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4 things that stood out in Bills' ugly Week 16 win against Browns
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- 4 things that stood out in Bills' ugly Week 16 win against Browns
CLEVELAND - Affable Buffalo Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins took it a little too far Sunday afternoon when he was asked how it felt to have survived a near disaster , which is all a loss to the Cleveland Browns could have been called.
"Believe it or not, they are actually a great team," Dawkins said, presumably without his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.
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I would venture to say the last time anyone called the Cleveland Browns a great team, it was 1964 and Paul Brown was their head coach, Jim Brown was the best running back to that point in NFL history, and the Browns were blowing out the Baltimore Colts to win the NFL title, their fourth since joining the league in 1950.
Between then and now, great is not a word you would ever attach to the Browns. Oh, they've been very good in some years, though rarely since they rejoined the NFL in 1999, and make no mistake, regardless of what Dawkins said Sunday, the Browns are not great, nor are they good.
In fact, they are a pathetic 3-12, yet the Bills had to fight to the death to survive and win 23-20 , thus avoiding what would have gone down as one of the worst losses of the Sean McDermott coaching era which, by the way, encompasses the entirety of Dawkins' nine-year career.
"A lot of people thought it was going to be easy to come in here and just blow them out by a hundred," Dawkins continued. "No. The NFL doesn't work that way."
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He's right on that point. There really are no easy games no matter what the matchup. But still, it was perfectly reasonable to believe the Bills were going to storm into Huntington Bank Field and perhaps not win by a hundred, but win by a whole lot more than three points, hanging on for dear life at the end.
"We feel like we're in playoff mode now, and it's just find a way to win a football game," said Josh Allen , who had a very un-Josh Allen type day. "It obviously wasn't the prettiest way we can win. We've got some stuff to clean up, but we'll take a victory."
The Bills improved to 11-4, yet they still haven't officially clinched a playoff berth and are only sitting in the sixth seed in the stacked AFC standings with two weeks left. The Chargers refuse to lose and at 11-4, they still have a better AFC record than Buffalo, so they sit at No. 5. And the Texans are right on the Bills' tail at 10-5.
Buffalo has won four games in a row, but this one left a lot to be desired and McDermott acknowledged that.
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"Still plenty to work on, so we need to do the basic things better," he said. "If you ask me what that is, I'll start with basic fundamentals, and then it will go into executing the plays, the scheme, what have you. But all in all, good to get a win. We'll take it, and we've got a lot of work to do as we move forward this week."
Here are some of my observations:
James Cook is making history
James Cook of the Buffalo Bills celebrates his touchdown over the Cleveland Browns in the first quarter of the game at Huntington Bank Field on December 21, 2025 in Cleveland, Ohio.
It was a spectacular start for the running back as he ran for 100 yards and two touchdowns in the first half. Despite a sluggish finish, his 117 yards lifted him to 1,532 yards for the season and going into Monday night when Jonathan Taylor plays for the Colts , Cook is the new NFL rushing leader with an 89-yard lead.
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"James Cook with another 100-yard game (his ninth of the season), obviously not just one guy in terms of when that happens, but he's having a great season," McDermott said.
He sure is. It's hard to imagine where this offense would be without him. As great as Allen is, he needs help from his receivers to function, and right now, he's not getting much at all and that was a big problem in this game. Cook is the one sure thing, and the dropoff from him to Ray Davis and Ty Johnson is enormous to the point where if Cook were to get hurt, the Bills would struggle to function.
"He's the best back in football," Allen said. "I don't know how awards shake out, but, I mean, he should be in the running for every award. He's an absolute stud. We love having him, and he makes our offense go."
Thurman Thomas is an all-time Bills great and a Pro Football Hall of Famer, but even he never had a season like Cook is having in 2025. Prior to this, only O.J. Simpson ever topped 1,500 yards rushing, doing it three times in the 1970s, incredible in that he did it in a 14-game season. Now Cooks has reached that plateau and only Simpson's 2,003 yards in 1973 and 1,817 in 1975 are ahead of Cooks.
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The wide receivers are basically worthless
Khalil Shakir of the Buffalo Bills is tackled by Myles Harden of the Cleveland Browns in the third quarter of the game at Huntington Bank Field on December 21, 2025 in Cleveland, Ohio.
Harsh? Sure. Truthful? Yeah, it is.
Allen continues to shrug it off, but the simple fact is that Buffalo's passing game scares no one because the wide receiver is so inept.
Brandin Cooks has now played four games with the Bills and he has one catch for 13 yards, with another drop Sunday. Joshua Palmer has played 10 games and he has 20 catches for 290 yards. Tyrell Shavers has 13 for 209, Gabe Davis 7 for 88 and Keon Coleman 36 for 355. Davis and Coleman were healthy scratches Sunday. Add that all up and that's a good season, for one good NFL receiver.
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Only Khalil Shakir has been reliable with 67 catches for 684 yards, but that's far from eye-popping as the No. 1 target.
"We're gonna keep working," Allen said. "I can help put our guys in better situations and give them better opportunities. But again, anytime you can run the ball with James Cook and with the success that we were having early, we're gonna continue to do that. And it's gonna open things up, so just gotta keep trusting them."
Allen's patience with this group is bordering on legendary. But at some point, and I'm guessing the postseason would be that time, the Bills are going to need to get something from their wideouts, and right now it's pretty tough to see them coming through.
"The work continues," McDermott said. "We've got to continue to improve as a football team if we want to continue to win moving forward. So that's the summary for you. That said, there's plenty so we go back to work and try to make sure that we improve in areas we need to."
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Another bend but don't break defensive game
Buffalo's opening-drive woes continued as the Browns raced downfield to score a touchdown as if the Bills weren't even on the field. Just a brutal start, something that has become a common theme this season.
Things didn't get much better on the second series, but the Bills caught a huge break when a Shedeur Sanders pass bounced off Quinshon Judkins and floated into the arms of Jordan Poyer for a pick at the Bills 39 that probably took Cleveland points off the board.
Cleveland also had a 13-play, 65-yard field goal drive in the second quarter, a 14-play, 67-yard TD drive in the third, and an eight-play, 43-yard field goal drive in the fourth. This is one of the worst offenses in the NFL, so that should not have been happening, but as always, one of the problems was that the Bills allowed first downs on eight of the first 10 third downs Cleveland faced.
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However, give the Bills credit for standing tall at the end with the game hanging in the balance as they stopped the Browns' last two possessions to protect the tenuous three-point lead.
"We always say when we go out there on the field, we gotta find a way to close the game and I thought we did a good job of that," said Poyer, who was one of the Bills' best players in this game with an interception and 11 tackles.
Michael Badgley almost became the goat
Buffalo Bills kicker Michael Badgley kicks a field goal against the Cleveland Browns.
The Bills' new kicker, who replaced the injured Matt Prater , wound up making his lone field goal of the game, a 41-yarder in the third quarter that turned out to be the winning score. And he made two extra points, but he also missed one and that single point almost played a huge factor in the game.
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It felt like when it happened it wasn't going to be a big deal because we assumed the Bills were going to roll to an easy victory. But because of that miss, the Browns needed only a field goal in the fourth quarter to potentially force overtime.
Extra points were a problem for Badgley earlier this season when he was with the Colts. He was 10-for-11 on field goals, but he missed three conversions and one of them was costly in a 20-16 loss to Houston , so the Colts cut him. That's why he was available when Prater went down last week with a quad injury.
Badgley also had a bad kickoff that fell short of the landing zone and the resulting penalty gave the Browns a free 40 yards, though they did not capitalize in points.
At 41 years old, a quad injury seems significant so the Bills either have to ride with Badgley, or bring in someone else this week, though I would imagine they'll give him another chance against the Eagles.
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Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 36 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills vs. Browns game result had these 4 surprise takeaways
