On a night when EJ Manuel seized the Buffalo Bills' quarterback competition, the Minnesota Vikings' starting passer was less productive.
Christian Ponder acknowledged to reporters after the preseason game that the Bills' defense did an effective job disguising looks and coming at the Vikings with midseason-level trickery in a 20-16 Buffalo win.
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"Just their whole defense was pretty exotic," Ponder said, per the Bills' official website. "They had some exotic personnel and different schemes, it was a little different and sometimes it was a little hard for us to identify. ... They're a very exotic defense, a very good defense. They had a lot of different looks."
Ponder was sacked on the game's opening play, fumbled two drives later and struggled to move the ball against the Bills.
Buffalo's defense generated a fair amount of skepticism from our gang of scribes on Wednesday's Around The League Podcast. Still, the Bills should be fun to watch under new coordinator Mike Pettine. This will be a defense that attacks opponents, takes chances and shies away from last season's hyper-vanilla approach to stopping the opponent. The talent level is questionable, but Pettine makes the most of his players.
We know coach Doug Marrone's fast-paced offense will be fun to watch. Bills fans are set up for an interesting ride if Buffalo's defense can keep pace.
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