He walked to the locker room innocently enough with team trainer Shone Gipson. Moving under his own power Josh Reed barely had a limp. But he would not return to the game after leaving in the second quarter and Buffalo's offense struggled.
Reed during his time in the game had a pair of third down conversions. One however, was called back on a personal foul penalty. In the remaining two and a half quarters without Reed the Bills converted just two more.
The Bills top possession wideout suffered a strained Achilles, and not having Reed proved to be a bit of an Achilles heel.
"Josh is a big element to our offense," said Trent Edwards. "He creates mismatches on linebackers inside and he's a big third down receiver for us and that might be part of the reason in the second half we weren't able to keep the drives alive. Maybe that's some because of Josh."
The Dolphins often committed eight men to coverage to force Edwards to think a bit more in the pocket. As a result the ball didn't come out as quick as his receivers had trouble gaining consistent separation.
"There were a lot of three man pressures as you probably saw, so he had a chance to hold it," said head coach Dick Jauron of Edwards. "They did a nice job in coverage. They won some first and second downs, and got us in those third and whatever situations you don't want to be in to give them the opportunity to play that kind of coverage."
But Reed is adept at finding the soft spots in some zone coverage schemes and at using his body to gain separation. Without him options beyond Lee Evans were limited.
"It's harder to find guys open down the field when they're only rushing three guys so that's part of the reason why," said Edwards. "And when they brought pressure they did a very good job of covering up our tight ends, our receivers and backs and I was pretty impressed with the way their secondary played."
Entering the game Reed was tied with Lee Evans for the most receptions on the team with 24. A timetable for Reed's injury was not provided after the game, but if he's out for any period of time, it will need to be a collective effort to fill the void.
