Amari Cooper only had four or five days to learn the Bills offense. Then, he played less than 20 snaps in his first game wearing the charging Buffalo. It was pretty much the cliffsnotes version of adding a major new piece to a football team. Yet, it was more than enough for Cooper to have an impact. He scored the go-ahead touchdown in the second half, hauling in four passes for 66 yards. Cooper helped open the door for Josh Allen to go over 300 yards. The Bills scored on all five possessions after halftime: three touchdowns and two field goals. "The second half was scary," Khalil Shakir said. "Everything was clicking. It was beautiful." Brandon Beane probably could not have imagined much better for game one with Cooper when he birthed the trade from Cleveland a week ago. Not only did Cooper succeed, so did all the vital pass catching pieces around him. Keon Coleman had the first 100 yard game of his career and the first for any Bills pass catcher this year. Dalton Kincaid had three catches for 52 yards, including two huge third down receptions that kept touchdown drives alive. Shakir finished with seven catches for 66 yards, including 44 yards that became the engine of another possession that scored. It appeared later in the game, Tennessee's pass defense was sliding more towards Cooper and giving him the attention he deserves. The result was more space for other Bills receivers. The Ty Johnson touchdown was a play where the linebacker that should be occupying the space over the middle moved to help shadow Cooper and opened a window for the Bills. Apologies in advance for going full coach speak here, but I'll have to watch the film later in the week to be sure. The Bills got the full Cooper experience in game one. He created easy separation (there was a first half play where Cooper ripped apart some Titan's ankles and the Bills didn't even throw him the ball). He made catches down the field. He made tough catches in traffic. He even started the day with a ridiculous drop. Cooper lived up to the hype in every way. I will caution against adorning Cooper with too many flowers. He wasn't even on the field for either Coleman's 44 yard or 57 yard receptions. The former was a blown coverage. The latter was a defense pressed in a desperate run stop, likely not expecting or caring about giving up something big in the pass game. The overall numbers will be glossed a bit by circumstances outside Cooper's influence. It was still the best the Bills passing game has looked all year, even if it took everyone in blue and red a little while to get going. For the third time in four weeks, Buffalo sleepwalked out of the locker room directly into a multi score deficit. In Baltimore and Houston, those slow starts created holes that were too big for the Bills to escape. Fortunately, the Titans are a far cry from the Ravens and Texans. The second halves have been great for Buffalo, especially on defense. In 7 games, the Buffalo defense has allowed a total of 33 points. Only two teams have scored more than once. Only the Ravens have scored more than a touchdown. A.J. Epenesa said once the Bills figure out what the offense is going to "major" in against Buffalo that day, they know how to adjust. I asked Rasul Douglas after the game if that's the blueprint to the Bills second half success. "It shouldn't be that. We should want to get off to a fast start," he said. "We preach that. We just haven't been able to." It wasn't just the defense that took the first 20 minutes or so off. Buffalo's offense took four drives and more than a full quarter for the offense to even record a first down. Their only first half points almost directly resulted from the aforementioned Tennessee coverage braincramp. Despite the impressive turnaround, there were players other than Douglas who referenced frustration with the need for one. It's an issue that needs to be addressed before Buffalo runs into more teams that will grind poor starts into a loss. Give Brian Callahan credit. I really liked his gameplan early. He kept the eyes moving for the Bills on defense. When he then had Buffalo on their heels, Callahan hit them in the gut with Tony Pollard runs. Good thing for the Bills once the scripted stuff was done, the rest of the game was about man against man. And Buffalo had the better men. The Bills all said the fourth down stop to start the second half was a source of energy. It's a good reason why Callahan probably got a little over his skis even trying it. Fourth and one or less than one, I'd understand. This was fourth and a little more than two and right after the Bills had stoned the third down run. While the Bills run defense is not good, it's anecdotally looks like the best in the league on short yardage plays or anything inside their own five yard line and they delivered. Terrel Bernard and Dorian Williams made an superb play taking Pollard out of the air on third down. DeWayne Carter took the air out of Tennessee's fourth down try. The rookie continues to make big plays against the run and provide depth at a position it didn't look like Buffalo had much. The star on defense in this game was Greg Rousseau. He only had half a sack, but he did get six quarterback hits. That's the most for any player in the league this year. The half a sack was a few weeks coming. Rousseau has been logging frequent pressures on the QB regularly. Young, inexperienced right tackles have helped, but Rousseau is dominating situations where the Bills need a dependable edge rusher to dominate. I'm not sure the sack numbers will ever be gaudy, but Rousseau is impacting games. And he's doing so without a ton of help from anyone else on the current defensive line. The B story (with a capital B) for this game was Tyler Bass. He didn't have to attempt a kick longer than the 33 yards required for extra points, but he did make them all and it was a fairly windy day. It's not the kind of performance that erases all (or even any doubt) about his future dependability. It's still a performance worthy of praise. Even if the kicks were typically gimme's, Bass had to know all game and all week one miss would end his Buffalo career. That's incredible stress for anyone and Bass did his job. He'll get to hang around for at least another week. There were warts in this win, but Buffalo got everything they could have wanted out of Cooper. He's already making plays, altering defenses and building trust. Sean McDermott and Allen both pushed a ton of credit in the direction of offensive quality control coach DJ Mangas helping Cooper learn at least some of the offense in less than a week. It was more than enough. "Guys of his caliber, they don't need a lot," Josh Allen said. "Give them a clear mind. Let them go play."