Defense does it again as Bills punctuate win with takeaway

In the spirit of Halloween, Bills defensive end Jerry Hughes showed up at his postgame press conference dressed as one of the creepy nuns from The Town, a 2010 movie starring Ben Affleck.

The important thing was that he and his teammates didn't play like real nuns in Buffalo's hard-earned, 26-11 win over the Miami Dolphins.

"I'm the muscle in the group," he said. "I don't have the looks to be Ben Affleck, but I made sure that if I'm going to contribute to the crew, that's what I'm going to do."

Hughes did have the skills to be able to hit quarterback Tua Tagovailoa twice and sack him once as the Bills held the Dolphins to 262 yards and just 4-of-14 third-down conversions.

Because the Bills' offense was just as anemic throughout the first half, they had to work harder than almost everyone expected to put away a team they beat 35-0 less than two months earlier.

No matter. The Bills (5-2) have limited opponents to just 109 points through their first seven games.

"You know, coming off the bye week, we just started slow," Hughes said. "That's something that we realized was going to be a thing — whenever you're coming off the bye, kind of getting back into the swing of moving at full speed and full tempo, and we were able to keep points off the board that first half, and I think that really helped us in the second half.

"Our offense picked it up in the second half. The secondary was lights-out in the second half, ended the game on an interception, and we got back to playing Buffalo Bills football, which was great."

After the Dolphins crept to within six points to make a game of it again in the fourth quarter, the Bills responded with a field goal, then sealed it when Jordan Poyer intercepted a Tagovailoa pass and returned it 26 yards to set up the final score.

"They ran the play we really had been practicing [against] all week," Poyer said. "... When I saw the play develop, I was like, `no way' [is he going to attempt that throw]. But we had great pressure, forced him to make a throw he didn't want to make, and I was able to make a play on the football."

Poyer also led the Bills with nine tackles on the way to limiting the Dolphins to an unhealthy 4.1 yards per play.

Though they sacked Tagovailoa just two times, the pressure was consistent and the coverage tight.

Buffalo also shut off the Dolphins' effective running game in the second half, limiting them to seven carries for 21 yards.

The damage Miami was able to do on the ground in the first half was just enough to keep linebackers Matt Milano and Tremaine Edmunds from being able to play as deep as they preferred, and it was a major factor in the Dolphins going to intermission with a sizable advantage in time of possession.

By the end of the game, the Bills owned a slight advantage, 30:47 to 29:13.

The way they performed throughout and battled through adversity impressed coach Sean McDermott.

"Life in the NFL is every week," McDermott said. "Life in the NFL is tight margins, and records don't matter."