Here's a sentence that would have sounded like a fever dream in 2016: the Buffalo Bills are 5-1, they lead the entire NFL in scoring, and the mood around Orchard Park during the bye week is something closer to a nervous laugh than a victory lap.

That's not Bills Mafia being ungrateful. That's Bills Mafia doing math.

Buffalo beat the Las Vegas Raiders 33-30 on Sunday, October 18, wrapping up a two-game West Coast trip with two wins. There's no game on Sunday, October 25. The next time the Bills take the field is Sunday, November 1, when the Baltimore Ravens come to town. And in between, there's a lot for Joe Brady's staff to chew on.

The Offense Is Doing Something Historic

Start with the good news, because there's plenty of it.

According to the Associated Press, the Bills are averaging 32.8 points per game, the most in the NFL. That's the second-most points through six games for any head coach in his first season, behind only the 2000 St. Louis Rams under Mike Martz, who put up 43.7 a game.

Brady was Buffalo's offensive coordinator before he got the top job, and you can see his fingerprints all over this. The Bills have scored on 36 of their 58 possessions that didn't end in a kneel-down. They've scored on all 26 trips into the red zone, 18 touchdowns and eight field goals. Kicker Tyler Bass is 13 for 13 on field goals this season and has made 18 straight, matching the team's best streak since Rian Lindell in 2007.

And then there's Josh Allen. Against the Raiders he went 23 of 33 for 255 yards with two touchdowns. One of those touchdowns was a 12-yard shovel pass to Keon Coleman in the third quarter that put Buffalo up 23-13. After Las Vegas tied it at 23 in the fourth quarter, James Cook plowed in from 3 yards out to put the Bills back on top, and Bass's fourth field goal of the day, a 38-yarder, made it 33-23 with 1:56 left. When the Raiders tried an onside kick with 90 seconds left, Khalil Shakir came up with it.

So why isn't anybody relaxing?

Four Wins While Giving Up 30

Because the Bills are 4-0 this season in games where they've allowed 30 or more points.

Read that one more time. CBS Sports Research says no team in NFL history has won that many games while giving up 30 through its first six. The rest of the league is 8-42 in those games this year.

If you've been a Bills fan long enough, that number lands a little differently. The AP dug up this one: from 2012 through 2018, the Bills were 0-30 when they gave up 30 points. Zero and thirty. Seven seasons of Sundays where 30 points against meant you could start the car early and beat the traffic out of the lot.

Now it means Allen is about to go win the game anyway. That's a wonderful thing to have. It's also not a plan.

The numbers on the other side of the ball are rough. The AP reports the Bills have allowed 15 passing touchdowns, second-most in the league and the most Buffalo has given up through six games since at least 2005. They've allowed 29 or more points five times already. Against Las Vegas, the Raiders gained 378 yards, converted 7 of 12 third downs, and went 2 for 2 on fourth down. The week before, the Rams were 7 of 14 on third down.

Entering the Raiders game, Buffalo ranked third-worst in the NFL in total defense, allowing 388.6 yards a game, according to CBS Sports.

A Former Bills Safety Is Running the Defense, and He's Not Happy Either

Here's the part of this story that feels very Buffalo.

The man in charge of fixing the defense is Jim Leonhard, who Brady hired as defensive coordinator on January 31. Leonhard started his ten-year NFL playing career right here, signing with the Bills as an undrafted safety and playing for them from 2005 to 2007. He came back this year after coaching at Wisconsin and with the Denver Broncos, and he installed a more aggressive, attacking 3-4 scheme with four new starters.

It hasn't clicked yet, and Leonhard hasn't pretended otherwise. After the overtime win over the Rams on Monday, October 12, he was about as blunt as a coordinator gets.

"It's time to be good at something, and that's our struggles right now," Leonhard said, according to the AP. "It's too inconsistent to pretend that we're building and working and making improvements. Everything's being evaluated."

He was also clear that the offense can't keep carrying this thing. "It has to change. It has to get better," he said. "We plan on being in a lot of big games, and it's our job as a defense to go close them out for wins."

And when he was asked whether that could mean personnel changes, he didn't duck it. "This is professional football," he said. "If we don't feel like the answers are there then, yeah, then there gets to be some big conversations."

A guy who used to wear the uniform, publicly holding his own unit to that standard. You can like that and still be nervous about what it means.

The Gardner-Johnson Problem

The bye week also came with a headache nobody needed.

Late in the second quarter in Las Vegas, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson was ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct after he spat in the direction of Raiders players, including tight end Brock Bowers. The 14-yard penalty gave the Raiders the ball at Buffalo's 14-yard line with 15 seconds left in the half, and they kicked a 27-yard field goal to tie the game at 13.

On Monday, October 19, the NFL suspended him one game without pay, citing its rule against "any act which is contrary to the generally understood principles of sportsmanship." Because of the bye, the suspension runs from October 26 through November 2. That means he's out for the Ravens game. He has the right to appeal.

To his credit, Gardner-Johnson owned it right away. "I owe my teammates an apology and to be a man about it," he said after the game, according to the AP. "As a vet, I'll be better. I'll take my consequences as it is, handle it like a man and move on."

Brady called the spitting "inexcusable" and said he talked to Gardner-Johnson privately. "It can't happen. That's not what we're about," Brady said. "That's not what the game of football is about, and he knows that."

Gardner-Johnson is 28, won a Super Bowl with the Eagles, and is on his sixth team in eight seasons, playing on a one-year deal in Buffalo. He came here with a reputation for trash talk, and Brady made it clear he doesn't mind personality. "I don't need a roster of everybody being the same person," he said. But losing a starting safety for a game, in a secondary that's already the weak spot, stings.

Who's Hurt, and What Brandon Beane Might Do

There was some good news on the injury front in Las Vegas. Outside linebacker Bradley Chubb and tight end Dalton Kincaid were both checked for rib injuries during the game and both came back. Receiver DJ Moore (shoulder) and defensive tackle Ed Oliver (knee) each missed their second straight game, so the bye comes at a good time for both of them.

The bigger question is whether general manager Brandon Beane goes shopping. The NFL trade deadline is Tuesday, November 10. When a team is 5-1 with an offense this good and a pass defense this leaky, the AP put it plainly: the focus shifts to Beane and whether he brings in reinforcements.

Nobody knows the answer to that yet. But if you've watched this team long enough, you know Beane isn't shy about making a move when the window is open.

Ravens on November 1

When the Bills come back, it's the Baltimore Ravens at home on Sunday, November 1, at 1 p.m. on CBS. After that it's at Minnesota, at the Jets, and home against Miami, before the Chiefs come to town on Thanksgiving night.

That's a lot of football left, and a lot of it is the kind of football where 30 points against usually means a loss, no matter who your quarterback is.

So that's the bye week in Buffalo. A first-place team. An offense on a historic pace. A coordinator who used to wear the uniform, demanding better. A safety who knows he let his teammates down. And a whole region that has learned, the hard way, not to celebrate a 5-1 start until the defense gives it a reason to.

Honestly? That's about as Buffalo as it gets. We'll take the wins. We'll just keep one eye on the scoreboard while we do it.