Why Are the Bills Struggling? Three Persistent Midseason Patterns That Are Causing the Bills to Lose.

Written By Joe Larkin

Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills QB, Running

Why Are the Bills Struggling? Three Persistent Midseason Patterns That Are Causing the Bills to Lose. | THe Wandering Buffalo

After an underwhelming end to the 2022 post-season and a contentious offseason involving a complex array of bewildering feelings for the fanbase, the 2023 season has rolled on in a similar head-scratching and bewildering way. Although the team still possesses a winning record (5-4) after their loss to the Bengals at Paycor Stadium Sunday night, they are currently the 9th ranked seed in the AFC and if the season were to end today, they would miss the playoffs. The Bills are unquestionably a “good” team with a talented roster, but they are far from being a great team right now. Nothing feels easy for this team and some of the ugly wins bear a survivor’s guilt that is equivalent to feeling like a loss. Fans are left questioning why this team is losing and why they’re struggling to put games away they seemingly have in the bag.

I don’t think it’s complicated by any means though, and there are three concrete patterns that are undoubtedly appearing in their losses that are not only troubling, but are simply not winning football. If the team wants to change their fortunes the next two months and certain people still want a job, these patterns need to go away, or we can kiss this season goodbye in November. 

Turnovers 

Without a doubt, offensive turnovers are the bane of this season for the Bills and the main culprit for their struggles. In each of their four losses they’ve committed at least two turnovers on offense. Josh Allen began the season with a dismal four turnover performance which led them to lose to an offense who only passed for 140 yards in said game to a QB (Zach Wilson) who many believe is not an NFL caliber starter. Although two of Allen’s turnovers were deep shots that could qualify as “arm punts” the following two turnovers were both in the fourth quarter, could have been easily avoided, and were a result of Allen “forcing” plays. In his third interception of the night, Allen forced a ball to Gabe Davis on 3rd and 2, ten yards past the sticks where both TE Dalton Kincaid and WR Stefon Diggs were wide open past the first down marker. 

Allen forcing the ball to Davis has been a repeated cause for turnovers in the last two seasons, after losing to the Vikings in 2022 and throwing two different goal line interceptions, then Vikings CB Patrick Peterson claimed he knew exactly what route Davis was going to run as he only has about five routes TOTAL he chooses from. If you needed any verbal acknowledgement from defensive players that this offense has been figured out league wide, it’s been said out loud for over a year now. I believe this shows the Bills need to make dramatic steps into changing their offensive structure/playbook and are at least in part factoring into Allen’s turnovers. 

After the interception to Whitehead, Allen then fumbled the next offensive snap and tried to scoop it up after recovering it, which was then fumbled again. Off these two turnovers in the final ten minutes of the game, the Jets who were down by seven points, were ahead by three. Cue into overtime and the Bills lose in overtime to a punt return brought back for a TD, but we’ll talk about that in the next section. 

Against the Patriots in New England, a game which I attended, the majority of New England fans approached me with an apologetic energy/attitude. They understood their glory days are over and are content with having won six championships in a 17-year time frame. Many of these fans witnessed what will be considered the greatest dynasty in NFL history. Besides, after suffering two brutal beatdowns in a row, there was no way this Bills roster was gonna come in and lay an egg. Yet, the Bills did just that. 

On the first play of the game for the offense, Allen forced a ball 15 yards down field to TE Dawson Knox which Safety Jabrill Peppers easily read and picked off. Once again, Kincaid was wide open which could have easily been an 8–9-yard gain on first down. The Patriots working with short position then continued to score a TD and put up a 10-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the game. After these opening moment blunders, the New England fans immediately woke up from their slumber and got into the game, you had to imagine this also gave the opposing team life too.

Sunday’s game sang a similar tune of offensive woes around turning the ball over. After giving up two straight touchdowns, the defense finally got a stop against the Joe Burrow led Bengals and on 2nd and 10 Allen forced a ball to Davis which was easily picked off by CB Cam Taylor-Britt. Once again, watching the replay is infuriating because you can see three different receivers who are wide open that Allen doesn’t even look at. 

Adding in Kincaid’s fumble in the fourth quarter while approaching the goal line and turnovers are obviously costing this team games, but Allen’s tendency for turnovers this season is alarming. This is his fifth straight game with an interception, and I can’t help but to worry what path he could be headed on. At times he looks like a comfortable All-Pro generational talent, whereas other times in the same game he looks like a rookie QB who can’t see the field correctly yet. That’s okay for a C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, or Bryce Young to be doing, but not a 6th year starter who has been in the same offensive system his whole career and who is also the highest paid player on the team by a mile. 

Has Josh Allen possibly reached his ceiling? It’s easy to blame coaches for everything. We as fans have a lot more respect for the guys who are putting their bodies and brain health on the line, but the coaches can’t make the correct decisions on the field for the players. When you think of freak athletes who took the league by storm in the last decade at the QB position, most of their careers fanned out fast by the time they approached their 30’s and suffered/play though injuries, which Allen is currently doing for the second year in a row. Look no further than Carson Wentz or Cam Newtown who are both out of the league and relatively young guys all things considered. Bills fans need to consider this is a trajectory the NFL has seen before multiple times. I don’t want to be all doom and gloom, but Allen needs to eliminate these tendencies for unnecessary turnovers fast, or these could be guys his career is mentioned alongside with. 

Execution in Pivotal Moments 

Another key pattern that the Bills are struggling with is execution. I know it’s part of the “coachspeak” you hear in post-game interviews, but it’s true, this team is not executing at a high level. Every game they have lost has been a one-score game, so there were always chances to win these games, but failures to execute led to all of these games being losses, which in my opinion, is why the players deserve a hefty slice of blame just like the coaches do. 

After turning over the ball twice in the fourth quarter against the Jets, the Bills offense led a beautiful drive in the two-minute drill and tied the game up 19-19 forcing overtime. After committing four turnovers in one game, the Bills still had a chance to put it away, which really does show this team is more than capable of winning these games. To make matters worse, they even won the dreaded coin toss and Allen had a chance to correct a bad night and score a walk-off TD to shut up the critics and get the season rolling in a positive direction. Instead, the Bills offense floundered. RT Spencer Brown committed a false start on 1st and 10 and the Bills only managed to put up a whopping three yards on their next three plays. On 4th and 12 they were forced to punt, and PR Xavier Gipson responded with a 65-yard touchdown which featured an array of bad tackling on special teams.  

With 4 minutes left in the fourth quarter, against the Jaguars in London, the Bills had just made the game a one-score contest at 18-13. After forcing a 3rd and 4 at the JAX 34-yard line the Bills wasted a timeout (more on that in the final section) and were unable to stop the Jaguars offense, allowing a 32-yard catch to speedy WR Calvin Ridley and a 35-yard rushing TD to RB Travis Etienne, which ultimately put the game out of reach. The defense has played well, but they haven’t got that big stop when the team really needs it at the end of the game consistently.

Against New England, lack of execution defined the game for the Bills. Allen overthrew Diggs on what should have been a wide-open deep TD pass, K Tyler Bass missed a 42-yard field goal which would have made the game a one-score contest, Knox dropped a crucial pass on 4th down in the fourth quarter, and the defense once again couldn’t even force a FG attempt against one of the worst offenses in the league at the end of the game. Considering some of the aforementioned “ugly” wins and you’re pressed with issues of execution once again. Knox dropped an open pass that would have put the contest away against the Giants and instead made us sit back and watch a painful Giants drive that ended at the Bills 1-yard line. A red-hot Bills offense also couldn’t get past midfield against the Bucs the entire fourth quarter which kept the Bucs in the contest. Add in two penalties on would-be fourth down stops by the defense, and fans had to suffer through another hail Mary attempt that was open, luckily WR Chris Godwin didn’t turn his head around fast enough to see it. 

Lastly, against the Bengals, execution issues were persistent across the game. There are plenty of examples to choose from, so I’ll pick the one that ended the game. When the Bills rallied to try and put the game away late, scoring an impressive TD/2-PT conversion from Diggs which led to only a 6-point deficit, the defense couldn’t get a stop to get the offense the ball back. On 3rd and 3 from the Buffalo 36, RB Joe Mixon met DE Von Miller one-on-one in the backfield and easily shook Miller off of him for the first down, which put the game away for good. Being the highest paid player on the defensive side of the ball, it’s a moment you got to come away with and at least give your team a chance to get the ball back or force a long FG attempt by the Bengals. Miller has been virtually unnoticeable on the field this season, and although he’s still recovering from an ACL tear, you have to wonder if the Bills rushed him coming back when he isn’t even close to 100% and another player would have been more suitable in his place the last month. 

The bright side about “execution” being an issue is it shows these issues are fixable. The Bills aren’t getting dominated or anything like that, but they’re letting games they have a chance to win get away from them even when they’re fighting like hell to get back into them. Although, its obviously more comforting to beat teams down to a pulp in the first three quarters, being able to make comebacks and close out tight games is absolutely necessary to win in the NFL. If you look at the Chiefs two Superbowl victories over the last four years, their playoff runs were characterized by closing out back and forth games and coming from behind. If the Bills want a shot at the Lombardi, they need to execute better in these close contests immediately.

Game Management 

Now that I’ve discussed how the players have been part of the reason for these losses, we need to discuss something that is undeniable: McDermott and company are unexplainably bad at game management and its unacceptable how they haven’t improved over the years. When you first come into the league as a head coach game management is usually a learning curve for new head coaches, and it is acceptable to struggle with for a bit. McDermott is seven years into his tenure with the Bills and I feel as though he hasn’t gotten an iota better at managing games, especially when it comes to using timeouts or having an awareness of where the game is headed/at. Whether he likes it or not, the “13 seconds” fiasco was a prime example of horrible game management making this team lose a close contest and a genuine lack of awareness for the situation at hand. There were certainly fans calling for McDermott’s head after this and you can’t really say they’ve been proven wrong since.

 I’ll give two examples of bad game management this season that had me ready to punch out drywall and wondering what the hell the Bills coaches were thinking. 

In the Jaguars game in London, down 11-7,  Allen took a deep shot on a 50/50 ball to Diggs on 3rd and 15, which was ultimately picked off by the Jaguars. 

Although, I criticized Allen’s turnovers this season, the moment before the turnover is a testament to this coaching staff not using the clock wisely. After being unable to get the play call in the Bills had to burn a timeout. This is a serious issue the coaches need to eradicate. Being able to pull off a come from behind victory late in the fourth quarter is a pretty simple process as long as you got some clock and all of your timeouts left. It’s easier said than done, but you need to save your timeouts as they essentially get you an extra possession as long as you can force a punt. Burning timeouts in the first half is okay, but you need to be wise in using them in the second, especially if you’re losing. After burning said timeout, the Bills turned the ball over on a 50/50 ball Diggs should have come down with. Once again, the trifecta of game management, execution, and turnovers was on full display during this turning point type of play. The Jaguars would go on to win the game and this is a perfect snapshot of why we haven’t been winning these close contests. 

Against the Bengals on Sunday night, down 21-10, on a 3rd and 6, during the middle of the third quarter, on their own 13-yard line, the Bills couldn’t get the play down and had to burn a timeout in a two-score contest. Once again, the Bengals had a two-score lead and those timeouts would be crucial if the Bills planned to make a comeback and win the game. Nonetheless, the timeout was pointless as they gained a single yard the following play and punted. 

In another egregious moment of game management against the Bengals, down 10-24 with 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Bills challenged a 9-yard gain to WR Trent Sherfield which they lost and consequently burned another timeout. It was a bad decision as no review truly showed a clear catch was made and it was only first down/the clock was stopped by it being ruled incomplete. This wasn’t a touchdown, or a big play being called back, it was a 9-yard gain that would have drained clock anyway.  In an even more frustrating matter, the next play Allen threw a 9-yard catch to Sherfield with ease. Just a bad use of game management again by the coaching staff, specifically McDermott who is in charge of things like calling timeouts.

The Bills still have a chance to make a splash in the second-ish half of the season and go on a run. These issues of turnovers, execution, and game management can be fixed, but the team has shown little effort in being resolute to do so. The Bills have officially entered must-win territory and are facing a Broncos team on Monday Night that is not only coming off a BYE week, but a two-game win streak, including a dominant defensive performance against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, who are the 1-seed in the AFC. The Bills need to take a good look at themselves in the mirror and decide how they’re going to finish out this season – it’s all still in their hands. They might not be able to win/make a Super Bowl, but they still have a roster that is too damn good to be missing the playoffs and looking lost on primetime TV. If they can’t correct these mistakes and allow these losses to surmount, I can’t imagine many of these faces will be returning next year or even making it to the end of this one. 

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