How the Bills offense can create problems from a Dolphins defense likely missing three starters

Tyus Bowser spent the first seven seasons of his career watching Lamar Jackson.

When asked to compare Jackson to Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, the former Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker paused for a second, his eyes rolling to the ceiling as he considered the question.

“Both of them are mobile and Josh Allen uses that stiff arm really well,” said Bowser, who the Dolphins signed off of the Seattle Seahawks practice squad following Jaelan Phillips’ season-ending ACL tear. “They figure out ways to keep the play alive.”

Mobile quarterbacks who can resurrect seemingly dead plays at the drop of hat have given the Dolphins problems. Since coach Mike McDaniel’s arrival, the Dolphins have been 4-9 against quarterbacks of that ilk. And while Allen had a rather pedestrian first matchup with Miami in September, completing roughly 68% of his passes for 139 yards and a touchdown with only 2 yards rushing, the Bills’ new-look offense could certainly pose a threat to a reeling Dolphins defense.

“So many of these guys in today’s game where they can beat you both from in the pocket and with their feet,” defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver said of Allen on Thursday. “And he’s a guy that he doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses in his game, so just a tremendous amount of respect for him. They’ve had the success they’ve had there in recent years for a reason and he’s a big part of that.”

Still, the 2-5 Dolphins have hope — even if they haven’t beat beaten the Bills in Buffalo since 2016.

“I think it’s important to learn lessons, not have scars,” McDaniel said Friday. “If you’re relying on the past for your expectation of performance for this, you’re setting yourself up to fail.”

The addition of Amari Cooper, who the Bills received in mid-October via a trade with the Cleveland Browns, is by far the biggest change to the offense. A five-time Pro Bowler, Cooper gives Allen a true No. 1 receiver, a move that has seemingly opened up the passing offense.

“He’s always been one of the better players at the line of scrimmage and continues to be that,” coach Mike McDaniel said, later adding “guys that can separate, for a really quarterback, are a gigantic resource.”

The biggest beneficiary Cooper’s presence? Rookie receiver Keon Coleman who has caught nine balls for 195 and a touchdown over the last two weeks.

“You can see his confidence is growing, both in his ability and the quarterback’s confidence in him has grown too,” Weaver said, calling Coleman’s development since Week 2 “tremendous.” “Those 50/50 balls have now turned more into 60/40 balls, which for a rookie that’s awesome. You talk about a security blanket for a quarterback; any time you can just throw a ball up and you think he has a chance, that’s huge. So I think we have the corners and the DBs that can match up with him, both from a size and athletic standpoint. So we’re just going to have to show up and get it done.”

As if playing in Buffalo wasn’t difficult enough, the Dolphins will likely be without three key defensive players — Jevón Holland, Kader Kohou and, most notably, Zach Sieler — due to injury. While Holland and Kohou’s absence are somewhat mitigated by veteran safety Marcus Maye and moving All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey to the slot, replacing Sieler is no easy feat.

“I am a much better coach when he is on the field,” Weaver quipped.

With Sieler still recovering from the orbital bone that he suffer during last week’s practice, D’Shawn Hand played more snaps on the defensive line. While it’s impossible to ask Hand to 100% replicate Sieler’s production, the seven-year defensive tackle is focused on simply playing free.

“The mind-set is just be yourself,” Hand said Friday. “I’ve always confident been a confident player, a good player so the mind-set is just that: be yourself.”

Sieler’s absence also emphasizes the importance of rushing as a unit in order to limit Allen, according to Calais Campbell.

“You have to have a plan, rush together, make sure we’re on the same page, but we’ve still got to rush him, because if you let him sit back there for five or six seconds, he’s going to tear our secondary apart,” Campbell said Thursday. “We have to have a unison rush; we’re all rush four as one.”

Although many outside of Miami’s locker room have already slotted Sunday’s game as loss, no one truly knows what will happen. The Dolphins have far more to lose than the Bills, who sit comfortably atop the AFC East with a record of 6-2. If Miami can play with the edge required when the season starts to slip away, anything is certainly possible.

“When you actually watch the film and watch what we’ve done, there is some good to take from some things that we’ve done and there’s plenty of lessons that we had to learn throughout these games that we’ve lost and won, honestly,” Ramsey said Friday.

Added Ramsey: “We just got to keep going. We still in the race. It’s not like we can’t correct what’s going on. I hope everybody else thinks the same as me but I keep hoping until the reality is that I can’t have hope anymore. That’s how I’m wired and I feel like we got a good group of guys who are wired like that as well in here.”