Defense Dominates in Another Buffalo Bills Blowout

Summary

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Buffalo Plus Podcast: "Defense Dominates in Another Buffalo Bills Blowout"

Date: September 25, 2023
Hosts: Mike Catalana and Dan Fetes

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the Buffalo Bills’ commanding 37-3 victory over the Washington Commanders. Mike Catalana and Dan Fetes analyze how the Bills defense delivered a statement performance, discuss individual standouts like Terrel Bernard and AJ Epenesa, and reflect on the improving offense and the looming matchup against the Miami Dolphins. The hosts maintain their trademark analytical but upbeat Buffalo Plus tone throughout, celebrating the team’s success but also squaring up for bigger upcoming tests.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defensive Domination

• Nine Sacks, Five Turnovers
  • The Bills’ front four overwhelmed the Commanders with nine sacks and five takeaways — a complete defensive “beat down.”
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 01:26): “Front four was the story of this game. Nine sacks, four turn—five turnovers. Just a complete beat down by the Bills here in Washington.”
• Sean McDermott’s Impact
  • McDermott’s aggressive, "flying around" defensive style is credited for the team’s synergy and hunger for turnovers.
  • Quote (Mike Catalana, 01:49): “[McDermott] took over as defensive coordinator...This is the type of defense fans want to see, right? A defense that just takes the ball away.”
• Player Execution over Scheme
  • The hosts note that defensive success came from players winning individual battles as much as clever scheming.
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 02:04): “You can scheme up all you want, but guys are just winning their individual battles...That’s breeding confidence.”

2. Standout Player: Terrel Bernard

• Historic Game and Breakout
  • Bernard delivered with two sacks, an interception, and a fumble recovery — compared favorably to previous middle linebacker Tremaine Edmunds.
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 03:26): “Terrel Bernard has made more splash plays than the other middle linebacker did in his whole career in Buffalo...He’s doing that in a game.”
• Instincts and Preparation
  • Bernard’s ability to “fly around,” his speed, and football instinct are repeatedly praised.
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 04:18): “Instinctive ... You work so hard to put yourself in the right spot and then the ball seems to find you.”

3. Other Defensive Highlights

• AJ Epenesa’s Pick-Six
  • Epenesa tipped and returned an interception for a touchdown — a “highlight of his career.”
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 05:45): “Unbelievable. He said it’s...the highlight of his NFL career.”
• Tre’Davious White’s Return to Form
  • White’s red zone interception and lockdown coverage were crucial.
  • Quote (Mike Catalana, 06:01): “I want to see a Trae White play...This was a heck of a play he made for the interception.”

4. Opinions on the ‘Shutout’

• Washington's Late Field Goal
  • Hosts criticize Ron Rivera for “avoiding a zero” with a field goal down 37-0, calling it “embarrassing.”
  • Quote (Mike Catalana, 06:56): “That was embarrassing. To kick a field goal down 37-nothing. What does that prove?”
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 07:20): "It's a shutout. It's a shutout."

5. Offense: Controlled & Composed

• Josh Allen’s Growth
  • Allen’s balanced, less reckless play is commended – especially his decision-making under pressure and a notable slide.
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 08:50): “He showed restraint and I thought his composure in the pocket...He wasn't so quick to go in Superman mode.”
• Stefon Diggs Dominates at FedEx Field
  • Diggs continues to own this venue, totaling 25 catches for 353 yards in three games there.
  • Quote (Mike Catalana, 10:18): “He has played three games at FedEx Field...25 catches for 353 yards.”
• Offensive Line Success
  • The OL’s performance is cited as key to blowout wins in consecutive weeks, controlling the trenches.
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 10:52): “The Bills have dominated...the last two games because of how good both of their fronts have been.”

6. Looking Ahead: Miami Dolphins

• Next Week’s Test
  • Miami’s 70-point outburst frames the upcoming game as a “massive test for speed.”
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 11:18): “This is the most explosive offense, but this will be a massive test for speed.”
• Bills’ Formula for Success
  • The Bills’ approach remains controlling both lines of scrimmage and disrupting the opposing QB’s rhythm.
  • Quote (Mike Catalana, 11:51): “Two weeks in a row, the Bills against an inferior opponent dominated on both lines...and blew them out.”

7. Notable Coaching Credit: Ken Dorsey

• Effective Run Game Strategy
  • Dorsey’s use of motion, play-action, and enough ground game to neutralize the Commanders’ pass rush is applauded.
  • Quote (Dan Fetes, 12:11): “What they were able to do with pre-step motion, play action, staying ahead of the sticks...kept them honest.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Defense's Contagious Energy:
  Dan Fetes, 02:51: “That's what he said. It's contagious. It's like baseball...you just think you're going to get a hit too, because everybody's doing it.”

• AJ Epenesa’s Career Play:
  Dan Fetes, 05:45: “He said it's...the highlight of his NFL career. He was quick to say, right now it is so far.”

• On Rivera’s Late Field Goal:
  Mike Catalana, 06:56: “That was embarrassing. To kick a field goal down 37-nothing. What does that prove?”

• On Ken Dorsey’s Offense:
  Dan Fetes, 12:11: “Ken Dorsey deserves a ton of credit for doing just enough so that they weren’t able to pin their ears back.”

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Relevant Timestamps

• 01:26 – Defensive dominance and front four success
• 03:26 – Terrel Bernard’s impact and “splash plays”
• 05:45 – AJ Epenesa’s pick-six discussion
• 06:01 – Tre’Davious White’s big interception
• 06:56 – Ron Rivera’s field goal; “It’s a shutout”
• 08:50 – Josh Allen’s “perfect level of craziness” and growth
• 10:18 – Stefon Diggs’ remarkable stats at FedEx Field
• 10:52 – Praise for the Bills’ offensive line
• 11:18 – Looking forward to the Miami Dolphins matchup
• 12:11 – Ken Dorsey’s play calling and run-game strategy

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Final Takeaways

• The Buffalo Bills delivered a statement win mostly powered by one of the best defensive performances under McDermott, complemented by a composed showing from Josh Allen and the offensive line.
• Multiple defenders — especially Terrel Bernard and AJ Epenesa — earned breakout recognition.
• Despite the Commanders’ late field goal, the Bills’ defense leaves no doubt about their shutout-level effort.
• The podcast sets the stage for a major test against Miami, with both hosts excited and cautiously optimistic about the Bills’ prospects.

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Transcript

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[B]

Foreign welcome to Buffalo plus Mike Catalano along with Dan Fates. We are happy you're with us. Please make sure to like comment and subscribe as the Bills dominate here against the Washington Commanders. Dan, how about that defense?

[D]

This defense I thought was good. I thought it was good against the Jets. I thought it was better against the Raiders. It was dominant and there was a lot of talk and I was one of them. Worried about the commander's front four. Dominated the Bills. Front four was the story of this game. Nine sacks, four turn five turnovers. Just a complete beat down by the Bills here in Washington.

[B]

Let's give Sean McDermott some credit, right? He took over as defensive coordinator. A lot of talk about how he would handle that. I know it's early, it's only three games games in, but this is the type of defense fans want to see, right? A type of defense that just takes the ball away.

[D]

Not only takes the ball away, I think they learned a little something from the jets. Not only offensively, which we can get into. Sean McDermott was talking about the jets defense, said they did. They don't do much schematically. They just fly around. That's what I'm seeing out of this. Bill's defense flying around. Yeah, they're getting some. Yeah, they're sending Terrell Bernard, which we'll get to a little bit. But a lot of this is just guys winning. You talked about it. You can scheme up all you want. Yeah, guys are just Winning their individual battles. Greg Russo, Ed Oliver, Leonard Floyd, Terrell Bernard, they're just winning. And that's what is breeding, you know, this confidence for this defense for the last, what, three and a half or seven and a half quarters?

[B]

Yeah, I asked McDermott about that, about, you know, you can scheme them up, but guys have to make plays tan. It feels like every time they're in a position to make a play, they're making that play.

[D]

Yeah, it's contagious. That's what he said. It's contagious. It's like baseball. Here's my baseball analogy.

[B]

Here we go.

[D]

You guys just start getting hits, and then the next head comes up and you just think you're going to get a hit, too, because everybody's doing it. So top to bottom, even AJ Apanessa getting in the mix. Impressive showing all around. The defense can't give enough of a hat tip to them.

[B]

All right, I'm going to have Dan right now just pat yourself on the back because we're going to talk about Terrell Bernard. You made the prediction that he'd be the star. Prediction. I don't remember you predicting that he would be this good three games into his career. Because nobody could have expected.

[D]

No, no, no. I'm not going to take that much credit. I'll keep it there. But I will say this, and I tweeted it after the interception. Terrell Bernard has made more splash plays than the other middle linebacker did in his entire career in Buffalo. And I was telling that to a reporter on the sidelines, and he kind of said, well, like, that's a little bit of prisoner of the moment. And then the next series, he had another sack and. And then he recovered a fumble, and then he had another couple tackles. And he goes, yeah, you're right. Like two sacks, the interception and a fumble recovery. I can't remember Tremaine doing that in a season and he's doing that in a game.

[B]

And by the way, the interception was spectacular. I mean, drop. Perfect drop in coverage. Real. And I thought it was. And I thought it was actually a pretty good throw by how he had a little bit of time and he just dropped in and made that play. He's around the football. You asked him about that, and that comes from preparation. But some guys instinctively are around the ball.

[D]

Instinctive.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And that's what he is. And again, we talked about him being able to fly around. He's faster than the other middle linebacker that was here, and he just seems to be putting himself, I can say his Name. Well, because I'm going to mix them up. Then I'm going to say it's going to be Tremaine Bernard and I'm going to mix them all up. So I just call him the other.

[B]

Or just say Edmonds.

[D]

Okay. But the fact is that the balls. You work so hard to put yourself in the right spot and then the ball seems to find you. And again, it's part of that contagious feeling of you putting yourself right spot and then you're making plays. That was the big thing. He's making the splash plays.

[B]

Talk about making a splash play. AJ Epanessa.

[D]

Apparently he does that all the time in practice.

[B]

That's what they told us.

[D]

We heard us all about that post game, that AJ apparently tips balls and catches them all the time in practice. This was something that they worked on knowing that Sam Howell would probably hold onto the ball a little bit too long as a young quarterback. Kind of pats it. They knew that they were on that as well as said, Sam's a little bit of the shorter guy.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Which I thought was funny as AJ And Greg are massive human beings.

[B]

Well, that is true. And also it's a bit of fundamentals for a pass rusher to get those hands up. And it sounds easy. You're rushing the quarterback, but in your normal rush, you don't have your hands up. There is that moment where you are not getting to the quarterback. And hands up. Greg Russo, all 11 foot of them, did it last week against the Raiders. Huge play. And then not only does AJ make the play, but he takes it to the house. Yeah.

[D]

Unbelievable. He said it's first time. He said as of now, it's the best play and it's the highlight of his NFL career. He was quick to say, right now it is so far.

[B]

It's the kind of play that gets you a new contract.

[D]

It's the kind of play that gets you some more playing time. Let's start there.

[B]

Okay. I'm just throwing it out there. Okay. Trudevius White. I said on the Buffalo plus podcast you did. Trey's been really good. I want to see a Trae White play. And I gave credit certainly to Garrett Wilson on that touchdown against the Jets. Trey was there, didn't make it. This was a heck of a play he made for the interception.

[D]

They went at him a little bit.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

We said. And we talked about it about our five players yesterday. We said that Trey needed to make a tre play and he did just that huge. Stop this defense. We'll get to the whole picture, it's a shutout. Trae played great. The fact of the matter is that the defense made big plays. The fourth down stop to get the stop on third and goal from the one to push him back to the two, which pretty much kind of sent the message that they weren't going to run it again. So you kind of took that out of their playbook. But phenomenal stop there and then as well as Trey in the red zone as well.

[B]

All right, so you mentioned the shutout.

[D]

It's a shutout.

[B]

Ron Rivera is a former NFL player, has been a coach in this league. Sean McDermott respects him as much as anybody in the league. That was embarrassing. To kick a field goal down 37 to nothing. What does that prove? I mean, everybody knows a guy can make the field goal. Are you really thinking that this isn't a de facto shutout?

[D]

It's a shutout. It's a shutout.

[B]

I've rarely seen one so blatantly obvious to just avoid a zero on the scoreboard.

[D]

This felt like a college game because there was a ton of Bills fans, right? There was a ton of Bills fans on this side of the stadium, and there was their commander's fans on that side. And the crowd was booing so hard. And then it was the quiet claps of. We didn't get shut out. You got shut out. Commanders, the Bills pitched a phenomenal shutout in every sense of the word. Three points does not take that away.

[B]

I've never seen that in the final, especially from a veteran guy. I don't know. You know, I don't know how much his team cares about it. Maybe he feels for Sam Howell, but, like, I mean, I just. I just thought that was. It was, I'd say, embarrassing for them.

[D]

We're talking about Terrell Bernard. I mean, you could throw a dart at anybody on the defense, and they played a phenomenal game in my opinion. Jordan Poyer made some tackles like a hide head interception. Ed Oliver's not getting enough attention for how dominant he is in that interior. A couple of the runs that the Commanders had early third quarter, when they started to run the ball kind of well, I'm looking around and Ed Oliver's not on the field. It's not Ed and it wasn't Russo. And I'm sitting there going, those guys, I've said it before, they need to be playing all the snaps, as many snaps as they can, because that is the best front that they have. Add in Leonard Floyd, who was playing through an ankle injury, was still Phenomenal. I just thought every single player on that defense was phenomenal.

[B]

Yeah. And by the way, in a few weeks, Von Miller will be back. Yeah. So you can add that to him. What you think of Josh Allen today, I loved it.

[D]

Again, it's not flashy, but we saw like we talked about, joked around about Chef Allen. He showed restraint and I thought his composure in the pocket to stay there when he needed to. When he was backed up in his own end zone to find Stefon Diggs, he trusted the protection. And when the protection failed a little bit, he wasn't so quick to go in Superman mode. He rolled out, kept his eyes downfield, knew when to take off. I thought Josh was the perfect level of craziness. Josh, while also being composed.

[B]

Josh, he slid and it was a good slide. Yeah, it's Trey Turner slide.

[D]

It was a Trey Turner slide. Field was wet.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Good slide.

[B]

I mean really good.

[D]

And he says he's going to get some, some money.

[B]

Yeah. Because I'm sure his teammates are like, you won't slide. So he's getting some money out of him. He was smart. And you know what, the interception he threw, See, I saw some people tweeting like, oh, he's going to get criticized for that. Very different circumstances here. I mean, he threw it to Gabe. It was one on one coverage. He was getting pressured. It was ended up being a punt. It's different than throwing deep for Deontay Hardy when you could have run for the first down in a closer game. I had no problem with that. When he took a shot and he got hit kind of when he threw it. So I didn't think that was bad. I thought he was good. By the way, Stefon Diggs, he's so good. And when he comes back here. He has played three games at FedEx Field. Two of them for the Vikings, one for the Bills. In those three games, he has 25 catches for 353 yards.

[D]

It's his stadium.

[B]

It is.

[D]

It's Diggs Field.

[B]

It's back here in. What do they call it, the dmv. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[D]

Landover. Gorgeous stadium.

[B]

Yeah. So he, he was, he's just been so good and it's almost like you just take it for granted.

[D]

And all the pregame stuff, if you haven't seen it, go on to the Buffalo Plus Twitter page or my Twitter page or X's page. Him and his nephew Aiden, who's Trayvon's son, him pregame. It was just so cool to get to see them interact and Then again, Steph, put on a show here.

[B]

Yeah. How about the Bills offensive line in this one?

[D]

Phenomenal. The Bills have dominated and blown teams out the last two games because of how good both of their fronts have been. And I know that that makes Sean McDermott just smile when he's eating his ice cream sundae or his malted milkshake. To know that his guys on both sides of the line of scrimmage are winning, and that is huge.

[B]

Miami put up 70 today.

[D]

That's a lot.

[B]

What do you think?

[D]

So the Bills are two and a half point favorites next week, which is what I called because I think these teams are pretty, pretty even now. This is the most explosive offense, but this will be a massive test for speed. They have not seen speed like this. This was a faster team. This was a better wide receiving core. I thought they got challenged at times, but I thought Tray White and the safeties took that away. And again, the front of the Bills affected Sam Howell from getting in a rhythm. That's what they're going to have to do to Tua. They're going to have to cause him to be uncomfortable in the pocket.

[B]

And my last takeaway on this game is you got Miami coming up. There's plenty of tough games on the schedule. They're all tough in the NFL. But two weeks in a row, the Bills against an inferior opponent dominated on both lines of scrimmage and blew them out.

[D]

Absolutely. That's your takeaway. My big takeaway, Condorsi.

[B]

Wow.

[D]

And I know there are, and I know there are people out there that hated the second in 10 runs. And I get it, and I'm not saying I love them, but what they were able to do with pre step motion play action, staying ahead of the sticks, neutralize that really good commander's front four. They never were able to pin their ears back. Knowing Josh is going to drop back. They had to respect the run. Now, the Bills didn't run the ball all that much or all that successfully, but it was just enough to keep them honest. And I thought Ken Dorsey deserves a ton of credit for doing just enough so that they weren't able to pin their ears back.

[B]

An effective use of the run game to help your quarterback.

[D]

Absolutely.

[B]

And playing against the opponent, you let Josh be Josh. All right, that's going to do it for us right now.

[D]

We got a plane to catch.

[B]

We have plenty of to take care of this week leading up to the Dolphins. Jenna back with us. He's back in the studio today, so plenty of coverage for us. Please make sure to, like, comment and subscribe. I want your comments on what impressed you the most. And let's start talking dolphins already. What do you think about that game? It's going to be a lot of fun for Dan Fates and Jenna Cottrell back at home. I'm Mike Catalana. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time here on Buffalo Plus.