NFL
By: Brock Vierra
When it comes to the city of Buffalo, the Buffalo Bills, and Bills Mafia, Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy says it best, “where else would you rather be than right here, right now.” A war cry from the days when Levy led his high-scoring K-Gun offense to four straight Super Bowl appearances is now a moniker forever associated with the franchise. However, the one thing that isn’t in Buffalo right now is a Lombardi trophy. Now besides his first Super Bowl appearance, the Bills of the nineties were outmatched by the talented teams of Washington and Dallas, clearly never establishing themselves as the best team in the NFL during their heyday. That seemed to be the thoughts of the past in 2022 when Buffalo held the number 1 seed and victories on the road over the Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens, victories which gave many the illusion this would be the year Buffalo got it done.
Josh Allen was the MVP frontrunner, the Bills were in the driver’s seat in both their division and the AFC and besides the Eagles, the NFC didn’t pose much of a threat, unlike the nineties. Yet here we are on Championship Sunday, crowing the Eagles and Chiefs as conference champions with Buffalo spending the last week on the couch. An almost historic letdown has poked holes in a team many crowned champions at the midpoint in the season so only one question remains, what happened?
We can talk about injuries and there were plenty. Allen was banged up for the second half of the season, Von Miller was lost for the year and their DB room was ravaged. Micah Hyde suffered a season-ending injury, Jordan Poyer played hurt all year, Demar Hamlin suffered a near-fatal hit in the regular season matchup against the Bengals and Tre White was inactive for the beginning portion of the season. Those things are hard to overcome but injuries that were mainly on the defense and doesn’t account for only 10 points of offense scored in their divisional matchup. It’s something deeper.
Maybe it was Demar Hamlin. What happened to him is one of the most traumatic and jarring incidences to ever occur on a football field. So bad the NFL canceled the game after a portion of it was already played, something that has never happened in over my personal 15 years of watching pro ball. But the Bills beat the Patriots handly the week after despite the Patriots potentially clinching a playoff spot with a win and then beating Miami in the Wild Card round the week after that so that couldn’t be it.
Maybe it was losing the one seed and not getting the BYE. That could be it but they lost at home to a playoff team that also played the week before. How does a season with so much potential come to a grinding halt in a clear display of being outclassed?
They didn’t lose to the Bengals by a fluke, they lost 27-10. There are three people to blame in this situation. That’s Sean McDermott, Brandon Beane, and Josh Allen. The one thing, the one element of Josh Allen’s game that was guaranteed was the fact he could play in the cold. Buffalo, especially in January is a fortress. Frigid temperatures that should prohibit teams from walking out of upstate New York in victory. Before this year, Allen was 3-0 at home in playoff games but his undefeated streak is no longer. Why? Because he doesn’t have a run game.
This is a front office that passed up on both Kenneth Walker and Breece Hall while settling on James Cook in the second round. Cook is fine but there was zero indication from his college career that he would be a day 1 starter. In fact, in his first official carry in the NFL, he fumbled the ball. Cook who was supposed to be the backup to Devin Singletary, the Bills incumbent starter who in his four years in the league, has never eclipsed 1000 yards in a season. In fact, Singletary’s average in playoff games is 39 yards and yet he’s still RB1? Unacceptable.
Let’s talk about the receiving core. Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis are clearly WR1 and WR2 but who’s the slot threat? What do the Bills do? Wait until the fifth round to draft Khalil Shakir while instead of having him be a day one starter, he’s a rotation guy forcing the Bills to scramble at the end of the year to find that threat. They call Cole Beasley out of retirement and sign John Brown to the practice squad. They bring in players who know the system late because they failed to address this need in a timely manner and it costed them in the end. Their offensive line took a decline which they failed to address in the draft as well but that’s okay because Beane believed 34-year-old Rodger Saffold is the answer.
Brandon Beane, a former executive of the year has routinely failed to address the obvious offensive holes in this roster and he should be questioned why Josh Allen hasn’t had a single 1,000-yard rusher in his five years in Buffalo. It’s not like the Bills have never seen quality running backs. Hall of Famers O.J. Simpson and Thurman Thomas made their historic careers in Buffalo. Marshawn Lynch and Fred Jackson had 1,000-yard seasons with the Bills. Heck, even LeSean McCoy had one the year before Allen entered the league but the moment Brandon Beane becomes the GM, those cease to exist? That’s not happening.
For Sean McDermott, he pulled Buffalo out of a dark hole. The laughing stock of the league for over a decade, McDermott helped Buffalo end both the longest playoff drought in the NFL and a 20+ year drought without a division title. Two achievements that Buffalo should honestly induct him into the Bills Hall of Fame for. However he is 4-5 in the playoffs, going 0-4 on the road, and in his 5 losses, his team had a lead in four of them.
A double-digit lead in two of those contests as well. McDermott can’t close. He couldn’t close in Kansas City twice, even having the lead and the ball with 13 seconds left in the memorable 2022 divisional matchup. McDermott is looking like the modern-day Marty Schottenheimer except Schottenheimer’s fatal flaw was his reliance on the run whereas McDermott’s is his overreliance on Josh Allen. In his six years as Buffalo’s head coach, he has never won a playoff game in which he hasn’t been favorited and the defensive-minded coach has allowed an average of 4 TDs or around 28 points per game in his last 7 playoff games.
And then there’s Josh Allen. The big arm exception that defied all the metrics and haters to become one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks who doubles as a blue-collar, gritty runner whom Bills Mafia would never dare slander with the term “running back” as they do to other quarterbacks in the league. A quarterback for which some have anointed the best in the league and “QB1” despite having a 4-4 playoff record with an 0-3 road playoff record, an 0-2 playoff record against Patrick Mahomes, and an 0-1 playoff record against Joe Burrow.
Now Allen gets unwanted hate due to how much some people in the media want to dethrone Patrick Mahomes, using Allen as the best replacement for him but his performance against Cincinnati was downright horrible. 17 incompletions with 0 passing touchdowns and 1 interception at home is bad. Having less than 300 yards total while being your teams leading rusher is downright unacceptable but therein lies the problem.
There is no world in which Josh Allen should be your leading rusher in a playoff game. There is no world in which your leading rusher in a playoff game should have 26 yards. These past 30 months in Buffalo have been a masterclass in both on-field and roster mismanagement that has turned the off-field bromance of Allen and Stefon Diggs into a sideline confrontation. Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott are so confident in their vision of Josh Allen being the next coming of Jesus that it clouds their judgment across the rest of the roster.
Zero Running Backs on the Bills roster that you could seriously consider a top 30 back in the league in five years. No answer for a slot receiver that you have to pull a guy out of retirement. An aging offensive line that lacks true depth. A defensive line that is only effective when Von Miller is on the field. Is that the fabric of a championship team?
Until Beane and McDermott get serious about their roster and the limitations of Josh Allen, the Bills and the Bills Mafia will continue to suffer. Until they do, I hope all parties are still content with their hot starts to open seasons and annual regular-season victories over the now AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs. Do better guys.
