I just think we we we joke about him being the yak king, but when you’re looking for playmakers, pass catchers to make an impact. I feel like KL Shakir has done a great job of just showcasing why he is the player that he is. And I’m only going to say this because it’s a blowout and it’s great and you guys should you enjoy it because he needed a game like this. I still don’t think Josh is right yet. I mean, he missed Elijah Moore’s. Oh, no. It was a great play call. They brought Moore in late in the play clock. Comes in. They I think they changed the play. He does under center play action. Moore is wide open. He missed him by like now maybe the ball slipped out of his hands. I don’t know if he said anything in the news conference cuz I was in the locker room, but like that wasn’t great. They weren’t able to get the ball to the outside. He did not throw it particularly well, but then Shakir picked up for him, took it to the house, then it opened up a little bit. Then he started to get the ball out there. And I’m only picking on that because we know they got the Chiefs coming up and they’re going to need to score against a much better team, but for this game it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter cuz Cook was so good. Yeah. No, I mean, he he was excellent. We can talk a little bit too. I just Keon Coleman, someone I had my eye on entering this game. What would it look like? You know, we we talked about at the buy how we wanted to see more from him. I thought it was a pretty pedestrian day. like look, they didn’t they didn’t need him, but you mentioned earlier on it felt like the Bills were able to move the ball pretty well and then early it was like the red zone as soon as they got there it just all fell apart for this team. You mentioned Josh too who took that really bad sack. Yeah. Earlier on. Do you feel like like how concerned are you about I mean the Bills dominated, but where where do you think of that? Yeah, I’m concerned about it going forward against the better teams and it’s Josh freaking Allen right now. We don’t know if anything’s going to happen at the trade deadline. There were times and you’re down on the field. I’m looking cuz we are sitting up high and I don’t see a lot of guys wide open. Now, all of you are going to pick those plays where you say, “Oh, I think Shavers was open here or Keon, but he didn’t look confident in throwing those passes.” I think that will come. I think days like this help because it takes the pressure off of Josh. And but I think if you’re watching that game, you’re like, man, I want to see the passing game be better. That that’s my only criticism from today was that the passing game just looked eh when they needed it in the first half when they still needed it. But man, Andy Dalton, he takes that sack before half. I You have no timeouts left. Throw it away. Kick the field goal and then he fumbles and he fumbled again. I He was really bad, but the Bills took advantage of that and blew him out. He was ass, was he not? I literally I saw your tweet. Andy Dalton’s really bad. Dan tweeted out Andy Dalton’s really really bad. I wanted to be like Andy Dalton is ass. But oh my voice. But we we got to give credit to the defense, the Bills defense. We also have to give credit to Jenna Katrol. She’s a gamer right now. On a scale of 1 to 10, how you feeling? I don’t feel great. I don’t I I have a throat issue. Like my throat is sore. You can probably start to hear it. But uh but it was nice here. So many Bills fans. All right, let’s let’s talk about the defense, though. They played they played very well. Like Josh’s grandmother. Gamer. That hurt. Yeah. Well, I guess I just compared you to Josh’s grandmother. I meant more about being the gamer and going through. Um I don’t care. I think that’s cool. It is cool. So, like I said, they got that done. Now on defense, I love the fact that Max Haristston played. I love the fact that it was a regular rotation. Like Trey started, then he came in. He looked the part. You guys all saw the play he made in the run game. He came up, he talked about, he goes, “That’s what really got me going.” I talked to him. I said, “When did you know you were going to play during the week?” And he’s like, “Well, when I started to get more snaps in practice, I thought I’m going to be out there.” Credited all his teammates. Said he had the greatest time of his life being out there. He is a a joyful kid to talk to. He’s just it’s had to be hard for him to be standing there watching. And look, it ramps up now, but it was great to get him out there. And I have not seen a Bills game where they were rotating so many players. I’m not talking about the end of the game when it’s over. I love seeing Jordan Hancock out there playing. It’s Puyer and Hancock as the two safeties. So, it was good to see. And then the other guys all got their time. Yeah, I thought that was cool. Also earlier on you had Shaq Thompson out there. We know Terrell Bernard was active but did not play but you had Thompson calling the defense. A lot of Joanne Trees we saw Dorian Williams like going more to that. Um I just thought overall too that the defensive line I mean AJ Eanessa what a day. That was that was cool. Phenomenal playmaker. I said they should put him on offense because AJ makes plays. He was a little disappointed that he didn’t get in the end zone. He said he was hearing it from everybody. I I think Rico Dael had two tackles in the game which might have led the Panthers. I’m not sure cuz he got him there right before the goal line, but he was he makes a play. Goes up, tips the ball. We’ve seen him. He did it in Washington that time. Took it to the house. Um he was good. My boy was great. I thought this was Russo’s best game. He was huge in this game. I It is so funny because as soon as Greg Russo does anything, I’m like Mike’s smiling. I’m like trying to find the press box to do a wave. But Hoy is closing in on him for sacks. I think it’s like two to one and a half or something like that. Yeah. One game. He wasn’t out there for the garbage time ones. Okay. Otherwise, he could have piled up some more numbers. So, I’m going to add two more sacks to Greg’s total. No, you can’t you can’t do that. Yeah, he was he was really good. He made that play, forced the fumble. Again, h I I these stats do count when it’s against Andy Dalton, but he was bad. But but Greg made those plays. He was good against the run because they really shut the run down. So, it was good to see all those guys play. Now, you mentioned, it’s funny, it was no Milano and no uh Bernard. So, those are their number one and two guys, right at Ben. Shaq’s been so good, you didn’t miss him in the game. You didn’t. And I’m wondering if they’re doing this that both of them are going to be ready to play next week because I wouldn’t blame them. Yeah. I don’t know if you how much you want to take Shaq off the field cuz he’s been really good. He’s been very good. Also, Michael Hoy, Larry Oenjobi, we talked about those guys and what they could add and we said, you know, make sure you’re not putting too high of expectations and I still don’t want to do that, but I think you saw the impact of what veteran guys could be to this defensive line. Got a lot of juice, as they say. He Hoy is out there. He’s a talker. He’s he was saying, you know, it was hard for him to wait. I think Larry’s a little more laid-back. You know, he plays a different position, too. I I like the way they used to now. It’ll look different next week against the Chiefs, but like a standup pass rusher move to the middle of the field. We can talk about the downside, though, too. Yeah, Ed’s out and it it didn’t look good. It didn’t look good. I was on the sidelines. I saw Ed and immediately, you know, he’s holding his bicep and you’re like, ah, I don’t know. And he immediately walked off the field. The trainers went right into the tent and then for the rest of the game, he had a sweatshirt on, but he had a sling on, you could tell under his sweatshirt. Um Sean Mcder said postgame there’s no update, but my thought process is he was immediately ruled out. You never want to see that. And it’s it’s sad to think that the Bills could be without Ed Oliver for a while. Yeah. Uh if you follow Pro Football Doc on social media, he’s usually pretty accurate. He thinks it could be the type of injury that Ed could come back for the playoffs, like that type of thing. Now, we don’t know for sure, but to your point, like he leaves, he couldn’t really move the arm. Like, you could tell right away, and then boom, blue tent right to the locker room and immediately ruled out like you said. So, that’s when you knew that’s going to be tough. I know the trade deadline’s coming up. I think they need another DTackle. I mean, you get Larry Oen Joby back and then obviously Ed. I on the sidelines, Ed, I was just kind of watching his body language. He seemed pretty happy, but also the Bills were rolling. So, I don’t know if it was a it was that or if he’s like, “Okay, I’m I’m injured, but it’s not season ending.” It’s hard to tell. I just That’s kind of kind of what I was seeing was he seemed like he was still in a very good mood. Pam Oliver from Fox was on the sidelines and I wasn’t there, but one of the other guys said she looked at Ed and said, “How you doing?” And he’s like, “Oh, I’m good. I’m good.” Good maybe meaning like I have a good life. I’m happy. Uh I love my horses. He didn’t say, “Oh, by the way, Mr. Oliver, how was the game?” No, no, he didn’t say that. But look, if they they’re going to miss him. They’re going to miss him out there. So, we’ll see what happens. I do want to bring up uh there was some talk on Twitter during the game if Shawn McDermott was calling the defense. Shawn was asked after the game if he was calling the defense. And he said essentially it’s a combination. It’s We’re What did he say? He said, “Bobby and I call the games together together.” He didn’t I want I I quote I tweeted it because he said it. He said Bobby and I have done it together. Bobb’s a great coach and I know he’s always been involved, but if he was, I felt like he was in the second half of the Atlanta game. And if you look at the second half in the Atlanta game today, they’ve been much better. I think that first half of the Atlanta game shook everybody because it was so bad. I’m not blaming this all on Bobby Babage. They also got more guys on the field. They rotated players and the quarterback was terrible on the Panthers. I get all that. Shawn’s involved in calling the plays. There’s no doubt in my mind. I I agree. Now, I was on the sidelines and it’s, you know, you’re watching the game, you’re watching Sean while it’s going on. You know, he’s talking obviously with a headset. He had the play sheet, but also like that’s normal. Like that’s what we see all the time. So, it’s kind of hard to tell because he’s always is involved it seems. But for him to say together and then to follow up with Bobb’s a good coach, I don’t know. That’s that’s something to watch moving forward. And I I get why Sean would say that if if he is calling the defense and I don’t know if he is, but I get why you would say we’re doing it together. That way you don’t make a headline of of what it reminds me of the way Andy Reid always is with the offense. Like sometimes he’ll say, “Oh, this coordinator, this guy’s calling the plays and he’s involved.” It’s Andy’s. This is Shawn’s defense. Bobby’s the guy. But let’s be honest, it it hasn’t been great. And that’s why I said I’m not blaming it all on Bobby. They have not played well enough. did not tackle well enough. He was pissed off in the byee and it’s now nine in a row after the byee. They looked like a much more buttoned up team in this game and they they did dominate physically which was all good and if his hand is in the defense I mean Bobby knows what Shawn wants but I think the experience maybe is helping him. So let’s see how it plays out. I was very curious how this team would respond after the by-week because it could have been a situation where, oh, we’re the Bills, we’ll be fine. We can roll the ball out there. We can win. It doesn’t matter. I was very happy with what we saw on the field. And in terms of the buyin, it seemed of like, hey, we need to be better. We know that we’re better than how we’ve been. And I I gotta admit that I get what Dan was talking about. Yeah. Because it’s 40 to9. Yeah. And they feel better. Yeah. And they needed to feel better. You needed to feel better. I think everybody who’s watching or covering this team feels a little bit better about them. I just don’t extrapolate it past this. But I I agree. It’s also though what to me and we kind of talked about this off the air of like this will say a lot about what the team believes in Shawn if they if they’re going to listen to him if they’re going to and today we had a a statement in terms of that. Now you’re right does that mean the Bills are going to win next week against the Chiefs? No, we don’t know that. But it was nice to see the response from the team because you know Shawn was definitely on them over the buy of like we need to be better. Here’s how we need to do that. So I thought that buyin was really important. Yeah. No, I agree with you. And like it all changes next week, but it’ll be fun back at home. It’s gonna be a fun week for everybody to get ready for the Chiefs. By the way, while we’re saying that, I want to mention if you’re in the Rochester area, the Distillery on Thursday night, we will be there 5 till 7 and then 7 to 8 doing the live podcast. So, stop by. It’s on Mount Hope Avenue, iconic bar in Rochester. So, we will be there. Dan, Jenna, and myself. I’m saying Jenna. She’s right here next to me. The three of us will be there on Thursday. Then we got another one the next week and another one coming up after that. But come to Rochester or watch it on the YouTube channel. Yeah, we would love to see you there. All right, the Bills 5-2. They head into the Chiefs next. But how important was this win as a team? I mean 5-2 is important that the Patriots won today as well. So where is this team at? They had to win this game. They’re five and two and they got the Chiefs. My god, if you go beat the Chiefs now, all that stuff comes back in the one seed and winning the division and all that stuff because in Foxboro, they’re sitting there going, they’re rooting for the Chiefs. How’s that? They’re rooting for the Chiefs in that game. That would be big for them. This is this is a bit of a feel-good game to that point. So, no, this was huge for them on the scoreboard to win and then to win in a dominant fashion, I think made them feel better. I’m excited about the rotations on the defense. I think it’s going to continue. I think it’ll make Trey White a better player if he’s got it. And I’m going to call a shot here. I think Max is getting a pick next week against Mahomes. Wow. I think Max is getting a pick. They didn’t really test him that much in this game. No. Uh it was a couple throws towards him. The good pressure. I’m calling it out. I think Max Harrison, the rookie, is getting a pick next week. Get ready, Momes. That’s terrifying. I know. Well, you heard it here first, I guess. I guess. Right. Okay. Anything else we want? Oh, shout out. Yes. What do you got? We had a lot of people say hi to us, which is always really cool. Um, we want to give a shout out to Joe and Tris from Charlotte. They were awesome. They were awesome. They had their sign. They’re here and they’re like, “We rep the Bills everywhere we go.” And they love the channel. So, that was cool to see. We were trying to do a selfie and if you don’t know this about me, I’m not good with technology. And so, I was like, “All right, yeah, it was it was bad.” But Joe and Tris, thank you for shouting us out. We always appreciate it. All right, that’ll do it for us here in Charlotte. The Bills five and two on the season for Mike Catalana. I’m Jenna Kotrol. Dan Fates back in Rochester. Please be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share. We will catch you next time here on the Buffalo Plus. I was so close. Buffalo Plus. Your voice cracks like Joe Brady’s voice in Hard Knocks. Buffalo Plus. My voice has also gotten progressively lower throughout this video. Just thank you. Bye. This is the Buffalo Plus podcast.

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The Buffalo Bills are BACK in a big way!
Buffalo dominated the Panthers 40–9 in one of their most complete performances of the season. We break down how James Cook led the charge with a huge day, what clicked for the offense, and what this win means moving forward.

Plus — is this the statement game the Bills needed? What stood out on defense? And can they carry this momentum into next week?

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