Bills demolish Dolphins for second time

The Bills played their most impressive game of the season Sunday as they not only "Squished the Fish", but pulverized them! The Bills came out of the chute with fire in their eyes and got right back into the AFC Eastern Division race as they handed the Dolphins their fins in a 23-3 shellacking.

As Jimmy Johnson said, "They beat the Hell out of us."

Jimmy's Dolphins are now 7-2, with Buffalo being the only team in the league to beat them, and the Bills have now done it twice. Johnson, who made a spectacle of himself last year after his Dolphins beat the Bills in the AFC Wildcard game by stomping on a box of Flutie Flakes, has nothing to celebrate this year after losing to the Bills two times.

Jimmy Johnson was frustrated all afternoon with his players

The man who uses so much hair spray that the wind has little effect was completely disgusted with his team's performance.

"We obviously weren't ready to play," Johnson fumed. "Buffalo blocked us; we didn't block them. We couldn't tackle them. We had a lot of things going on, talking about how good we were, and quarterback controversies and everything in the world except talking about our opponent, which had beat us pretty good before."

With that, Johnson stormed out of the room, ending his press conference which lasted only 45 seconds.

"We had to establish the running game," Bills head coach Wade Phillips said. "The wind was a factor today. Throwing the ball was tough, which made the running game that much more important."

The Bills controlled this game from start to finish. Using the phrase "complete domination" is an understatement. Buffalo took what they learned in the first matchup with the Dolphins and expounded on it. The Bills scored from in the air, from on the ground and through the uprights. Steve Christie didn't seem to be too affected by the strong gusty winds in Ralph Wilson Stadium as he kicked field goals of 31, 48 and 47. All of them came in the first quarter. The Bills scored one touchdown when Doug Flutie threw a 53-yard bomb to Eric Moulds and the other on the ground when Jonathan Linton scored from 4 yards out.

Antowain Smith rips past Dolphins' Shawn Wooden

The big story of the day was the Bills running game. The Bills racked up 334 yards in total offense, and 177 of them were on the ground. Antowain Smith had his best game of the season, running for 126 yards on 29 carries, a 4.3 yard per carry average. His longest run covered 24 yards. Jonathan Linton gained 28 yards on seven carries and scored one touchdown before going out with a sprained knee.

This was Smith's sixth 100-yard game in his career with the Bills and only his second this season. The start of the season was something Smith would like to forget. Slowly recovering from a groin pull he suffered during training camp, Smith was averaging around 1 yard per carry during the preseason and in his first game. He did break out an ran 113 yards in the second game against the Jets, but inconsistency led to Linton gaining more playing time than Smith.

"It felt good to have the team depending on me again," said Smith. "I hadn't felt healthy until recently and I wasn't running as hard as I usually do. It felt good to deliver the blows instead of taking them."

"We made up our minds today that we were going to run the football," Smith continued.. "No excuses. In order to win today, we had to run the football. Case closed."

One of the biggest factors in the Bills running game was fullback Sam Gash. Though Gash rarely gets to carry the ball, his devastating blocking opens holes big enough for tanks to plow through.

"The difference in the ball game was that we were able to establish the run," Gash said. "I take my job very seriously and personally. We took it upon ourselves as an offense to win the game today with the running game."

"The offensive line was tremendous," Antowain said. "They came out with an attitude today and it showed. Miami's defense is very good, especially their front four, but our guys handled them pretty good. They were tremendous."

Doug Flutie played a more conservative game than his norm in the strong winds and passed only 20 times, completing ten for 157 yds and one touchdown. But for the second week in a row, he didn't throw an interception and the Bills didn't have any turnovers.

On the other side, the Miami Dolphins had their second worst offensive production in the team's history. The Dolphins gained only 101 yards in the entire game! Sixty of those came on the ground. This was the Bills third finest defensive performance in its history in terms of yards allowed.

With Dan Marino still out of the lineup, Dan Huard once again was the starting quarterback for the Dolphins. Huard passed 25 times, completing only 9 of them for 65 yards and 1 interception. That interception set the tone of the game.

Damon Huard tries to take down Antoine Winfield after he pickes off one of his passes

On the Dolphins opening series, Dan Huard faced a third down and 12 from the Miami 26. Out of the shotgun, Huard threw towards O.J. McDuffie, but it was tipped and Antoine Winfield picked it off and returned for ten yards to the Dolphins 22. It was a glorious opportunity to take charge in the game.

"That early turnover set the tempo," Flutie said. "It was nice from beginning to end. Offense, defense and special teams: everyone played well. To me, it felt like a day off."

Antowain Smith ran up the middle for 3 yards on the Bills first play from scrimmage, and two passes by Doug Flutie netted 6 yards, a yard short of the first down marker. Wade Phillips elected to go for the three points even in the strong gusty winds blowing in Ralph Wilson Stadium and Chris Mohr's 31 yard field goal was good.

The Bills defense held the Dolphins to only 6 yards on their next series and Tom Hutton was forced to punt.

The Bills started another drive when Smith burst through for ten yards. On second down, Flutie attempted to hit Eric Moulds, but he was interfered with and the Bills got an automatic first down at their own 42. Smith got the carry on the next play and he exploded off left tackle for 24 yards before Robert Jones pushed him out of bounds. Sam Gash provided the key block on the big play. On the next play, Jonathan Linton ran off left tackle to pick up another 5 yards to the Miami 29. But the Bills once again had to settle for a field goal when Flutie's third down pass to Kevin Williams fell incomplete. This time, Christie was good from 48 yards out, which was remarkable considering the strong winds.

Once again, the Bills defense came up big and forced the Dolphins to go three-and-out. From his own 48, Flutie attempted a long ball to Moulds and it was way over his head. However, Terrell Buckley had Moulds all tied up before the ball got there and was tagged with a 26-yard pass interference infraction. That put the ball on the Dolphins 32, but false start by Moulds, a two yard run by Flutie and incomplete pass to Moulds forced Christie on the field again and he kicked a 47-yard field goal to put the Bills up 9-0.

Huard once again had extreme difficulty battling the Bills defense, the crowd noise and the wind and the Fish had to punt again. With a third and seven from their own 32, Flutie hit Williams for ten yards and a first down. Two plays resulted in one yard, so on third down Flutie hit Linton with a screen pass and the Bills running back rambled for ten yards and another chain-mover. Making good on their third straight successful third down attempt, Flutie went long down the left side where he found Jay Riemersma open. Riemersma made the easy catch and was able to gain a few more yards before being pushed out of bounds. The play covered 34 yards in total and gave the Bills a first-and-goal at the Miami 9. Linton burst over left guard for five yards down to the Dolphin 4 and he picked up the remaining yardage for the first rushing touchdown to be scored the Dolphins this season.

The Dolphins were finally able to covert a third down on the next series when Huard connected with McDuffie for 14 yards down the left sideline. On his next third down attempt, Huard hit Tony Martin on another 14-yard completion. Two plays netted 4 yards and Huard was sacked while attempting to pass on third down by Bruce Smith, halting the Dolphins first real drive at the Buffalo 45.

After the Dolphins forced the Bills to punt, they mounted another drive that got even deeper into Bills territory. Mohr's kick was returned for 25 yards all the way down to the Bills 34. Then Huard hit Martin for a 13 yard reception along the right sideline. Running back Jimmy Johnson burst over his left guard for 6 yards. The Bills defense then stiffened as Rob Konard got just one yard down to the Bills 11, and Johnson loss that small gain on the next play. To get the sure points, coach Jimmy Johnson elected to go for a 30-yard field goal to cut the Bills lead to 16-3. That was the final scoring of the first half and it turned out to be the Dolphins only points in the game.

After both teams exchanged punts in the second half, the Bills started a drive at their own 25. Smith ran off right tackle for 13 yards. On the next play, Smith rammed it up the middle for 7 more yards and picked up two more on his third straight carry. Then came the big play of the game. On third and one from the Buffalo 47, Flutie found Moulds all alone at the Miami 40 yard line and no Dolphin was going to stop him from scoring the Bills second touchdown of the game. The Bills who were dominating with the run all day, caught the Dolphins off guard with the bomb to Moulds.

"It was third-and-one and they kept coming up on the run and we needed the right situation to run that play," said Moulds.

Sam Madison and Brock Marion chase after Eric Moulds in vain as Moulds races for a 53-yard touchdown

"It was third-and-one and I knew Joe (Pendry) was going to call it," Flutie said. "I was thinking to my self ‘maybe we should just hammer the ball up in there and get the first down.' Then he called the play and I said ‘what the heck, let's go for it.' By the pre-snap alignment, I thought we had a real good chance for it. I knew the safeties were going to fly up in there, they were up tight. It was a matter of Eric losing the corner. I think what happened was he got a great release and the corner was peaking in the backfield. Before he knew it, Eric's ten yards up the field."

The Bills drove down to the Dolphin 31 and were lined up to go for it on 4th and 13 when Moulds was penalized for a false start. Then Mohr came in and punted the ball all the way down to the Dolphin 2. The Bills defense kept the Dolphins hemmed in on the three, so Hutton had to punt the ball out of his own endzone. Williams returned the punt back ten yards to the Miami 31. Buffalo got down to the 28, and on fourth down Flutie hit Peerless Price for nine yards and the first down at the 19. Smith then ran three straight times for 1, -4 and 5 yards and the Bills were forced to go for a 35 yard field goal. This time, Christie was wide-left as the wind took it out of range.

The Bills defense, as it had all day, contained Huard and the Miami offense the rest of the game. After leading the Dolphins to four straight victories in place of the injured Marino, Huard was not able to handle the strong winds nor the loud crowd noise. Prior to throwing a pick in the Dolphins first series, he had thrown only two interceptions in 140 attempts.

"This game meant a lot and this hurts a lot," said Huard.

Huard may have spoken before receiving orders from Jimmy Johnson. The Dolphins coach placed a censorship on all Dolphins to not talk about the game after storming out of his post game

conference. "I've got nothing to say about Buffalo," Zach Thomas said, obeying the gag order. "If it's about New England, I'll talk. I'm only trying to make one guy happy."

The one element the Dolphins were able to contain was Flutie's scrambling ability. He took off seven times but only gained 8 yards, a season low for him. But he will give up his running yardage every week if it guarantees a win.

With winter weather approaching, a strong running game is needed to win games this time of year. The past two week the Bills have been able to establish a strong running game and Smith is continuing to improve reading blocks and following the blocking of Sam Gash. With Linton out with a sprained knee, the Bills went to rookie Lennox Gordon late in the game. He carried 5 times for 15 yards.

"Our team came to play," said Phillips. "We felt they (Miami) were the same offense we played earlier in the year. We played our regular defense and we were strong against the run, I said that all year. We took a step forward."

The Bills cracked several Miami golden eggs Sunday. The Dolphins hadn't allowed a touchdown on the ground the entire season before yesterday. When Linton dove into the endzone, that ended that glorious shutout. No opponent had scored a touchdown in the last three games. Buffalo did that twice.

Another streak came to a crashing halt when Smith gained 126 yards. No runner had cracked the century mark against the Dolphins this year before Smith did it yesterday.

The victory over the Dolphins marked the fifth time the Fish have flown out of Buffalo feeling pain in six flights. Some players reached milestones in the rout over Miami. Bruce Smith's sack of Huard marked the sixth straight game that he's recorded a sack against the Dolphins. It was also his 60th sack in his NFL career.

Steve Christie kicked his 200th field goal, only the 16th kicker ever to do that. Defensive end Phil Hansen moved past former Bill Cornelius Bennett with his sack to become No. 2 on the Bills all time list with 53 sacks.

By beating the Dolphins, the Bills salvaged a Buffalo-Florida sports weekend. The Buffalo Sabres lost to both Tampa Bay and Florida this weekend and it would have been a gloomy Monday indeed if the Dolphins had triumphed. The Bills travel to Giant Stadium in New Jersey to face the New York Jets next Sunday.

Copyright © 1999 Bills Thunder & Rick Anderson, all rights reserved.