What Dolphins Should Expect from Bills

The Miami Dolphins will look for a big upset, but more importantly to get things going in the right direction in 2025, when they face the Buffalo Bills on Thursday night.

The Dolphins will be facing a Buffalo Bills team that looks as good as any in the NFL following the dramatic 41-40 Sunday night victory over the Baltimore Ravens in Week 1 followed by a 20-point rout of the New York Jets on Sunday.

To get the lowdown on the Bills and the matchup at Highmark Stadium on Thursday night, Bills sideline reporter Sal Capaccio of radio station WGR 550 was a guest on the All Dolphins Podcast for a recent episode and here are some of the highlights (please not the comments were edited in some places for clarity and space purposes). You can find the full conversation here.

BREAKING DOWN THE DOLPHINS-BILLS

Q. The first and obvious question I'm going to ask you, Sal, is from the Dolphins' standpoint, not so much the team, but the fan base, It's like the sky is falling and it'll hit the ground Thursday night about 11:30 p.m. after they get completely waxed by the Bills. From the Buffalo viewpoint, how's the matchup being viewed?

SC: Yeah, listen, I, I think that there are a lot of bills fans wondering, OK, like, is this going to be it for Mike McDaniel and Chris Grier from that side of things? But there's certainly all that trepidation always when you have a team coming in that's a huge underdog and it's a rival and you don't want to take your foot off the gas. You don't want to give Miami any opportunities here. We know that here in Buffalo that the Miami Dolphins can be explosive with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle and De’Von Achane. So Bills fans understand that.

Q. The Bills came into the season with question marks on defense. Baltimore goes up and down the field against them in that wild Sunday night Week 1 game. And then last week, they just completely shut down the Jets. So which one is more representative of what the Bills defense actually is?

SC: Well, I guess you could always say it's somewhere in between, right? I mean, that'd be the easy answer. But I do think this comes down to matchups. The Ravens are just a really tough matchup for the Bills by the way they're built with their roster. They're a tough matchup for anybody, but you look at the Cleveland Browns, they shut down the Ravens running game, right? The Browns are built differently than the Bills. The Bills have a philosophy to be built defensively, to be lighter and more athletic because they want to be able to play, shut you down in the passing game. And if you want to run a little bit, that's fine, but we're going to make you grind the ball down the field and make mistakes. Against the Jets, the Bills were very understanding that the Jets were going to try to replicate what the Ravens did. They also had a very good running quarterback, a very good running back in Breece Hall, but they don't have Lamar Jackson, they don't have Derrick Henry. And the Bills said, look, we're going to make sure that you have to become a passer, Justin Fields. We're going to shut down the run game. And Justin Fields couldn't do that once they did shut down the run game. So I think it was more about matchups than anything. I give the Ravens a lot of credit. They're a very, very well coached team. They're a very good roster. I don't think the Bills defense all year is going to be as bad as they were that night, but the Bills are a team that is more built to stop the past than the run traditionally. This year I think they made a lot of changes in the offseason to be better against the run. There's no doubt they don't want to be run on. The Jets just came into a game where the Bills were very dialed into making sure that did not happen again.

Q. I think the perception is that the Bills kind of provided the blueprint on how to stop the Dolphins passing game. What's your level of confidence (from a Buffalo standpoint) or how well do you expect the Bills to defend the Dolphins in this particular game?

SC: I mean, I'm looking at what the Dolphins have or haven't been able to do through the first two weeks and they're not particularly running the ball like they had been able to against the Bills in the past. And that's something that Mike McDaniel is known for, being able to run the ball. And I thought the Dolphins a couple of years ago, you go back to that playoff year when they came here, the Dolphins had a great plan. They really attacked the Bills.

But I look now and I'm like, man, I don't know if the Dolphins are really running the ball that effectively. And obviously that starts up front, right? They don't have that offensive line that they've had. We all know that in Miami and the Bills have always been able to defend Tua and he's had some games, some numbers, some touchdowns, some plays, I should say, but what they've really done —  and I think they put the blueprint out a few years ago when the Dolphins were really rolling and the Bills said, look, we're gonna take away your first read. You're just not gonna be able to get the ball out. And they did that. And then Tua has to look somewhere else. And now suddenly here comes a pass rusher. The Bills have kind of had always had a real good plan there.

Q. Looking at the pass rush, the Bills made a lot of acquisitions up front. One of them was Joey Bosa, who the Dolphins had some interest in as well. Everything we’re hearing is the dude is like back to when he was like dominating force in his first couple of years.

SC: He's been incredible. If the Bills get this Joey Bosa for 17 games … like I'm not one to usually exaggerate like this, but I would say like that is the true difference maker you could have to winning a playoff game or a championship game. I mean, that's truly what he's been. He's been a true dominant difference maker. He has been injured and that's really impacted him, but he's very aware of that. He talks about that. The Bills are very aware of that. They talk about that. Nobody, nobody shies away. So what they've all said is we got to do our best and he does to make sure that he is as healthy as can be every single week. And that means managing his reps. That means taking care of his body. This is something they've talked about since the beginning.

And what's crazy is they sign them in March and everyone has the same reaction. And oh, well, he's been really good, but all the injuries. And then all of a sudden we show up for OTAs and they're like, yeah, he's got a calf injury. He's not going to do anything. No OTAs, no minicamp. And you're like, well, here we go. I mean, can you count on him? He shows up to training camp. He was healthy day one. We didn't really talk about him. And then suddenly by the end of camp, you're like, wait a minute, Joey Bosa has been healthy every day. He's actually looked pretty good in camp. What are they going to get? And sure enough, it starts off week one. I know the Bills got run on a lot, but Joey Bosa played pretty well actually against the Ravens and then he was just absolutely dominant in Week 2.

Q. How might the Bills feel the effects of not having linebacker Matt Milano for this game?

SC: He's a fantastic player. We know that about Matt Milano and he was really off to a great start, like All-Pro level type of Matt Milano. Dorian Williams played most of the year for Matt Milano last year, though. He's a good linebacker. He'll be the guy that they would ask to step back up and be back in that same position.

Q. If we're talking Bills defense, I gotta ask you about Jordan Poyer and Jordan Phillips, two former Dolphins, one a former Dolphins draft pick, one a one-year Dolphins player whose stint, let's just say, was less than scintillating and left a lot of fans not happy with him. They’re on the practice squad. Is there any expectation they're getting activated for a game anytime soon?

SC: They're both in really kind of different situations. Jordan Phillips was signed to help out in the defensive line and eventually I think be a part of maybe the 53 men roster or at least be elevated. He knows the system, they trust him. He's a guy that I think could get elevated down the road.

Jordan Poyer, on the other hand, was kind of really brought in to be more of a mentor to Cole Bishop, a young safety to help him out, a lot like Micah Hyde did last year towards the end of the year when he came back to play. I don't think it's for Jordan to play this year unless they really need him, and that's fine. I talked to him and he said, look, he goes, "I don't think I can even play 17 games that they play. But at some point if they need me to, I'll be able to step in." But he's really here to help out in any way he can to be a part of an organization, to be a mentor to a guy like Cole Bishop, where they're really bringing along and they really like, but he has missed a lot of time over the last two years early on in the season and he's got to get more seasoning. And I think Jordan's here of a break glass in case of emergency type of situation.

If he did have to play for the Bills, the Bills did a good job his last year in Buffalo of understanding what his, what his limitations were and actually moved to more of a box safety. We're not gonna put him out there in space to have to go cover people. And I think that the Dolphins probably asked him to do a little bit too much of that last year.

Q. Pretty amazing we’ve this far into the podcast and we haven’t talked about Josh Allen yet.

SC: It's funny, like, think about this for a second. The Bills scored 30 points (against the Jets), Josh Allen didn't account for a single one of them. You got a game where Josh Allen doesn't throw for a touchdown or run for a touchdown. You're like, oh boy, what'd they score? 10, 12 points. No, they scored 30 because that's just kind of the way it is. They can turn the turn and hand the ball off to James Cook and he could take it 44 yards like he did. They have a really excellent offensive line to be able to do that. The Bills kind of had a very workmanlike performance. Josh Allen was excellent. Week 1 numbers wise, 251 yards just in the fourth quarter, setting records.

They didn't ask him to do a lot in this game against the Jets and he wasn't productive statistically, right, like you would normally see Josh Allen. Kind of pedestrian numbers. But the only thing that was notable about Josh, he did get his nose hurt really badly and he was on the sidelines and his nose is bigger now. And there's been more jokes about it than anything else since obviously they won the game the way they did.

Q. And he’s good to go because, of course, he’s always good to go. I mean, it's like you would see around the NFL, Joe Burrow, Justin Fields, Jayden Daniels,  J.J. McCarthy … am I forgetting anybody? And then Josh Allen just gets his nose bloodied and oh, let me miss two plays and I'll go back in.

SC: We're going to knock on wood here. Josh Allen has right now the longest active starting streak of any quarterback in the NFL. It's very important for him. He's very prideful, and that's why last year, Week 18, the Bills did not need the game, Josh Allen played one snap. He started the game, took the snap, went out because he said it's important to him. He wants, I think he wants the record. I actually do. I know it's a long way from now. I get it. I think he wants to approach the record of consecutive starts.

Q. Well, and it clearly shows that it's important for him to stay in the lineup in the very conservative manner in which he plays quarterback, never taking any chances, exposing himself to big hits. I kid, sarcasm, hashtag sarcasm. I would imagine by now the Bills coaches have given up on the idea of, “Josh, you got to protect yourself, be a little bit smarter.” They're just, let ‘er rip, do your thing, basically”?

SC: Yeah, I mean, listen, Josh is Josh. They trust him to make the right decisions. And sometimes you come out of a game going, dude, why did you try to run that guy over? I mean, last week he's running down the field on the 40-yard run. He puts the ball in his other arm just so he could stiff-arm the defender. And I'm even thinking like, come on, just go out of bounds. You don't need to do that. But that's just the gamer in him. He's got a lot of Brett Favre in him. We've always said that. I think the real He's done a better job last couple of years. The Bills have done a better job of protecting him as well in a lot of ways and how they kind of design things. The one area he's really improved, though, obviously, is not taking chances with the football and putting it in the air. I mean, he really cut down his interception rate over the last couple of years, and he just doesn't give the ball away like he used to.

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