The Buffalo Bills are one of the few NFL teams left to be 3-0 right now, and the Miami Dolphins are one of the unlucky teams that’s 0-3 and has yet to win their first game of the 2025-26 season. The Bills overcame the Dolphins on Thursday, September 18, in a 31-21 victory that cemented Buffalo as one of the strongest, if not the strongest, NFL teams at the start of the new season.
While Thursday’s game was a clear victory for the Bills, it didn’t go without controversy. Following the game, Dolphins Mike McDaniel wasn’t happy about more than a few things, and one of them had to do with the Bills more than his team. At the end of the first half, following the Dolphins scoring a touchdown with eight seconds left, Buffalo returned the kickoff to their own 30-yard line.
Then, with two seconds left in that half, Buffalo’s came onto the field to do a kneel-down, which is usually just a formality to end that half. But, after the ball was snapped, Bills quarterback Josh Allen was already on a knee but didn’t have possession of the ball yet, and it hit his hands and fell to the ground, making it a fumble. Allen grabbed the ball, got up and tossed it as whistles blew that the play was over.
Mike McDaniel Isn’t Letting Buffalo Bills Play Go Away
Now, McDaniel isn’t just letting this play go unnoticed. According to The Athletic, McDaniel has said the team will meet with the NFL to talk about what happened during that play.
“It was a great exercise in my mental discipline,” McDaniel told reporters on Friday, September 19. “I saw it. I knew what happened. I also saw the whistle blow and I saw them run in, and so then I ran in to prepare for the second half, knowing that he just fumbled — or I thought they did, at least … Live speed, it appeared to me that it was a fumble.”
As Saad Yousuf of The Athletic notes in a September 19 feature, “There’s no question that the play was a fumble, as the official box score even attributes a fumble to Allen. However, the concern for McDaniel and the Dolphins is how it played out after the fumble.”
Yousuf adds that, “Allen clearly recovered the ball as it rolled past him. In a frame-by-frame look at the play, the ball is visible on the broadcast copy of the game between the legs of running back Ty Johnson, and there is a brief moment that shows Allen’s right knee being down, which is the opposite knee that he initially intended to down the ball with.”
Josh Allen Crowned One of the Best QBs in the NFL
Head of the new season, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reached out to coaches, executives and scouts to name their top quarterbacks in the league going into the 2025-26 season. Allen was crowned the No. 2 best quarterback in the NFL, only behind Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. It’s fair to wonder if Allen should have been No. 1 considering his strong early season showing.
“Since the series started in 2020 until 2023, Allen’s place in the quarterback pantheon was universally celebrated among voters inside the league and highlighted in this piece annually,” Fowler states in the feature.
The Bills really couldn’t ask for more than what they’re getting from Allen. He’s proven to be a great leader for this team, and this could be the year for Buffalo.
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