Buffalo Bills Notebook: Playcalling, Offense Rebound in Refreshing Win vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Buffalo Bills got themselves back in the win column, beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday Night Football. What did the Bills Mafia learn from the win?

The Buffalo Bills may have found their master key halfway through the season: play every game on Thursday Night Football.

It wasn’t perfect, but Buffalo took down the visiting Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 24-18, to open Week 8’s festivities. They outgained Tampa Bay by 125 yards and had control of the game for basically its entire duration.

Some wacky fourth-quarter penalties aside, the Bills were cleaner, more efficient, and simply better than they’ve looked in recent weeks. Was it enough to get back on track?

Let’s take a look at some takeaways from Buffalo’s fifth win of the season.

Bills receiver Khalil Shakir makes a catch against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers / Getty Images

1. The secondary options in the passing game all clicked.

Last week was a worrying referendum on what the offense can look like when receiver Stefon Diggs wasn’t putting up a superstar-like stat line. On Thursday, things changed for the better.

Offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, at least between the 20s, had the Bills in position to win all night long. They got the ball rolling early with completions to young receiver Khalil Shakir, who had the best game of his season. Tight end Dalton Kincaid has strung together back-to-back strong performances, and receiver Gabe Davis had one of those weeks. Fans may have regretted keeping him on their fantasy bench, but it was a worthy sacrifice.

Buffalo’s three starting receivers and Kincaid were the only ones to catch passes from quarterback Josh Allen outside of one reception for each of the running backs that saw the field.

The Bills made it a point to simplify things. Fewer gadget plays and eye candy, more easy completions and explosive plays. Davis caught a couple of screens to get rolling downfield, and Allen looked free when out of structure.

• Diggs: 12 targets, nine catches, 70 yards
• Davis: 12 targets, nine catches, 87 yards, one touchdown
• Shakir: six targets, six catches, 92 yards
• Kincaid: seven targets, five catches, 65 yards, one touchdown

The Buccaneers attempted to ensure Diggs didn't beat them. Everybody else stepped up.

2. Let Sam Martin cook.

Punter Sam Martin was incredible in Thursday’s win. What else is there to say?

The Bills elected to punt four times, perhaps erroneously so. Passing up on fourth down opportunities from five, four, two, and one yard out—all around midfield—may not have played well with the analytics crowd.

Forgive the hindsight bias, but Martin was lights out, making all those decisions acceptable.

On his first three punts of the day, Martin pinned the Buccaneers inside their own 10-yard line each time. Their three, four, and eight-yard line, respectively. The last punt was a beauty, too, though an improper downing of the football resulted in a touchback.

Buffalo’s offense stood tall most of the night and Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield looked out of sorts. The Bills chose to make them drive down the entirety of the field. They scored just once on a drive post-punt, and it came by virtue of three fourth-down conversions and a circus catch.

Throw in a blocked field goal early in the game and the special teams had themselves one hell of a night.

3. The curtain has closed on cornerback Kaiir Elam.

Drawing conclusions less than two years into a player’s career is often foolish. So many things can change, development isn’t linear, and there’s a decent case that he hasn’t seen enough snaps to prove himself one way or the other.

With that said, Bills fans can learn something from Thursday, even without watching the game or checking the box score. That’s because second-year cornerback Kaiir Elam was a healthy scratch.

Elam could very well move on and find success elsewhere. It’s all but over in Buffalo.

To go to the extent head coach Sean McDermott has to keep Elam off the field should be proof in itself that something is wrong. Cornerback Josh Norman will turn 36 before Christmas. He played in just two games last season and hadn’t seen NFL action this year … until Thursday. There’s a decent argument that he hasn’t played good football in a literal half-decade, depending on how one views his last stint in Buffalo.

At least he made a nice play on special teams.

Fans likely won’t be privy to how Elam’s development got so far off track that McDermott has all but shadow realmed him. But they can be near certain that they won’t be seeing Elam anytime soon. McDermott seems more likely to strap the pads on himself.