When the Buffalo Bills have games like they did on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, it is tough to sometimes show just how dominant of a performance it was. The Bills jumped out to a 14 point lead early in the second quarter and took a 21-3 lead into halftime.
The Bills would add 10 more points to build their lead to 31-3 before the Cowboys added a touchdown late. However, at that point the Bills were already pulling a majority of their starters, and the game was already decided.
When taking a closer look at some of the team stats, it doesn't really tell the full story as the Bills had only 351 total yards of offense and had a time of possession just north of 35 minutes. However, four stats from the Week 15 win over the Dallas Cowboys shows just how remarkable of a game it was by Buffalo to move to 8-6 on the season.
Buffalo Bills run the ball 49 times against the Cowboys
One of the biggest criticisms of the Buffalo Bills offense has been that Josh Allen has had to do too much. He has basically been a one-man show for a few years now and the other playmakers have to step up.
That is exactly what happened on Sunday against the Cowboys as the Bills ran the ball 49 times, led by James Cook's 25 rushing attempts. This week the Bills came close to the franchise record for most rushing attempts in a game which is 58 and was done twice. The first time was in 1984 against the Bengals and more recently was in 1992 against the Miami Dolphins.
The way the Bills were able to run the ball was due in large part to the offensive line but it took a lot of pressure off Josh Allen. The Bills were able to stay ahead in down and distance, helped extend drives and more importantly kept Dak Prescott on the sidelines.
Josh Allen throws for under 100 yards
The way the offense was running the ball, the Bills didn't need Josh Allen to throw the ball much. He finished the game with seven completions on 15 pass attempts and only 94 passing yards with 24 of those yards coming on the opening drive with two completions to Stefon Diggs.
This is the fewest completions in a game in Josh Allen's career in a game where he played more than 50% of the snaps. The previous low was in 2018 against the Jacksonville Jaguars when he completed eight.
It shouldn't be a surprise but the trend continues for pass attempts as the previous low was 17 and once again occurred in his rookie season. As for passing yards, it was the third fewest passing yards in a game and the prior two occasions were during the rookie season.
More important than all of that, Josh Allen would break his nine game streak of games with at least one interception. These games will be the exception and not the rule, even with James Cook playing as well as he is.
James Cook has more yards from scrimmage than the Cowboys offense
Speaking of James Cook, it was a remarkable game for the Buffalo Bills running back as he had 179 rushing yards, 42 receiving yards and two total touchdowns (one rushing, one receiving). He would average 7.2 yards per rushing attempt and 21 yards per reception and was only six yards behind Stefon Diggs for the team lead in receiving yards.
The 179 rushing yards was the second most this season in the NFL and behind only rookie running back De'Von Achane and the 221 yards from scrimmage is the third most this season by any player.
James Cook was basically doing it all for the offense to the point that he finished the game with more yards than the entire Cowboys offense. The Cowboys finished the game with only 195 total yards on 57 plays.
This is a testament to the defense as much as it is a recognition of Cook's performance. The Bills defense was stifling for almost the entire game and did not let the Cowboys really get anything going. Before the fourth quarter, the Cowboys had only one drive that went for more than 25 yards and that one ended in a field goal.
Dak Prescott averages only 3.9 yards per attempt
Dak Prescott would finish the game with 134 passing yards and is easily the fewest passing yards the Cowboys quarterback has had this season. It was also the first game since Week 1 that Prescott did not have a passing touchdown.
However, the stat that highlights the performance of the defense was 3.9 yards per pass attempt as it took Prescott 34 pass attempts to generate those 134 yards. The Cowboys career average is 7.6 yards per pass attempt and the Bills almost cut that in half this week.
There has been only one other game in Prescott's 110 career games which he had an average below four, which was in the regular season finale last year when he threw for 128 yards on 37 pass attempts for an average of 3.46 yards per attempt.
The Cowboys receivers were not able to get much room to operate in this game as CeeDee Lamb had fewer than 60 receiving yards and Jake Ferguson was under 50 yards. There wasn't another receiver who had more than 15 receiving yards.