money What happened to the Buffalo Bills offense? 4 things they need to fix to solve the slump
Not surprisingly, when you suffer the type of loss that makes the entire NFL stand up and take notice, the Buffalo Bills and their offensive struggles were a topic of conversation on the Sunday Night Football pregame show.
And two comments stood out because they were dead on accurate.
“As hot as Buffalo started this season, they have really cooled off,” said Drew Brees, the recently retired future Hall of Famer who ranks second in league history in passing yards behind that guy who used to play for the Patriots. “This offense just has not been the same. They have not been able to protect Josh Allen, but in large part because they have not been able to run the football, they’ve just been dropping back and being teed off on.”
And Chris Simms, another former NFL quarterback, had this to say of the offense.
“It’s too Josh Allen-centric,” he said. “They have no run game. It’s all about him making plays. There’s not a lot of separation in the pass game downfield. He can’t be one of the best quarterbacks and the leading rusher for your team, and the guy you expect to make play after play for your team week after week.”
You really can’t argue with any of that.
Here are my thoughts on the issues the Bills offense is suddenly facing:
1. Josh Allen needs more help than he’s getting
Simms is right. Allen may have been the runner-up MVP in 2020, but he’s not having nearly the same type of season this year and while he’s responsible for some of it such as the three turnover meltdown Sunday, he’s also pressing because his teammates are letting him down.
“I don’t want to lose games,” Allen said with a hoarse voice and a sullen look on his face. “And I feel like I could have played better, could have helped our team and put us in better situations. I didn’t so I’m frustrated with myself more so than anything. I gotta be better for this team.”
Bills report card: Josh Allen said he played like (expletive). So did the entire offense
He does need to be better, but he also needs help which he had none of Sunday.
He does need to be better, but according to CBS’ Boomer Esiason, so does offensive coordinator Brian Daboll.
“Now all of a sudden, what is Brian Daboll doing?” Esiason said after the game. “Doesn’t he have to sit down with the quarterback and just say, ‘Hey, look man, this is what we’re trying to do. This is our plan. You don’t have to do this all yourself.’
“Don’t get me wrong, he’s a superstar. He’s a great player. But right now, in the last couple of weeks, I don’t know what’s going on up there. They just need to get back to calling the right plays, but someone has to hold the offensive coordinator accountable and say, ‘Come on in here. Let’s sit down and talk about what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong. And how we can get it back to the right side of the ledger.’”
2. The Buffalo Bills offensive line is a disaster
I think the time has come to proclaim that Cody Ford is a bust. The Bills used a second-round pick on him in 2019 – traded up in that round, in fact, to make sure they could get him – and he’s been nothing but a disappointment for two-plus years running.
Injuries slowed him his first two seasons, but flat out poor play is his undoing in 2021. He was supposed to be their long-term right tackle but couldn’t handle it so he was moved inside in 2020 where he was tried at both left and right guard, and hasn’t been able to handle it.
Ford was benched after the Washington game but was back in the lineup in Jacksonville because of injuries to Jon Feliciano and Spencer Brown. With a chance to resurrect himself, he was awful, and it’s tough to envision how Sean McDermott and Daboll could play him anymore.
But this game went well beyond Ford. All five guys up front – LT Dion Dawkins, LG Ike Boettger, C Mitch Morse and RT Daryl Williams – were terrible. Allen was running for his life most of the day as Pro Football Focus had the line allowing 23 pressures and four sacks. And that pressure led directly to all three of his turnovers.
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“We’ve got to fix some things, let’s just start there,” said McDermott. “We’ll take a hard look at the film. You’ve got to win up front in order to play well offensively or defensively. Some of it is where we were at this week with the injuries and everything. We’ll see. We always look at everything we can going into a game.”
If Brown can return to play RT against the Jets, the Bills could move Williams back inside to replace Ford because, as we’ve found out, Williams’ fine 2020 season at RT may have been a one-off. He has no business being out there. Of course, even with those moves, that still leaves Boettger on the field at LG unless they think Jamil Douglas or Ryan Bates could be better.
The Bills have done many things well in building this roster, but GM Brandon Beane and his staff have made some poor decisions on the line.
Guard Quinton Spain was signed in 2018 free agency and played pretty well, so the Bills re-signed him for 2019 which made sense. And then they curiously gave up on him after just two games and cut him with no viable explanation. He’s now starting for the Bengals and while not a Pro Bowler, he’s been better than any of the Bills’ current guards.
Beane traded 2018 fifth-round pick Wyatt Teller to Cleveland prior to 2019 before he ever had a legitimate chance to prove himself. Teller is now one of the best guards in the league, helping pave the way for the Browns’ dynamic run game, a massive misidentification of talent.
Signing Feliciano (2019) and Williams (2020) were good moves at the time and each played well in his first year with the team, but right now both players are mediocrities and in Williams’ case, he has moved out of the position he was signed to play.
Drafting and re-signing Dion Dawkins and signing free agent Mitch Morse go in the positive column, and perhaps we’ll feel the same away about Brown in the years to come, though it’s far too early to make a comment on that.
When the 2022 offseason starts, the Bills have to search high and low for offensive line upgrades.
3. Stefon Diggs needs more opportunities
Diggs was the best receiver in the NFL last season as he was No. 1 in both receptions and yards, setting Bills team records in both categories. We all knew teams were going to pay more attention to him this season and devise ways to try to take him away, but it has been concerning that he has had such a ho-hum role through eight games.
He has 48 catches for 588 yards, not bad, but after 2020 didn’t we expect more?
Allen attempted 47 passes in Jacksonville and he targeted Diggs only eight times. Diggs had only three targets in the first three quarters against a Jaguars defense that, at least before Sunday, couldn’t cover anyone and was allowing a completion percentage of 74.0.
Diggs was then fed three times on one possession, caught them all, and you thought, “OK, that’s more like it.” But that drive ended with Boettger’s false start penalty on fourth down which convinced McDermott to punt. And then Diggs caught a 28-yarder on the next drive that moved the Bills across midfield, but that was the series that ended with Allen’s fumble.
Elsewhere, what has happened to Emmanuel Sanders? In the last four games he has only 12 catches. One week after being shut out by Miami, Sanders had four receptions for 65 yards, but like Diggs he was targeted just eight times.
And speaking of players who are MIA, how about Gabriel Davis? He had a promising rookie season, but he’s a spare part this year and on Sunday, with Cole Beasley unable to play late due to his sore ribs, Davis was on the field and had a critical drop that would have moved the Bills comfortably into field goal position with 1:22 left.
4. The Buffalo Bills running game is non-existent
This has been an ongoing issue that I’ve been harping on all year. When Allen hands the ball off, the Bills can’t run. The line is inept in run blocking, and when you have RBs like Devin Singletary and Zack Moss who need clear lanes to make things happen, you’re going nowhere.
Trying to run on first-and-goal at the 3 on their first possession ultimately cost the Bills a chance to score a touchdown as they settled for a field goal. It sounds silly, but that 3-yard loss by Moss wound up being one of the biggest plays of the game in hindsight.
Singletary and Moss, before he got hurt, combined for 22 yards on nine carries. The Bills ran seven times on first down and gained a grand total of 10 yards. It’s unacceptable, and as Simms said, the lack of any running threat has really handcuffed the offense.
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If Moss can’t play in New York – he’s in concussion protocol – Matt Breida might get a chance. But even if Moss is healthy, I say give Breida a chance anyway because he would give the Jets defense a different look with his speed. Seriously, can he be any less productive than Moss and Singletary?
The lack of yardage is obvious, but it also affects play-action which is essentially useless because defenses aren’t biting, knowing the Bills can’t run. And with no run game, as Simms said, the entire offensive operation falls on Allen’s shoulders and that’s a weighty burden, even for a guy who will be banking a quarter of a billion dollars over the next seven years.
The Jets are up next. They’re not great, but I think they’re a little better than the Jaguars. Does anyone feel confident that Buffalo is going to go down to the Meadowlands and win that game with ease like we all thought was a certainty a few weeks ago?
They won’t unless they fix some of the obvious issues that are holding back the offense.
Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo Bills offense needs to fix these three issues to solve slump
