HC Sean McDermott gives Bills’ just what they needed during mini bye

Dec 5, 2022 - 11:07 PM

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On the first day of Week 14, the Buffalo Bills found themselves sitting on top of not just the AFC East, but also as the number-one seed in the AFC.

The top seed isn’t something unfamiliar for the Bills, as they were sitting there early in the season until hitting a two-game skid in November. Having rallied to win three games in 12 days, the Bills sat home this weekend on what head coach Sean McDermott called a mini-bye and watched the three teams closest to them fall. With losses by the New York Jets, Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs, the Bills are back where they started.

“It’s December and you want to play good football. We’ve got to have a great week of preparation in order to do it. That’s where it starts,” McDermott said when asked about how the team will approach the remainder of the season as they try not to lose the conference’s top seed for the second time this season. “The most common mind set for this final quarter of the season – the final five games - is just to push. That’s where we are at. That’s the phase we are in. It’s a push to the end of it.”

As the Bills prepare to kickoff this final phase of the 2022 season, they will start with a home game on Sunday afternoon against the Jets, currently third in the AFC East and seventh in the AFC. They will follow that up by hosting the Dolphins six days later in a game that could determine who gets the division crown.

Buffalo has played banged up – especially on defense – for most of the season, not having put an entire team of starters on the field since Week 1. But, after playing three games in 12 days – all on the road – they had a little reprieve when they had ten days between last week’s Thursday night game and this week’s Sunday afternoon matchup.

“The mini-bye came at the right time,” McDermott said, noting that he had given the team three days off. “Get a couple days’ rest and then got back at it this morning.”

Buffalo will be without pass rusher Von Miller for at least three more weeks, meaning he will miss the next two divisional games plus a road game with the Chicago Bears. Obviously, the team is hoping to have Miller, who has lateral meniscus damage, in time for the last two games of the season and into the playoffs.

Other than Miller, the Bills are down to just four injuries – a far cry from some early weeks that had ten and 12 players listed on their injury reports.

Dion Dawkins continues to work on getting back from an ankle injury he suffered on Thanksgiving Day while offensive tackle David Quessenberry, who replaced Dawkins, is dealing with an injury he suffered early in last Thursday’s game against the New England Patriots.

“I thought he did a really good job of pushing through it,” McDermott said of Quessenberry, who injured his ankle during the Bills’ first offensive drive of the game but continued to play despite being hobbled.

McDermott said that Dawkins and Quessenberry, along with defensive tackle Jordan Phillips, who injured his shoulder late in the New England game, and fullback Reggie Gilliam, who McDermott said tweaked an ankle, are all improving.