Zero in on these 5 Bills against the Lions
· Yahoo Sports
Fresh off a thrilling 36-31 victory over the Houston Texans, the Buffalo Bills have little time to prepare for their 2026 home opener against the Detroit Lions. A Thursday night kickoff means that the Bills have but three off days before taking the field to begin play in Week Two. Fortunately, the Bills escaped Houston relatively healthy, which means that they’ll have nearly their full array of players available for what should be a great game.
The Bills were outstanding on offense last week, putting up 36 points on a Houston defense widely regarded as one of the best units in the league. Buffalo’s own stop unit, however, left plenty of room for improvement, and while they performed better as the game progressed, they still allowed nearly 400 yards of total offense, 26 first downs, and 36 minutes of possession.
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With that in mind, we have a slight slant towards the defensive side of the ball for this week’s five players to watch.
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RB James Cook III
Buffalo’s lead running back was the NFL’s leading rusher last year, and while he was efficient against a tough Texans run defense (13 carries, 57 yards), I’m looking for more out of him this week. Cook was active in the pass game, as he saw four targets to slot in behind DJ Moore, Dalton Kincaid, and Khalil Shakir in the pecking order. He caught three of those passes for just twelve yards. Cook dropped a pass late in the game when he heard the footsteps of linebacker Aziz Al’Shaiir coming.
He also narrowly averted disaster when he fumbled on the opening play of what would become Buffalo’s game-winning touchdown drive. Cook had a career-high six fumbles last year in the regular season, and the fumble he lost in Buffalo’s playoff loss to the Denver Broncos swung early momentum away from the Bills and back towards the home team while Buffalo was driving. Cook doesn’t have to put up superstar numbers every week, but watching him keep hold of the ball while scoring would be a nice way to kick off Week Two and his first game at the new Highmark Stadium.
LT Dion Dawkins
I’ll preface this with the positive: Buffalo’s offense line did a great job against the Texans last week, as they kept Josh Allen upright and gave him time to make multiple big plays down the field. The assignment isn’t any easier this week, though, as someone is going to have to deal with Aiden Hutchinson, Detroit’s Pro Bowl pass rusher who was named Second-Team All Pro last year.
If Pro Football Focus grades are your thing, Dawkins graded out as one of the five worst offensive players for the Bills last week, earning a 53.1 grade from the analytics site. Given that most of us have had high praise for Buffalo’s offensive line last week, it is a red flag for me that three of the team’s five lowest graded players on offense were linemen, as O’Cyrus Torrence (45.4) and Alec Anderson (52.4) were also in that bottom group. Dawkins had some bad reps—a whiff on corner Kamari Lassiter on Buffalo’s failed fourth-down try during the first offensive possession of the game comes to mind—but the good reps outweighed the bad. He’ll need to put together another strong performance this week against a Lions pass rush unit that sacked New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough five times last week.
OLB Bradley Chubb
Chubb played a ton of snaps last week, logging 63 of the team’s 79 defensive snaps. He totaled four tackles and two quarterback hits on the afternoon, which isn’t a terrible showing, but it’s not quite what we’d like to see from the veteran pass rusher. Given how disruptive Greg Rousseau was on Sunday, I assume that the Lions will look to slide protection his way. That should leave Chubb in some one-on-one situations, and it he can beat his man to pressure Jared Goff, then the Bills will be in great shape.
The problem is that the Lions have an all-world left tackle in Penei Sewell. so if that’s the one v. one matchup, it’s definitely advantage Lions whether Chubb or Rousseau is across from him. Using some games and stunts up front to free up rushers is going to be the move, and new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard did a nice job generating pressure using that method with just his front four on Sunday. Look for Chubb to move around the formation a bit more this week rather than anchoring an OLB spot like he did on Sunday.
CB Christian Benford
Buffalo’s top corner had a tough matchup on Sunday against Nico Collins, and it was not his finest hour as a result. Collins caught seven passes for 75 yards and a score on ten targets, most of which came when matched up against Benford. Quarterback C.J. Stroud targeted Benford a whopping 11 times in the game, completing seven of those passes for a total of 75 yards and a touchdown. Benford started slowly last season, too, before turning it on late, but his matchup isn’t going to be any easier this week.
Given that he traveled with Collins against the Texans, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him travel with Detroit’s top wideout, Amon-Ra St. Brown. Granted, St. Brown does more work in the slot than Collins does, so that might pose a problem or change the calculus a bit, but the Bills believe—rightly—that Benford is their best cover guy. He’s going to have to step up and try to bottle another big-play receiver this week.
CB Dee Alford
Two corners make the list this week, as the defensive secondary was not an area I was impressed with on Sunday. Alford, in particular, left a lot to be desired, as he seemed to miscommunicate on multiple assignments. He didn’t look great in run support, either, often coming in a step late or a step wide to expose running lanes for David Montgomery and Woody Marks.
Alford has big shoes to fill given the hard-nosed example of what a nickel corner can do that Taron Johnson set over the last eight seasons, and for the first week, he did not fill them well. Detroit has a bevy of receiving options that can line up all over the formation, so Alford could see work against Amon-Ra St. Brown, tight end Sam LaPorta, or anyone in between. He’ll need to step up this week.