The Buffalo Bills: Excuses, Excuses

Oct 3, 2013; Cleveland, OH, USA; Buffalo Bills quarterback EJ Manuel (3) on the sidelines during the third quarter against the Buffalo Bills at FirstEnergy Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

Earlier today I sat on my porch to get some air and sit back  to think about the most recent Buffalo Bills performance in Thursday night’s game against the Cleveland Brown. Not to my surprise, my reflections on the game and this season lead to the same conclusion.

This team is full of excuses.

I was on NFL.com earlier today and read an article featuring Eric Wood, Center for the Buffalo Bills. According to NFL.com, when asked how he felt about the hit on EJ Manuel that lead to his injury, Wood said ” “The hit was fine, what ticked me off was how he acted afterwards,” Wood said to the team’s official website. “I hope our defense never acts like that when they injure an opposing quarterback. You’ve got to show some class in that situation. There’s a few guys over there that obviously didn’t.” Why Wood thought that putting in his two cents matters, I couldn’t tell you. Injuries happen all the time, it is part of the game. Some players can be classy while some can be classless, but you know how you deal with that? You hit them on the field and make them wish they hadn’t played the Buffalo Bills this week.

I listen to the interviews week in and week out, consistently hearing the same thing from Doug Marrone, Nathaniel Hackett, and the team.

“We have to get better.”

Actions speak louder than words. The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team. It is their job to play better and get it done each week.

Obviously we can all agree that this is a young and inexperienced team, but the fact of the matter is that they do not show improvement. I see the same issues every week and they yield the same results. Poor offensive showing, struggles with coverage, lack of scoring, etc. It is true the Bills need to get better but making the same mistakes and under performing will not get you there. The things we are consistently doing wrong  and/or not doing just do not work, in fact they are dragging the team down and the season is slowly slipping away. We shouldn’t be worried about how people feel about the hit on EJ, we shouldn’t even be doing all these player interviews; we should be worried about our opponents and performing each week. We should be taking the things we are doing well and do them better. We should be taking our weaknesses, gameplan for teams with our weaknesses in mind, and turn our weakness into a strength through disguised, aggressive schemes and playcalling.

The Buffalo Bills have a handful of important players coming back from injury this week but don’t let this confuse you. If we continue to do what we’ve been doing: blowing coverages, dropping passes, not attacking downfield, The Buffalo Bills will have the same results no matter who comes back. We need to stop making excuses for what we need to do and actually do what we need to do to win. The Bills need to have the mentality of a winning franchise and a winning team. Yet again, I feel like this Buffalo Bills team is trying to make ends meet; that is not enough to get by in this league.

We need Stephon Gilmore and Leodis McKelvin to establish a physical threat at corner so teams can’t abuse us down field. We need to establish an offense that is a continuous threat in the redzone, stop caring about the unimportant things off the field, and become that gritty, blue-collar team who comes to play each and every week. The Buffalo Bills need to be a team that people actually fear and respect. We need to show domination and make other teams lose confidence in themselves because The Bills run too hard, score too much, and play hard hitting defense. It’s time to stop playing games and start playing football.