MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (WIVB) — The defense was dominant and the offense improved from last week. The Bills beat the Dolphins and picked up their first win of the season.

Sean McDermott’s career record is now 8-1 against Miami and his team has now won seven straight games against in the division.

Here are my 4 observations from the win over the Dolphins:

1. Josh Allen has owned the Dolphins during his career but that wasn’t the case on Sunday. Allen looked better than he did during the Steelers loss but wasn’t the MVP candidate we watched in 2020. The Bills quarterback finished the day completing just 52% of his passes for 179 yards. Allen’s best pass of the day was a 35 yarder to Emmanuel Sanders that led to a touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs a few plays later. He was intercepted once by the Dolphins and threw a few other passes that were pretty risky. The offense found some rhythm on a touchdown drive to start the 2^nd half. Allen went 6-for-8 and found Dawson Knox for a touchdown. It’s just two games but Allen and the offense have a long way to go to get back to the level they were playing at last season.

2. Sean McDermott and Leslie Frazier put together an aggressive and attacking defensive game plan and they had the Dolphins quarterbacks staring down pressure all game. The defense struggled to make “splash” plays against the Steelers but they made a lot of big plays against the Dolphins. The Bills finished with 6 sacks. The rookie Greg Rousseau notched his first and second career sacks. Matt Milano, Micah Hyde, Justin Zimmer, and Taron Johnson also picked up sacks. The defense also forced 3 turnovers a point of emphasis following last week’s loss.

3. The red zone offense and defense were perfect. The Dolphins offense made it inside the 20 yard line 3 times and came away with no points. The Bills offense was 2-4 in the loss to the Steelers. During the week Brian Daboll said that was the difference in the ballgame. Daboll’s offense bounced back with a perfect performance going 4-for-4 in the red zone.  

4. One week after losing the battle up front the Bills offensive and defensive lines bounced back and looked much better. Josh Allen did face some pressure but was only sacked once and the offensive line which was flagged fewer times. The Bills o-line was also effective in the run game. The team averaged 4.8 yards per carry and finished with 143 yards rushing. On the other side of the ball, the Bills defensive line was disruptive the entire game and only allowed 71 yards rushing and just 3.6 yards per run.