Buffalo News

‘Taylor’s performance, which also included a 23-yard pass to Thompson on an earlier drive before McCoy lost a fumble, was arguably his best ever when tied or trailing by one possession in the fourth quarter. Here are his updated stats in those situations…’.

‘Bills wideout Zay Jones has fought drops this season – he currently has been credited with four – but Cooper “leads” the league with nine drops on 52 targets. Crabtree has two on 42 targets.’

‘Austin says Cal is among the schools looking at him the hardest, along with Rutgers, Pittsburgh, UConn, Oregon State and Fresno State. Baylor, Virginia Tech and USC have all been in contact the last few days. “My recruiting has been picking up like crazy,” he said.’

‘But the story of the game was Deonte Thompson. DT was cut from the Bears, signed off the street, and then starred for the Bills in one fortnight. His 4-107-1 stat line was the exact same one put up in the entire game by his former QB, Mitch Trubisky.’

‘Bills games are shown on three 50-inch screens with the sound on and the bar staff blends in with the Zubaz-wearing crowd.’

‘It all added up to 173 rushing yards on 33 carries, the biggest rushing day allowed by the Bucs defense this season. It was a welcome showing, since the Bills’ run game had sputtered against decent-to-good defenses the past four games.’

‘”I don’t know if I have exactly the right answer on that. I just think that it’s probably just more of what’s been said about these guys outside this building,” he said. “What was said in preseason? We’re tanking. All along, we said we’re building a team, we’re not tanking.’

‘The Bills need to get things right in the secondary in a hurry. Over the next six weeks, the team will face the following quarterbacks: Oakland’s Derek Carr, the New York Jets’ Josh McCown, New Orleans’ Drew Brees, the Los Angeles’ Chargers Philip Riviers, Kansas City’s Alex Smith and New England’s Tom Brady. That’s the best of all time (Brady), sure-fire Hall of Famer (Brees), possible league MVP this season (Smith), highest-paid player (Carr) and multiple-time Pro Bowler (Rivers). Heck, even McCown is completing nearly 70 percent of his passes this season.’

‘We’ve witnessed enough of Manuel to know he would be a welcome sight instead of Carr. Manuel, the Bills’ 16th overall draft choice in 2013, is a turnover machine. Manuel has 21 giveaways in 25 games, 18 of them starts.’

‘Opposing defenses may want to be judicious in their use of man coverage after watching the Bucs video. On first-half scrambles that went for 26 and 16 yards, Tampa’s man coverage defenders had their backs to the line of scrimmage when Taylor took off and ran.’

‘Right, just, availability is important for us, that we can get a guy out there that can be out there consistently. You know, things happen though, too. This is a contact sport, and these guys are professional athletes that play at a high level. Speed, power, physicality, so things happen and the next guy has got to be ready, and Shareece [Wright] did a good job of that last week.’

‘”When you ask for a perfect day for football, this was it,” Tampa Bay Times columnist Tom Jones wrote. “Then the game started.”‘

‘Thomas received PFF’s third-highest grade among qualifying tight ends in Week Seven, and O’Leary wasn’t far behind in fifth place.’

‘The Raiders will come to Buffalo on a long rest after playing in the Thursday night game against Kansas City. The Raiders pulled out a 31-30 win in one of the wildest finishes you’ll see. Derek Carr led the Raiders down the field in the two-minute drill and they thought they won with seven seconds left, but Michael Crabtree was called for offensive pass interference. Then the Chiefs thought they won when Carr’s pass went incomplete with no time left, but a holding penalty gave the Raiders another play. That one was incomplete, too, but another holding penalty gave the Raiders one more play, and they scored on that one to win the game.’

‘QB Tyrod Taylor: My biggest criticism of Taylor during his time with the Bills has been an inability to pull out games in the clutch, when the Bills are tied or trail in the fourth quarter and need their quarterback to step up and deliver a big play. Taylor silenced that criticism Sunday, needing just 46 seconds to drive the Bills to a tying touchdown after the Bucs had gone up, 27-20. After the offense got the ball back, Taylor controlled the clock perfectly, leaving Tampa Bay with just 14 seconds remaining and no timeouts after Stephen Hauschka’s go-ahead field goal. Taylor also had more than 50 rushing yards, adding a needed element to the ground game.’