Bills, Hamlin head to Cincinnati: 3 questions as they return to scene of dramatic night

ORCHARD PARK - At a time when Joe Burrow was clearly hampered by a calf injury that he suffered early in the Cincinnati Bengals’ summer training camp, he looked like a shell of the superstar quarterback that he is.

In September, Burrow could not maneuver in the pocket let alone escape it, and in favoring the sore leg his accuracy and his velocity on throws diminished and as a result, the Bengals stumbled out to a 1-3 start that included a shocking beatdown at the hands of the Tennessee Titans in Week 4.

Since then? Oh, the times they have changed for Burrow and the Bengals. Through the marvels of modern medicine, physical therapy, and recuperative powers, Burrow’s calf looks to be good as new and not surprisingly, the Cincinnati offense is humming as it goes into Sunday night’s showdown at Paycor Stadium against the Buffalo Bills riding a three-game winning streak.

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Burrow was at his elite best last Sunday in San Francisco when he throttled one of the best defenses in the league for 28 completions in 32 attempts for 283 yards and three TDs during a 31-17 victory.

“It’s hard to tell on film, but he certainly didn’t look like it was bothering him at all Sunday,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “He was impressive against a very good defense. They’ve moved the ball at will pretty much, run or pass. Very impressive.”

Chris Simms, an analyst on Sunday Night Football, will probably have plenty to say about Burrow before Sunday’s game and you can rest assured it will all be positive. Last week, after watching him against San Francisco, Simms was gushing.

“They had the answers all day long,” Simms said. “They diced up this 49ers defense and Joe Burrow looked great. He looked like the Joe Burrow we’ve seen the last two years, that MVP-ish Joe Burrow. He’s totally healthy … the Bengals look like they are back.”

We say it all the time, over and over and over: It’s not always who you play, it’s when you play them and if this game had been scheduled during the first quarter of the season, how different would the pre-game talk have been? At that stage, the Bills’ were flying high and the Bengals couldn’t get out of their own way. Now, the Bengals are soaring while the Bills are coming out of a second quarter of the schedule that was marked by inconsistency across every facet of the team.

Here are three questions I have headed into the Bills vs Bengals game which could eventually have major ramifications on the AFC playoff seeding:

1. Will the Buffalo Bills stay with their up-tempo offensive approach?

There is plenty of proof that shows Josh Allen operates better when he’s going at a quicker pace, huddling quickly as Ken Dorsey relays the play call into his helmet, then getting to the line of scrimmage and making the needed adjustments to protection or route concept based on the defense.

Against the Buccaneers, Allen averaged his quickest time to throw (2.27 seconds) in a game in his career, also the quickest among all QBs in Week 8. The byproduct was Allen faced a career-low pressure rate of just 13% on his 46 dropbacks and he completed 31 of 40 for 324 yards and two TDs.

More of the same would be a good idea as the season moves forward, especially if Gabe Davis and Khalil Shakir can get open quickly like they did several times against Tampa Bay and made themselves available when Allen was ready to deliver.

“This team moves really well when I’m able to get the ball around to our playmakers and I thought guys did a great job with the ball in their hand making some RAC (run after catch),” Allen said. “Our guys doing what they were doing, they were playing fast. Obviously when you go up tempo, if you make a mistake, at least you’re going full speed and sometimes I find you that way, too.”

As for Allen’s shoulder, he sat out practice Wednesday but he said he’s fine. “Obviously a lot of moving parts but didn’t do too much today,” he said. “Just taking it easy and making sure I’m putting myself in the best position for Sunday and making sure that I’m not sore. As a thrower, you don’t like feeling any sort of, I wouldn’t even call it pain, just discomfort in there. So we’re just trying to stay on top of it and get ahead of it when we can.”

2. Will new CB Rasul Douglas make an impact?

My guess is that Dane Jackson and Christian Benford will start the game with Douglas in a reserve role. There are certain positions where an acquired player can practice barely three times with a new team and then get into action in that week’s game, and cornerback typically isn’t one of them.

There is so much communication that has to take place, especially in zone coverages, and it seems like that would be an awfully tough ask of Douglas, who came from Green Bay in Tuesday’s trade, hustled to Buffalo Wednesday morning and then practiced in a limited way in the afternoon.

If Douglas isn’t ready, the Bills could call up Josh Norman from the practice squad as they did last week, but Norman didn’t play a single snap of defense as Benford and Jackson played them all. However, Douglas is also a seven-year veteran, and it wouldn’t be out of the question that he could gain enough knowledge to contribute in some way.

“That’d be up to Sean and the coaches how much his game reps would look like this week,” GM Brandon Beane said.

Obviously, it would be helpful if Douglas could play against a Bengals offense that is hitting its stride over the past three weeks and will present the Bills’ battered defense with its second-biggest test of the year behind the Week 4 game against the explosive Dolphins.

3. Will Damar Hamlin play in the Bills vs Bengals game?

This is obviously going to be a big story for the Sunday Night Football crew, and I would expect they’ve got a feature that will air either before or during the game. It is undeniably an amazing thing that transpired on Jan. 2 when he collapsed to the turf at Paycor Stadium, went into cardiac arrest and was brought back to life by Bills’ trainer Denny Kellington’s expert CPR.

Hamlin’s experience was worldwide news, and people have followed his remarkable journey back to the Bills as he made the rounds on talk shows, award shows, and dozens of personal appearances that were aimed at raising awareness for CPR training.

However, I would not expect Hamlin to be active for Sunday’s game because he has only been active once this year, and in that game against Miami he only played on special teams. The NFL is a cold-hearted business where football decisions trump everything, and right now the Bills are healthy at safety and the four who are active on game days are Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, Taylor Rapp and Cam Lewis. Hamlin has not performed well enough in practice to push into that top four.

No one recognizes the impact of that moment when Hamlin went down more than McDermott. But he has to put the best 46 men on the field each week and Hamlin isn’t there yet.

“In terms of who dresses, strictly a football decision, like it has been to this point,” McDermott said.

As for the Bills going back to Cincinnati, yes, it’s going to be a little surreal given what they went through watching their teammate fighting for his life and then ultimately having the game canceled. They will have to channel their emotion and make sure they’re ready to play against one of the NFL’s best teams.

“Knowing D-Ham, I’m sure that’s what he wants,” Hyde said. “He doesn’t want all the cameras to be following him and all the interviews and everything that comes with this. I’m sure he just wants to go experience whatever he has to experience and root us on to win the game. That’s what he wants to do. It’ll be good for our team to get back there and get back on that field obviously for D-Ham’s sake, but even the guys that attended that game last year.”

Allen thinks it will be tough to know how the team will feel when it takes that field.

“It’s hard to tell exactly how guys are gonna feel, exactly how I’m gonna feel; I’m trying to take it as it’s a normal game,” Allen said. “I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of emotions flowing through some guys there. But at the same time we got a job to do and we got to figure out how we can either use it to motivate us or put it behind us and focus towards the game on Sunday night.”

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana and on Threads @salmaiorana1. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out twice a week during the season, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo Bills, Damar Hamlin return to Cincinnati: Will he play?