Gameday from Buffalo: Jamal Adams’ return, Carlos Dunlap’s debut, Seahawks keys vs. Bills
It’s a sunny, perfectly blue-sky Sunday for the Seahawks and their 10 a.m. game at the AFC East-leading Buffalo Bills.
You may not have noticed on Saturday—there was another thing or two going on in our country: the Seahawks called up from the practice squad for the Bills game running back Alex Collins. Seattle’s 2016 draft choice is available for carries days after the team signed him back.
The Seahawks need Collins because their two top running backs are out injured for the second straight game, Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde. Travis Homer, better this week on his formerly bruised knee, and rookie DeeJay Dallas are the other running backs in Buffalo.
Seattle has four starters out injured for the game: Carson, cornerback Shaquill Griffin, defensive end Benson Mayowa and left guard Mike Iupati.
Expect Tre Flowers and Quinton Dunbar to again start at cornerback, with Dunbar on Griffin’s usual left side.
Jordan Simmons, who has impressed coaches the last two games starting for Iupati, will the left guard again.
Here are the players to watch in this match-up of division leaders on an unusual, 65-degree November day in Western New York:
1. Carlos Dunlap is set to make his Seattle debut. The two-time Pro Bowl pass rusher this week cleared COVID-19 testing protocols since his trade from Cincinnati. He has three sacks and seven hits on the quarterback in seven career games against Buffalo. In his last six games against the Bills he’s not played fewer than 79% of the defensive snaps. He may not get that many this time. But coach Pete Carroll says Dunlap is already fully acclimated to Seattle’s defense and will be the every-down, “Leo,” weak-side defensive end Sunday.
The defensive line needs his help. It has just eight sacks in seven games.
“I’m super excited,” Dunlap said on his first day of practice with his new team, Wednesday.
“I mean, this is a whole lot better than the hotel room I’ve been in the last six days,”
2. Jamal Adams will play for the first time in six weeks, since he strained his groin in Seattle’s week-three win over Dallas.
And Carroll said Friday before the Seahawks flew here the All-Pro safety will have no limitations or snap limits.
“Nah, we won’t limit him, at all,” Carroll said.
Adams will change the way the defense plays just by being back in there. He will blitz because that’s one of his best skills that most directly impacts games, as it did in the Seahawks’ opener in Atlanta in September. Adams remains Seattle’s co-leader in sacks, even though he hasn’t played since Sept. 27. The Seahawks instantly get more aggressive with him back.
3. Adams likely won’t be the only Seahawk blitzing in Buffalo. Bobby Wagner is the NFC’s defensive player of the week coming off one of his best games in years--because he blitzed more last weekend. He had two sacks, four hits on Jimmy Garoppolo, three tackles for loss and 11 stops in all in Seattle’s win over San Francisco. The All-Pro linebacker has wanted to blitz more for years.
Last week, Carroll saw the best way to help his front four and his entire defense is to blitz more from the back seven. He’s promising more with Wagner and now Adams returning.
4. The target of the blitzing Sunday: Josh Allen.
The Bills’ seventh-overall pick in 2018 is completing 67.1% of his passes. That’s 10 percentage points better than last season, when he quarterbacked Buffalo into the playoffs. After having zero 300-yard passing games in his first two NFL seasons, Allen had three in Buffalo’s first three games of its 4-0 start to this season. He threw for 417 yards in beating Miami.
All 16 of his touchdown throws this season were in the first six games. He hasn’t thrown one in one-score wins over the Jets and Patriots the last two games.
Teams have gone more zone in Buffalo’s last four games, limiting Allen’s big-play throws down the field. The Bills have gone from averaging 31 points per game in their 4-0 start to 19 points per in their current, 2-2 stretch.
Allen can run. He will be more difficult to hit and sack than the injured Garoppolo was for Seattle last week. The Bills ran 38 times for 190 yards while never trailing last week against New England, but they’ve struggled to run the ball otherwise.
5. As they have in every game this season, the Seahawks have the edge Sunday at the game’s most important position.
Russell Wilson rebounded last week as he has 32 times in 40 games after an in-season loss. He has had four or five touchdown passes in four of Seattle’s seven games. Wilson needs four TD throws Sunday to tie Tom Brady’s NFL record of 30 touchdown passes in the first eight games of a season.
A win in Buffalo, the only place besides brand-new Las Vegas he’s never played in the NFL, will give Wilson the league record for most regular-season wins by a quarterback in the first nine regular seasons of a career. He and Peyton Manning are currently tied with 93 career wins.
Expect Wilson to come out throwing early and often on the Bills, particularly with the Seahawks thinner at running back again.
This story was originally published November 8, 2020 at 7:24 AM.
