A year ago, almost to the date (1/25/23) I wrote an article querying “Where do we go from here?”. A year later it deja vu all over again. First a recap of Sunday night’s loss and then an attempt to answer the question which seems to repeat itself every year: Where Do We Go From Here…Again.
Sunday’s game:
Positives: I thought the offense played well. Josh Allen was a beast, contributing to 258 yards of offense and three touchdowns in spite of almost 150 yards of dropped passes. Some have criticized him for trying to go for a TD at the 2:00 minute mark of the fourth quarter to Shakir rather than hitting Diggs on the crossing route. Sorry but the ONLY time you pass up a TD is when you intentionally slide short of the goal line at the end of the game, when you are already winning, to prevent your opponent from getting another shot. Allen had Shakir open. But for Dawkins getting run over by Long and bumping into Josh while he was throwing that’s a touchdown and we’d have been up by four points with 1:50 left on the clock. Yes Mahomes would have had time. Yes Mahomes is great. Still, he would have needed a touchdown, not a FG. I like the Bills chances in that situation in spite of the defensive woes. Had Allen hit Diggs (and assuming Diggs caught the ball and didn’t fumble) we would have been in a third and short at the 20. Still a ton of work to do to get seven points. I like the aggressiveness in trying to score when it’s there like it was on that play.
My problem with the offense revolves around Joe Brady becoming very predictable, especially in the second half of Sunday’s game. I wrote two weeks ago about his predictability in 1st and goal situations (10+ times in a row he ran on first down). Well he is now up to 14+ times in a row where he’s run on first and goal. In addition, on second downs he ran the ball 10 of 14 times during Sunday’s game. Predictable. Now let’s look at the Bills with 1st and 10 from the KC 27 with 2:42 left in the game. The entire drive up to that point had been Josh Allen. 6 completions and three positive runs. The run game, on the other hand, other than Josh had become anemic in the second half. The KC Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo made adjustments in the fourth quarter to deal with the Bills running backs. In the Bills last two possessions prior to this last one Cook had runs of minus 3 (on a second and two after a Josh 8 yard run) and minus 4 (on first down with 12 minutes left). On the last drive Cook ran for no gain on 2nd and four at the KC 34 with 4:05 left. So the last three times Cook ran the ball he’d lost seven yards. The Bills now have first down at the Chiefs 27 with 2:42 left. What is the play call? Cook, up the middle for one yard. Predictable. Josh is now in a second and long situation and we all know what happened from there.
Another criticism of Brady is the usage, or at times lack of usage, of certain players. Earlier in the year I pointed out how sporadically Gabe Davis was used. Over a ten week stretch Davis had four games of 100, 87, 105 and 130 yards and four touchdowns. Over the other six weeks he was held without a catch in three games (five targets in three full games), and had six total catches in the other three games combined.
Sunday it was Brady’s decision to basically ignore Kincaid for almost three quarters. On the first drive of the game Allen hit Kincaid for 14 and 10 yard gains. It wasn’t until the last drive of the game that Kincaid was even targeted with a pass. Of course, on the last drive Dalton caught three big passes for seven, eight and six yards keeping that drive alive. Kincaid may be the best receiver on this team. We traded up in the draft to pick him in the first round. He’s supposed to be the Bills answer to Travis Kelce. How in the world can you not throw him the ball for almost three consecutive quarters of football, especially since the Bills offense stagnated in the second half? It is inexcusable. Brady does everything within his power to get the ball to Stefon Diggs game after game. Pass after pass behind the line of scrimmage to Diggs. In a game where the Bills passing attack was consistently throwing the ball to the line of scrimmage or behind, all five passes to Kincaid were thrown upfield. He catches the ball, makes guys miss and gets yardage. To forget about him for that long Sunday is indefensible.
2. Negatives: Defense. We all saw a defense that was decimated by injuries. Milano, White and Jones early. Benford, Dotson, Douglas, Dodson and Hyde late. We saw how well McDermott used his backups in schemes which allowed us to win six consecutive games. For that he gets high praise. Sunday, however, was a debacle for which he had no answers. Ed Oliver, who had perhaps his best NFL season in 2023 was invisible Sunday. All year long he’d been the mainstay of the D-Line. With DaQuan Jones out Oliver held the line together. 9.5 sacks, 51 tackles. He was a monster. With Jones’s return two weeks ago the Bills D-Line had held rushers in tact. Sunday, however, the Chief’s ran right through this defense. Oliver, Jones, Rosseau, Joseph, Lawson and Epenesa, COMBINED for five tackles. Von Miller had two tackles for God’s sake. On only two occasions was Mahomes hit (one each by Rosseau and Lawson). This putrid display led to Pacheco and Edwards-Helaire running for 128 yards on 17 carries: an astounding 7.5 yards per carry. This left the Bills secondary in numerous second down and short yardage situations which Mahomes used efficiently. There were no adjustments made by McDermott. The Bills stopped the Chiefs (other than the fumble at the one yard line resulting in a touchback) ONCE the entire game.
This leads me to discussing McDermott and his game time decisions. All year this has been an issue. Ever since 13 seconds I’ve been complaining about his use of time outs and challenges. Sunday’s fake punt may have been his worst decision of the year. To have Damar Hamlin run the ball directly into the teeth of the Chief’s line with four yards needed for a first down was just plain stupid. At least have a running back in that situation run the ball. This call should have cost us the game. We got bailed out on a fumble and touchback or else we’d have been down 10 points with no chance of winning.
So where do we go from here? Here are my thoughts and suggestions:
1. McDermott: in spite of his inability to win in the post season and in spite of his stubbornness and arrogance (13 seconds game and then a year later against the same team he allowed the same result in 12 seconds before the half), he has shown that the team loves him and he prepares the team extremely well for games. That said, his in game decisions reek of inconsistency. His wasting of Time outs, his usages of challenges and the like are maddening. He needs help. He needs a quality defensive coordinator on staff so he can focus on the entire game. In addition Sean needs to figure out his special teams situation. Too many times we gave up huge returns which ended up costing us games. Bass was terrible inconsistent at the end of the season. His miss at the end of the game Sunday was terrible. What made it worse was that it was so predictable. His last five misses this year were from the right hash mark. He barely made his earlier try. When the Bills line up for extra points they ALWAYS kick from the left hash mark. The staff should have been thinking about that when they rolled Josh right on third down leaving the ball at the right hash and the resulting miss. This was so similar to Scott Norwood’s wide right in Super Bowl 25. Up to that point in the season Norwood had missed seven FGs- six from the right hash wide right and one from 55 yards. Where did he line up for the game winning 47 yarder? Right hash. Where did he miss? Wide right. Sometimes coaches have to do their job and put guys into a better position to win. Not excusing Bass’s miss. Just pointing out how coaching can help a player’s weakness.
2. Brady: like I said last year with Dorsey, give him another year. This wasn’t his offense. this was Dorsey’s offense. Let Brady figure out what he wants to do with Allen and the offense. He needs to become much less predictable. He needs to figure out a way to get the ball down field. He needs to worry less about getting the ball to Diggs and more about getting the ball to guys who can make plays. Gabe Davis’s usage this year was incomprehensible. How does a guy go from a stud to an invisible player week to week. He needs to figure out how to become less predictable inside the 10 yard line. He needs to figure out how to design a screen pass for God’s sake. Cook’s usage out of the backfield as a pass catcher was woefully deficient (in spite of six drops, four of which were for TDs and four fumbles).
3. Diggs: We are stuck with him. He will count over $30,000,000 towards next year’s cap should we get rid of him. No team is going to trade for him with that cap hit. He can still be a good #2 receiver if he stops being a diva. His sideline antics, attitude at mini camp and overall bad vibe is not good for this team. He has to realize that he’s no longer a #1. Brady has to realize that you can’t run a successful offense trying to make Diggs happy by targeting him incessantly. Shakir had more yardage in the second half of the season than Diggs did on HALF OF THE TARGETS. Time and time again we saw Diggs drop passes. His drop Sunday was huge. His fumble early could have been a huge blow had Kincaid no knocked the ball out of bounds. He needs to grow up and be willing to be a good #2. He cannot be a cancer in the room. He needs to be willing to help school the young receivers on this team.
4. Von Miller: useless this year but can’t be cut without a $27.9 Million cap hit for next year. All we can hope for, unless he’s suspended by the league for the alleged altercation/domestic with his girlfriend, is that his knee heals fully and he becomes part of the player he was last year before his ACL injury.
5. James Cook: This kid can be a superstar but needs to become much more consistent in holding onto the ball. We are now in year three and the Bills will have to decide what to do with him after his contract expires in 2025. We have him now at a fraction of the cost of a top RB. We need to use him more in the pass game. Brady has to figure out a way to get him the ball in one on one situations. He could be the next McCaffrey if developed properly. Of concern is the Bills belief in the run game. Over the past five games Cook ran for 294 yards on 85 carries. That’s an average of only 3.45 yards per carry. Way down from when Brady was promoted and the Bills began running the ball more often. Predictability kills running backs. Using him as a receiver more often will give more bang for the buck.
5. Beane: here is my issue with Beane-too many whiffs on high draft picks. Yes he’s done a great job getting guys like Shakir, Benford, Dodson and others later in the draft. That said he has missed terrible in the early rounds as well as in free agency. Second rounders Cody Ford, Boogie Basham and first rounder Elam have been busts. Three years in a row he drafter small running backs (Singletary, Moss and Cook) each of whom was projected to be all purpose backs. Singletary and Moss have both left and are still successful backs in this league. There was no reason to draft all three of them.
In addition, last year it was almost universally known that we needed a playmaker with speed at the wide receiver spot. His acquisitions of Harty and Sherfield, and their respective Cap hits (Harty has a $5,570,000 cap hit NEXT year) were ineffective to say the least. Neither produced in the passing game. Beane went all in on Kincaid but failed to address the wide receiver position other than to draft Shorter who never even got activated this year. Tank Dell, Rashee Rice, Jayden Reed, Marvin Mims were all available to the Bills. Beane picked Shorter 18 picks BEFORE the Rams drafted Puka Nacua who set rookie receiving records this year. Any of these guys would have been a huge addition. Instead Beane decided that a two TE offense with two bad free agent acquisitions was a better idea. He was wrong.
5. Draft: As set forth above, the Bills need a stud wide receiver. This year’s class appears to be stacked. After that the Bills need to focus on defense. The offense should be set with every single impact player returning. the offensive line returns intact as well as their backups. Diggs, Shakir and Kincaid return. An issue is what to do with Knox. He’s a $10,000,000/year backup Tight end. That is just way too much to spend on a guy like him. He also has $20M in dead cap hit. This is a huge problem that Beane needs to rectify if possible. The rest of the draft should focus on corners, safeties and line. We have Milano coming back and with the emergence of Bernard and Williams and Spector we should be set at LB. In the secondary we have Douglas, Benford, Jackson and Elam along with possible Tre’Davious White post achilles surgery. We have to eventually replace Hyde and Poyer and that should be where our second pick goes. On the defensive line we have Oliver Rosseau and Miller and not much else coming back. With our cap numbers it’s doubtful we’ll be able to keep DaQuan Jones or Epenesa so we need to draft some linemen.
Last year I said draft offensive linemen (they did and it worked),don’t extend/sign Poyer, Edmunds and Oliver and spend the money on wide receivers in free agency (they did but didn’t do it well). They have huge cap issues. Offensively they are one impact wide receiver away from being set. Defensively they have some huge holes to fill. This is where we find out if Beane/McDermott can draft and sign guys to help us. We’ve seen where spending millions of dollars on older players has put us. They can’t keep kicking the cap down the road.
Bills will be good next year. If Brady progresses they should again win the division. The only way they are beating the Chiefs and Ravens, however, is by outscoring them, not by stopping them defensively. The game has changed and McDermott and Beane need to keep up with the times. Pass first to set up the run. Run Josh. Use his talents.