October 18, 2026, 9:33 p.m. ET
LAS VEGAS – The Buffalo Bills have been defying the odds since mid-2025, continually giving up 30 points on defense while still finding a way to win.
When they did it last week in Los Angeles, they set an NFL record by winning for the sixth straight time while getting shredded by 30 or more, and on Sunday in Las Vegas, they upped the ante and made it seven in a row by outlasting the Raiders 33-30 at Highmark Stadium West, er, Allegiant Stadium.
Playing in front of what looked like a home crowd, the Bills defense continued to be worked for 25 first downs, 378 yards and 7 of 12 on third downs, but in the end, Josh Allen worked more of his magic, with some key contributions from James Cook and several receivers, and the Bills head into the bye week at 5-1 and sitting atop the AFC East.
“It’s football, we play the way we need to play,” Allen said when I asked him if it was sustainable to continue needing at least 30 points to win games. “We just have to score one more point than them, that’s how it goes sometimes. And we’re not going to sit here and say we can’t be better offensively. We left a lot of points on the field.”
He was right, it wasn’t an offensive masterpiece like last Monday night’s game against the Rams. The Bills had to settle for four Tyler Bass field goals and a touchdown was taken off the board due to a holding penalty on O’Cyrus Torrence.
Yet Joe Brady’s Bills are averaging 32.8 points per game, the second-highest total in the Super Bowl era through a head coach’s first six career games.
Here is how I wrote down the invoices:
PASSAGE FAULT: B
It was a weird day for the passing offense because there were so many times where Josh Allen had nowhere to go with the ball and he was just throwing it away looking for penalties, and he got a few, including two big ones in the third quarter that ended with his TD pass to Keon Coleman on a crazy extended play where he flipped the ball backhanded toward the end zone.
There was a clear intention to hand the ball to Dalton Kincaid, which Brady and Allen committed to doing this week. The result was eight targets and seven catches, although they only totaled 38 yards. He saved his best for last, a big 14-yard reception that helped set up the go-ahead TD that made it 30-23.
Coleman made a few big plays in this game, the TD of course, but he made a 15-yard field goal on second-and-11 with three minutes left that led to the game-clinching field goal. It was also nice to see James Cook involved and he had three catches for 58 yards, including a 26-yarder that set up his TD run.
RUN THE OFFENSE: B-
Allen’s decisions about when to throw the ball and when not to have been confusing this season. After going on a rampage against the Rams, he returned to his game in the Patriots game when it seemed like he was refusing to do so. Part of that was because the Raiders, like the Patriots, were spying on him, but there seemed to be a chance he could have broken containment and run a positive run rather than forcing throws or just throwing it away.
Cook had his usual array of successful runs that put the Bills in good distance and he finished with 95 yards and a 4.3 average, but a Raiders defense that was one of the worst in the league at point of attack against the run actually did a decent job on him.
DEFENSE PASS: D
The problems remain enormous, and Kirk Cousins ripped through Buffalo’s seven beleaguered defenders for 313 yards and two touchdowns without getting sacked and without really being pressured. It was a disappointing day for the pass rush, and it only exposed the secondary even more. However, not everything was great.
CB Davison Igbinosun was nailed for end zone interference on Brock Bowers, setting up the Raiders’ first touchdown, and he was penalized for holding late in the second quarter on a third down that kept a Raiders field goal alive. On this same play, CJ Gardner-Johnson disgraced himself by spitting on a Raider and being ejected from the game. But Igbinosun also made some good plays, including a goal-line breakup early in the fourth quarter.
LB Dorian Williams made one of the biggest plays of the game when he intercepted Cousins midway through the third quarter at the Las Vegas 32. A key strategic move was CB Christian Benford frequently taking on Raiders star TE Brock Bowers as he does on some of the No. 1 WRs and Bowers had just four catches for 70 yards.
Greg Rousseau had a relatively quiet day, but he had a deflected pass late in the game that helped the Bills get off the field. Pro Football Focus only gave the Bills 10 individual pressures, four from Rousseau, and that’s a painfully low number.
RUNNING DEFENSE: B+
It was good, but it doesn’t even matter because teams know they don’t need to run against this defense, they can run it all day and roll down the field. This is the exact opposite of recent years, where teams knew they didn’t have to pass because they could run around the Bills at will.
Ashton Jeanty and Mike Washington each had a few nice runs, but they only totaled 65 yards. Terrel Bernard contributed to that by leading the team with nine tackles and the team had four tackles for lost yardage, with the biggest coming from DTs Deone Walker and Greg Gaines.
SPECIAL TEAMS: A-
Bass was one of the biggest keys to the victory as he made all four of his field goal attempts and all three of his extra points for a 15-point day, the last of the field goals giving the Bills a 33-23 lead with 1:55 to play. He is now 13 for 13 on field goals this season and tied a club record with his 18th consecutive game since last year (Rian Lindell, 2007).
Just like last week, Ray Davis made a big comeback from the kickoff, this time 40 yards from the Bills 44, but the Bills settled for a field goal. For the day, he averaged 28.3 yards on three attempts. Greg Dortch averaged 23.5 from two and had a 22-yard punt return.
As always, the Bills’ coverage units were very good, one reason they had one of the better special teams units all season, and Khalil Shakir secured the victory with an onside kick recovery. As for Tommy Doman, his second and final punt was a beauty, a 51-yarder that was just caught at the 9 with 11:56 to play.
COACHING: C+
The offense had a terrible first half in terms of running the game. On the first series, Allen had to waste two timeouts, then late in the second quarter they went three-and-out with a poor offensive series as they had a chance to extend a 13-10 lead with a good two-minute drill.
Brady did a really good job in some key moments of the second half and in the end his guys scored 33 points. On defense, Jim Leonhard will be a busy man during the bye week, trying to find remedies for his ailing defense. The decision to play Benford over Bowers was smart, but where was the pressure, where was the blitz, especially against a 38-year-old statue in Cousins?
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades, including 37 years as a full-time writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books on the team’s history and is also co-host of the podcast/YouTube show BLEAV in Bills. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
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