3 Winners (and 2 losers) in Bills' gritty Week 16 win over Browns

The Cleveland Browns kept the contest close, but the Buffalo Bills have picked up their 11th victory for the sixth-straight season. The Bills will have to wait for other contests around the league to unfold before they learn more about their postseason path, but the team is one step closer to officially joining the playoffs nonetheless.

With the postseason right around the corner, a tight contest against the lowly Browns gave Bills fans plenty to feel better about, but certainly room for concern as well. Let’s take a look at this week’s winners and losers in the Bills’ 23-20 road win over the Browns.

Winners and Losers in Buffalo Bills' Week 16 road win over Cleveland Browns

Winners

James Cook

James Cook shot out of a cannon to begin his day, grabbing 66 yards on three carries on the Bills’ first possession. By halftime, Cook had nine carries for 100 yards and two scores, helping to put Buffalo in firm control of the contest. He finished with 116 yards on 15 carries.

It was Cook’s ninth 100-yard game of the season, tying him with Thurman Thomas’s 1992 season for second-most 100-yard games in a single season. O.J. Simpson holds the franchise record with 11 back in 1972, so Cook is still in striking distance of tying the club record.

His impressive performance on the ground also keeps him in the hunt to lead the NFL in rushing this season.

Joe Brady

There are certainly issues in Joe Brady’s scheme, and the lacking talent at wide receiver doesn’t help matters. However, Brady is deserving of credit for his gameplan against Cleveland in what could easily be viewed as a trap game. Brady stuck to the ground game and did his best to keep Josh Allen away from Myles Garrett, keeping the league’s sack leader away from the single-season sack record for another week.

Garrett did (somewhat inexplicably) get credit for half a sack for a late-first-half play where Allen retreated toward his own goal line and Garrett was second to touch him down. Otherwise, Garrett was shut out of the box score.

It wasn’t a dominant performance, and certainly more help from the wide receivers would serve to balance things out. Still, Brady’s unit met the requirements for victory, playing clean and efficiently on offense early on and closing out the game on the ground in the fourth.

Greg Rousseau

Greg Rousseau came up with two and a half critical sacks for the Bills' defense. His first came on a third and goal with Dillon Gabriel in briefly for the injured Shedeur Sanders. His second shut down a fourth and 2 in the fourth. ON the next drive, Rousseau combined with Jordan Poyer for a half sack and then forced Sanders into an intentional grounding penalty on the very next play. It was his fifth career two-sack game.

Rousseau has had a quieter season than many Bills fans had hoped. Before last week, Rousseau went five straight games without registering a sack. But now he has three and a half in the past two games, which is a great sign for the Buffalo pass rush with the postseason fast approaching. 

Rousseau is now up to six and a half sacks on the season, putting him just two sacks away from setting a new career high. He had eight sacks in 2022 and 2024.

Losers

Michael Badgley

Michael Badgley hit his lone field goal for the Bills this week, filling in for Matt Prater, who missed this week with a quad injury. Normally, that’d be a winning performance, but unfortunately for Badgley, he did the one thing that got him shipped out of Indianapolis when he missed his second extra point attempt.

Thankfully for the Bills, that missing point didn’t come into play. But for Badgley, who likely won’t be sticking around after Prater returns to full health, missing that PAT isn’t going to do him any favors in finding another job in the league.

Keon Coleman

Second-year wideout Keon Coleman was a healthy scratch before Sunday’s contest kicked off, marking the third such instance this season. While reports indicate that this wasn’t for disciplinary reasons like his initial benching earlier this season, it’s no less concerning that he’s not on the field contributing to the offense.

The passing game continues to suffer without production from the wide receivers. Josh Allen didn’t go over 100 yards passing until the final play of the third quarter, at which point wide receivers accounted for just five catches for 52 yards of production. Mecole Hardman, who was activated in place of Coleman, wasn’t targeted.