It all starts with “13 seconds” for me and continues to this day. The arrogance and stubbornness of McDermott not to do what was necessary to beat the Chiefs in 2021 drove me crazy. How simple would it have been, in retrospect, to have squib kicked and taken time off the clock? How easy would it to have merely tackled each of the Chief’s receivers on 1st down from the 25 (thus giving Mahomes no one to throw the ball to and cause 5-7 seconds to run off the clock)? Why was the defense guarding the sidelines when the Chief’s had three time outs left? All of these questions ran through my mind (and the minds of most Bills fans) and still do. What makes this worse is a year later, against the same team, the Bills were faces with an almost identical situation. Bills were kicking off to Chiefs with 18 seconds to go before halftime. They squib kicked and this time the Chiefs got the ball at their own 27 with 12 seconds left in the half. Did McDermott learn from the “13 Second Game”? Did he do what was necessary to get the Chiefs off the field without scoring points? Did he take the 5 yard penalty for tackling all of the Chiefs receivers? No to everything. Chiefs move 30 yards in two plays and kick a field goal as time expired in the half. The arrogance and stubbornness of McDermott in those two situations, to me , defines him as a coach. He is “Old School” in a “New Wave” world. This whole idea of “Complementary Football” is archaic. Did the Bengals use complementary football in throwing for 348 yards while only rushing for 54? IMHO, complementary football is played when you have a decent but not great QB, a great offensive line and very good running backs. We have a great QB, a mediocre offensive line and running backs that over the past four weeks have averaged 3.9 yards per carry. The idea that we need to slow our offense down so as to give the injured defense less time on the field is stupidity. We need to score to win. Let’s look at the game versus the Bengals:
Dorsey: For weeks I, and many others, had been clamoring for the Bills to run a quicker, hurry-up offense. The proof was in the statistics. Going into the Tampa game, EVERY time the Bills went hurry-up they got points- EVERY FRICKING TIME!!!! So what happens in Tampa? Bills go hurry-up and get a FG. Next drive Bills stay in hurry-up and go down the field to the Buc’s 1 yard line. 3rd and goal from the one. Easy correct? Josh on the QB sneak correct? Works every time right? Of course Dorsey will do this especially after having his previous experiences of going shotgun and handing the ball off to Murray go nowhere (See: 1st and Goal at Giant’s 2 and 2nd and goal at Giant’s one at end of 1st quarter in Giant’s game). Nope, Dorsey has to prove how smart he is and calls for the shotgun handoff to a stationary Murray and Bills get stuffed and get no points. Third drive-hurry-up and a TD. Fourth drive: deflected pass and interception. Fifth drive: hurry-up and a TD. So in the five drives that half the Bills scored three times, were stopped on the one yard line once and had a fluke interception on the other. No huddle works!!! When Josh is in no-huddle he gets rhythm. When he is in Rhythm he makes good plays, good decisions, and we score points.
So what happens in Cinci? We start out the game, not in hurry-up, but in a quick moving offense. Six plays, five completions, one drop and Josh scores on a designed run. How simple was that. Josh in rhythm. Easy game right? Next time we get the ball: 1st down Cook for 2 yards. Next play PI against Cinci. Next play Cook for minus 2. Next play 60 yard bomb to a covered Harty (see, complementary football). Next drive: Bad interception. Next drive: two runs and a sack on third down. Last drive of the half: Bills go hurry-up. They move from their own 25 to the Bengals 38 with 32 seconds left. Josh is in a rhythm. What happens next? Bengals CB, who illegally tripped Kincaid a play earlier, comes up “injured” and TO is called. Bills huddle up. Josh throws deep ball down sideline incomplete and is flagged for Intentional Grounding (maybe the worst call ever) and Bills get no points. Point is that they moved the ball in no huddle. The rest of the game the only time the Bills were successful in moving the ball was when they went to hurry-up. Beginning of second half: hurry-up. Bills move from own 26 to Cinci 16 only to have Josh’s third down pass to Gabe Davis fall incomplete (due at least in part to the fact that Davis have his facemask grabbed and face jerked away from the ball in the end zone). Bills get FG. Later in the fourth quarter on consecutive drives the Bills go no huddle. On first drive they go from their own 35 to Cinci 11 where Kincaid fumbles. Next drive Bills go from their own 25 and score a TD on pass to Diggs. What doesn’t Dorsey get here? Bills offense just doesn’t score when playing “complementary football.” Bills score when Josh is Josh-moving, running, scrambling and improvising. We lost to the jets (three out of our four scores were in hurry-up), lost to the Patriots (down 22-10 we go no-huddle and get TDs on next two drives to take lead), Lost to Jacksonville (all three TDs were scored in hurry-up). when asked after the game why the Bills didn’t use hurry-up in 1st three quarters v Cinci Dorsey said he was worried about the crowd noise effecting the snaps. WTF???? It sure didn’t effect Josh his 1st series of the game and it surely didn’t effect him his last two series. When McDermott was asked a similar question his response was “we wanted to get to some other styles of play rather than the quicker tempo…” Again, WTF??? Other styles of play that don’t produce points (or first downs if you are worried about your defense going back onto the field too quickly) versus a style of play that has been tremendously successful for Josh (Bill are top scoring offense in football over past 2 1/2 years in last two minutes of half or game). Just arrogance and stubbornness on behalf of both Dorsey and McDermott.
A review of this game wouldn’t be complete without a comment about the awful job that the referees did Sunday night. It started with the phantom roughing the quarterback penalty on Settle (where he protected Burrows while bringing him to the ground by rolling under Burrows). In the second quarter Diggs was grabbed on a third down pass forcing us to punt from our own 16.Next came the blatant grab and twist of Gabe Davis’s facemask on a would be touchdown (or at least a PI/FF call which would have given the Bills the ball at the one and an easy TD instead of settling for three points). Then came the flagrant and blatant trip where the Bengals CB did a soccer slide-tackle to take out Kincaid. Lastly was the horrendous intentional grounding call on Josh when he was under no pressure and when Davis broke off a deep route AFTER Josh had released the pass. Just terrible.
Can’t be remiss in how bad McDermott is in using Time Outs on defense and how bad he is in determining whether to challenge a call. In the fourth quarter there was a third down pass that Burrows threw to the sideline and which was caught by Higgins. On the replay it sure looked like the ball hit the ground and he lost possession while falling out of bounds and thus not “completing the catch” as is required. The announcers missed it but I saw it as did many twitter fans. That was a huge play since it gave the Bengals a first down and allowed them to milk the clock and eventually get a FG. No challenge by McDermott. Instead, he decides to use a challenge on a first down eight yard pass to Sherfield on our last drive knowing he needed time outs if were scored and were going to get the ball back. Terrible challenge. Terrible time to challenge. Terrible play to challenge (it was an 8 yard gain at best0. He has on multiple occasions called defensive TO’s to get his defense organized (how well did that go in the 13 second loss game and how well did that go in the loss to the Patriots this year?). His use of TO’s and challenges is maddening. One more thing to add after the terrible Intentional Grounding call, the Bills faced a fourth and 15 from the Cinci 47 yard line. Too far for a Bass FG for sure. But why not let the clock run down to two or three seconds and then throw a Hail Mary? We almost saw Bills lose last week on a Hail Mary. Josh’s are can easily reach the end zone from midfield or even his own 40. No risk at all in throwing the ball into the end zone there. Problem is that McDermott was so upset about the Intentional Grounding call that he never even thought about a Hail Mary.
Where do we go from here: McDermott is too stubborn to admit his mistake in hiring and keeping Dorsey so we are stuck with him in the short term. If the Bills are forced to play “complementary football” the rest of the year due to defensive inadequacies then I see this team at 8-9 or 7-10. They won’t beat KC, Philly, Chargers or Miami with our defense UNLESS we score 30+ points a game. That won’t happen playing slow down ball. I can see them losing to the Broncos and Cowboys under the same scenario. For the Bills to win the coaches need to abandon the run, go hurry-up or at least up tempo and let Josh improvise, scramble and run. They can still be one of the best offenses in football. They have an elite QB and and elite WR(Diggs) and a rookie TE who has blossomed. We have Shakir who has also done some very good things lately. We HAVE TO figure out the Davis situation. Kid gets 100 yards v Jacksonville and nine catches v Tampa yet is only targeted twice v Cinci. Makes no sense. Lastly, Dorsey has to figure out how to use gadget guys like Harty and Cook (like he failed to do last year with Hines). The season isn’t done. We can make the playoffs and do some damage. We cannot do that by playing “complementary football”.