Last year, the Buffalo Bills went to Kansas City to play for a spot in the AFC Championship game. It was the most magnificent game of football I’ve ever watched, and I watched my team leave everything they had on the field. So when the game ended the way it did, I was heartbroken. I could’ve cried. Hell, if I was alone, I probably would’ve. This year, when the Bills met the end of their season against the Bengals, for some reason, I felt nothing. It felt like losing a regular season game, I was disappointed, I complained for a bit, then I went about my day as if nothing happened. For any well-adjusted adult, that’s just how you handle a loss. But I’m not one, so why wasn’t I mad? Maybe I’m just coping and trying to pretend the loss didn’t bother me as a fan. Maybe I’ve just been desensitized after the 13 second fiasco last year. But maybe, it was because I kinda saw it coming.
The Bills started off the season in immaculate form, knocking off the then-reigning Super Bowl champs in dominating fashion, then following suit the next week against the Titans. I was quick to declare the Bills as Super Bowl champs right then and there. The Dolphins game was a mess for its own reasons, but they went on a nice win streak to rally, even including an away win over the Chiefs that have been our kryptonite for so long. Then came the game against the Jets. Tough game, I told myself, but they’re a tough defense. They’ll bounce back next week. And their record might say that’s exactly what happened too, but if you were watching Bills football, you saw it. From that game on they never looked the same. Even when they won you couldn’t feel good about it, they were barely beating teams that you would expect them to blow out, and when they did blow a team out there was plenty left to be desired (Josh Allen 172 yards and 2 picks against the Bears.). It’s hard to complain when your team is winning games, but it just didn’t feel like the Bills football we’ve been spoiled by in the prior two years. They kept that energy right into the playoffs when they just barely scraped by a Skylar Thompson led Dolphins team. At that point I had accepted that our season was over. The only thing that gave me hope at the time was that I didn’t think the Bengals looked particularly great either, but had we made it through Cincinnati, a Super Bowl still was never in the cards.
And that brings us to now. Once again the Bills have gone from Super Bowl contenders, sometimes even favorites, to being on the outside looking in come February. Where did it all go wrong? Where does this team go from here? Did a Super Bowl window that looked wide open a month ago just get slammed shut before our eyes? Let’s give it a look.
First, where did it go wrong? A better question to ask would probably be where didn’t it go wrong. As the season dragged on this year the Bills looked worse and worse in virtually every aspect of the game. Offense and defense. Passing, blocking, tackling, coverage. But I want to zero in on the offense, because let’s face it, the identity of this team is Josh Allen and the Buffalo air game. Allen still had a great season, but considering that he entered this year as the MVP season, anything less than that is going to be viewed as a disappointment. And it’s not as if he didn’t play himself out of the MVP conversation. Sure, you can blame the elbow injury. I’m absolutely positive that it was holding him back every week he played with it, but the elbow doesn’t explain some of the downright bad decision making we saw from him at times this year. His interceptions went up, and not only that, the context of some of these interceptions were really bad. It felt like a bit of rookie Josh Allen fought his way back to the surface. The eagerness to make the big play, the overwhelming confidence in himself to do so. So often he’d put a ball where it shouldn’t be, almost as if to say he could do it because he was Josh Allen. For what it’s worth, that’s exactly the kind of mindset I want out of my QB, and if a bad pick every now and then is the price that has to be paid for the number of “how the f*ck did he make that throw” touchdowns that we see from him every year, then it’s a price I can live with. Like I started to hint at earlier, I’m not blaming Josh for this season at all really, but you can’t write a Bills article without writing a Josh Allen article.
Who I do blame for the offensive woes, however, is offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey. (Actually, coaching is most of my problem with this team, and it’s not just Dorsey.). Dorsey was my favorite candidate to fill the Daboll vacancy in the offseason, but after what I witnessed this year, I just about wish he followed him to New Jersey. The only word I can use to describe Dorsey’s play calling is spoiled. He’s absolutely spoiled by the fact that he has a freak of nature under center, and he knows it. He calls deep balls like he’s playing Madden, and while Josh Allen can throw those deep balls, it doesn’t matter when everyone and their mother knows it’s coming. In the Dolphins wildcard game I recall multiple drives where the Bills would run multiple deep passing plays in succession and then just punt because it didn’t work. I understand that we have a Quarterback that can do things that no one else in the league can do, and Dorsey should absolutely be reflecting that in his playcalling, but in doing so he’s seemingly forgotten that Allen does the regular things very well too. And I realize this is almost an immediate contradiction to what I just said, but where did the designed QB runs go?
The craziest part of this coaching staff is that Dorsey may not even be the worst one there. I’ve spent years singing Leslie Frazier’s praises. But I’ve seen enough at this point. The Bills defense is essentially a wide open door where running backs can walk through ten yards at a time. This over reliance on the nickel defense makes no sense when we’re literally losing games because we can’t stop the run. The whole setup doesn’t make sense to me. Our pass defenders are the strongest part of our defense with players like Tre White, Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer. Why scheme to stop the pass on top of that? Rely on your DBs to be excellent like they have proven they can be, and scheme in a way that doesn’t let every running back on the planet step on the field and gash us up the middle at will.
And critiquing the offensive and defensive coordinators would be all for nothing if I didn’t talk about the guy at the front of it all. I love what Sean McDermott has done for this team. He ended the playoff drought, he’s turned the Bills into perennial contenders. What he’s done for the organization can not be understated. But I’m getting an uneasy feeling about him lately. Frazier aside, McDermott is a defense-first head coach, how does the defense still look this bad? Guys are missing tackles left and right, what should be TFLs are turning into first downs. It feels like nothing is going right when the Bills are on defense, and that shouldn’t be happening under McDermott. And then there’s perhaps an even bigger problem. He can’t coach the big games. The 2020 AFCC, the 13 second game, and now a few weeks ago against the Bengals. Why are the Bills always on the losing end of these games? If this team is ever going to reach the expectations that keep being set on them, McDermott is going to need to start rising to the occasion and stop getting out coached when it matters.
There’s plenty to address on the roster this offseason as well. The Offensive Line was abysmal. I love Dion Dawkins, but his blocking left lots to be desired this season. Spencer Brown might as well not have been there at all, and this iteration of Rodger Saffold has been the worst of his career. Need I remind you that Josh Allen got sacked 7 times in the wildcard game against the Dolphins? Did you see him bleeding during the Bengals game? He had no freedom to move around and make plays because the minute he did he would get hit. Josh Allen can’t do Josh Allen things if he’s on his back. The defensive woes can be fixed with better coaching, a healthy roster and maybe one more pass rusher in case Von Miller doesn’t make it back in good form. I also doubt Gabe Davis’ ability as a number two receiver. If they could bring in a true number two to free up Stefon Diggs a bit more, the results would be astronomical.
It’s hard to write about my favorite team. I want to try and be analytical and objective but at the same time I just want to rant and yell about how frustrating it is to watch your team disappoint every year. How disheartening it is to watch your team potentially waste the prime of the only good Quarterback we’ve had in my lifetime. With all of that said, I don’t think the Bills’ Super Bowl window is in danger of shutting as long as number 17 is still the Quarterback, but it would take a fool to argue that it’s as wide open as it once was. This era of Bills football has been amazing to watch as a lifelong fan, and it just about makes me sick to think about how we could still be talking about how 2021 “should’ve been our year” a decade from now. The Bills need to figure it out, and the sooner the better, because I’m not ready for this to be over.