BLEAV in Bills: Taking care of an inferior opponent proved difficult
Sal Maiorana and Adam Benigni recap Buffalo’s victory over New Orleans.
ORCHARD PARK – Four weeks into the 2025 season and the Buffalo Bills are now the only 4-0 team in the AFC.
In fact, they are one of only two remaining unbeaten teams in the NFL as the Philadelphia Eagles stayed there by hanging on for a victory over the previously unbeaten Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Bills took care of business Sunday afternoon and defeated the New Orleans Saints 31-19 at Highmark Stadium, and elsewhere, the Los Angeles Chargers and Indianapolis Colts both lost, leaving the Bills alone atop the conference in the race for the No. 1 seed, a race that is never too early to start thinking about in the NFL.
As for the AFC East, the Bills are two games clear of the 2-2 New England Patriots, but they’ll be coming to Orchard Park next week looking to make it a race, and they’ll do so flying high after a 42-13 blowout over Carolina.
This is as dreamy a start as Buffalo could have ever imagined in terms of winning all its games, and seeing chaos everywhere else in the AFC including Baltimore falling to 1-3 with its one-sided loss to Kansas City.
All that said, the Bills have some things to clean up and they know it. This was a game that very nearly got away from them in the fourth quarter, but they leaned on their MVP quarterback to make two huge plays – one with his legs, one with his arm – to deliver the touchdown that helped put the victory away.
“Still a lot to work on,” coach Sean McDermott said, and he wasn’t lying. “That was a hard game, and we knew it was going to be tough. They’re all tough.”
Here’s how I graded the Bills’ performance:
PASS OFFENSE: B-
This wasn’t a highlight-reel day for Josh Allen, but that certainly doesn’t mean he wasn’t efficient and effective. He completed 16 of 22 for 209 yards with two touchdowns and, gasp, an interception, his first of the season and Buffalo’s first turnover in four games. However, Allen surpassed 100 yards in the first quarter for the 16th time in his career (including playoffs, and the Bills are 15-1 in those games), but you see how much of a production dropoff there was over the final three quarters.
He was under pressure as he was sacked three times, something that happened just once last season in their Week 4 blowout loss at Baltimore, and that was largely due to the absence of injured RT Spencer Brown as Ryan Van Demark struggled big time. The dropoff from Brown to Van Demark is monumental and while it was probably wise to rest Brown’s injured calf in this game, they need him back Sunday night when they host the Patriots.
Keon Coleman started well with two catches for 37 yards on the Bills’ second touchdown drive, but then was muted the rest of the day with just one other catch. Khalil Shakir made a great play on his 43-yard catch-and-run TD, and he had a couple of key third-down receptions. Curtis Samuel finally played though he had just one catch for nine yards, and it was another mostly quiet day for Joshua Palmer who has not made the impact we were expecting.
As for the TEs, a very quiet day until Dalton Kincaid got wide open down the sideline to reel in a 28-yard TD pass with 7:07 left that put the game away. It was his only catch while Dawson Knox was shutout.
RUN OFFENSE: A-
James Cook went over 100 yards for the third straight game as he finished with 117 and a 5.3 average. All day, Cook kept the Bills ahead of the sticks with productive runs and while he had 22 carries, this felt like a game where he probably should have had a few more.
Ray Davis and Ty Johnson gave the Bills nothing and that’s becoming something to pay attention to. Last year they provided solid reps when Cook needed a rest but that hasn’t happened in 2025.
Allen ripped off a huge 27-yard run on a scramble midway through the fourth which was the Bills longest run, and that was a major play because it came on third-and-5, and on the next snap he hit Kincaid for the TD.
PASS DEFENSE: B+
Spencer Rattler threw for just 126 yards with a long of 17 so that needs to be recognized here. However, he’s Spencer Rattler and he’s not someone you expect is going to light up your defense. For the most part, the coverage in the back seven was solid and that was evidenced by Chris Olave being held to 20 yards on three catches.
And of course, Olave was the guilty party when his throwback pass to Rattler on a trick play down by the goal line was intercepted by Cole Bishop who made an outstanding athletic play to recognize what was happening, and then get over to make an acrobatic catch.
The Bills caught a break in the fourth quarter when Brandin Cooks got wide open in the end zone for what would have been a go-ahead TD, but Rattler did not throw an accurate pass and Cooks couldn’t reel it in.
The pass rush was spotty as usual and there were several times where the Bills dialed up pressure but didn’t get there and allowed Rattler to escape for scramble yards. The Bills had three sacks, but two came on the final Saints’ possession by AJ Epenesa and Joey Bosa when it was obvious they were throwing.
CB Tre’Davious White ceded snaps to Dorian Strong, and that might become a pattern to follow in the weeks to come.
RUN DEFENSE: D
Bills defense had some issues stopping Saints running game
Sean McDermott said the Bills had some problems with their gap integrity against the Saints as New Orleans ran for 189 yards.
The Bills came in with the worst run defense in the NFL in terms of yards per game and that won’t change as the Saints rolled up 189 and averaged 5.6 per attempt. Tackling was an issue, as was gap integrity and the Saints deserve credit for exploiting those weaknesses.
One player who flashed again was rookie DT Deone Walker who had three tackles, two of which were for lost yardage. Walker has done a nice job of helping the Bills deal with the continued absence of Ed Oliver in the middle of the line, but on the flip side, his fellow rookie TJ Sanders has been invisible.
SPECIAL TEAMS: C
Buffalo Bills survive ‘tough game’ against Saints to stay unbeaten
Josh Allen and James Cook helped the Buffalo Bills get past the surprisingly tough New Orleans Saints.
It was a relatively quiet day in the kicking game, no glaring mistakes but nothing that particularly stood out, either. There was a holding penalty on Reid Ferguson that gave the Saints a drive start at the Buffalo 49, and Shaq Thompson had a penalty in the fourth quarter as the Bills were flagged a season-high 11 times overall.
Punter Cameron Johnston was not good as his 36.5 net average on two punts helped contribute to the field advantage in field position the Saints enjoyed most of the game. Their average drive start was their own 39.
Curtis Samuel did some good work on kickoff returns with a 27.3 average on three attempts, while Shakir fielded one punt cleanly. They were back on kicks because Brandon Codrington was inactive.
Matt Prater just keeps chugging along as he made all four of his extra points, a 35-yard field goal, and he did a nice job on kickoffs, even blasting one through for a touchback late when the Bills were content to give up the 35 free yards.
COACHING: C
This was, operationally, a sloppy game for the Bills. They wasted a timeout in the first half which isn’t a crime, but wasting two in the second half on defense is essentially an NFL felony. You just can’t do that and McDermott admitted afterward the Bills were fortunate they didn’t need timeouts at the end of the game.
The 11 penalties were a mess that has to be dealt with, and the missed tackles and lack of gap integrity on defense is another black eye on this game. In many ways, the Bills were lucky they were playing the winless Saints.
Joe Brady’s three-play sequence at midfield early in the fourth quarter which led to a turnover on downs could have been a huge talking point had the Bills lost this game. But in general, I thought Brady called a decent enough game and when the gun sounded, the Bills were over 30 points for the fourth straight week.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, he has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.