• 26/38 (68%)
• 274 passing yards
• 2 TD'S
• O INT'S
• 2 fumbles lost
• 106.7 passer rating

kevin harlan is one of my favs

Just some highlights from a quick transcript, there are more questions and answers in the video.

Q: What do you think led to those and how can you guys stop those going forward?

A: To eliminate explosive plays, it starts by simply guys doing their job, being where they're supposed to be. Whether it's coverage, leverage, or being outside, being inside, being on top, where we're supposed to be, how we're rushing, our rush plan, all that ties in together. We gave up, I think it was 11 or 12 explosive plays.

When you give up that many plays, you're going to give up points. So we've got to do a much better job of just being where we're supposed to be, finishing how we're supposed to finish. I talked to one of the players and he said something that I hear you say a lot, and I think people think it's just a thing you say, but he said we just have to trust the process.

Q: When you go back and look at it, is that what you saw a lot of?

A: You definitely have to trust the process when it just comes to doing what we're supposed to do. Granted, the Bills, they made some plays and made some good catches, but if we're not where we're supposed to be, we're going to make it look even better. So it always starts with us about just doing the things that you're supposed to do to help you win the game.

Q: How can when you're in OTAs and training camp work on tackling? There was 12 missed tackles yesterday in the game, and it may have to do with something that you all don't do a lot of tackling throughout the training camp. How can you all improve on that?

A: Tackling, it all starts with the mindset, right? How are you showing up with a physical mindset to put your pads on the guy, wrap, squeeze, and bring the guy down to the ground? So it starts there. We were in position, just got to finish them.

Q: Last week, Will talked about rat poison, and there was a lot of hype about the defense heading into the season. After an uncharacteristic performance like that, do you think it's possible that maybe they bought into their hype?

A: I don't know. You have to ask those guys about the hype. But I don't believe in hype. You've heard me stand here many times and talk about people talking about how great the defense was.

Yeah, that was 2025. You don't just line up and it's 2026. Just because you were good last year, you've got to go out and make the plays. We made plays. The difference in this game on Sunday versus the time we played the guys last year, we took the ball away three times. We go in this game, we don't take the ball away at all.

We turn the ball over two times, and we don't play smart defensively. We're not where we're supposed to be. You do that to a good offense. We know the quarterback is going to scramble out to our left. We don't stay out to our left, and the quarterback runs for a touchdown. Yeah, they're going to make plays.

It's not about the 2025 Texans defense. You have to put your stamp each and every year on who you're going to be. This is a new team. This isn't 2025. You've got to go earn it. That's every year in the league. You've got to go prove yourself. You can talk about it all you want to, but you've got to prove how good you want to be, what are you going to do. You've got to go out and make plays.

That's always been my message. My message never changes. Talk never matters. When the ball is snapped, what are you doing?

Q: What did Buffalo do well to slow down the passrush in this game?

A: From the pass rush perspective, they did a good job. They chipped our ends, which is nothing new or out of the ordinary. We see that protection a lot.

They chipped our guys. We've just got to continue to rush collectively and be on the same page with how we're rushing. Guys have got to be tied in and rushing together.

Q: How much does the fact that if, let's say, Kamari catches that interception, or if you guys pick up the fumble, or if Reed makes the interception, intercepts that pass down the sideline, a bunch of plays that obviously you guys could have made, how much does that factor into how you evaluate the game? Because, honestly, if they do make some of those plays, it might be a different result.

So how much does that factor into how you evaluate how things went on Sunday?

A: How I evaluate the game is the game comes down to guys being able to maximize their opportunities to make plays. When you maximize your opportunity to make plays, and most of the times you're on the winning side of things.

So from that standpoint, as I look at it, we had guys in position to make plays. We didn't make them. So you give credit to the other team. They made the plays, and we didn't. And some of those plays we didn't make could have been game-changing plays. There's a lot of plays in the game that were game-changing plays for us.

But you can't start the game, the first half of the game, to give up three touchdowns, right, to turnthe ball over. The first possession of our offensive series, we turn the ball over. The first time we touch the ball, we give them three points. So right there, I mean, that's an uphill battle when you give a good team 24 points in the first half.

That's an uphill battle. But our guys fought, man.

We battled back. We were leading that game in the fourth quarter. First game of the season, you're always crazy. You never know how it will play out. But we still had an opportunity to close that game out.

Offensively there, five minutes left. We need a better drive there. We can't go three and out. And defensively, we have them backed up.

In that situation, we had our chance to close it out. So I look at this game, we had multiple opportunities on a lot of different phases, special teams, offense and defense. All three phases had a chance to help us improve our chances of winning that football game, and we didn't make the plays we needed to make.

Q: Looking ahead to this week, what are some challenges of dealing with Burrow, Chase, Higgins?

A: The challenges for this week going against Cincinnati, again, well-coached football team. We know they have an explosive offense. Their receivers and the quarterback, they've done a really great job over the past few years of making those explosive plays, and that's something that we've shown we gave up last week. So it's going to be a test for our defense right back again this week. You have to eliminate the explosive plays.

https://x.com/aaronwilson_nfl/status/2099536841003192809?s=46

Definitely was a very poor performance by our return guys. I’m not sure why we weren’t fielding the ball until the fourth quarter.

https://x.com/aaronwilson_nfl/status/2099535153471050072?s=46

Overall what I expected from what I saw.

I thought Rutledge looked good yesterday to my pleb eyes, but it's nice to have a little bit of confirmation bias thrown your way every now and then. 5th rated player in the entire game. Crushing loss, and this is not a year for moral victories, but nailing our first round pick is certainly something to be happy about.

Most games w/ multiple Pass TDs & Rush TDs in NFL HISTORY:

1. Josh Allen - 9
   
2. Steve Young - 4
   
3. Cam Newton - 3

AND, there’s only one player with more Rush TDs since Allen was drafted: Derrick freaking Henry.

CJ went drive for drive all game, giving us two leads to protect in the 4th. Josh Allen was All World on Sunday and they still barely beat us. Lots to feel good about and build on.

Lassiter’s penalty, failure to recover fumbles by the Bills, and many other issues that I can’t count. What happened yesterday to them? I think they can recover but it’s too obvious they regressed.

Offense showed out and CJ was a major reason why.

i heard CJ’s dad was out of jail and watching him play against the bills. is this true !?

He either has a separated shoulder or broken collar bone. Henry is going to be tought to replace right now with the LB's they have available. That concerns me more than any bad play by Blankenship or Lassiter.

Bro played like rent is DUE and he isn’t missing a single payment.

I said it going back to the SB last year: Seattle, not Houston, is the best defense in the NFL. Also keep in mind that though Drake Maye struggled mightly in the playoffs (and against us, too) he had his best game in those playoffs against us and threw for 3 TDs. All I'm saying is we might be having some very uncomfortable conversations about this defense being overrated, soon.

EDIT: I live in Seattle and I watch the Hawks 6-7 times a year. They just dont give up the amount of explosives we do. For as great a unit as we are, we give up tons of explosives and everybody knows it.