Buffalo Bills: Culture of bad decisions is becoming Buffalo’s identity

After an infuriating 20-13 loss to the Houston Texans on Sunday, my mind is made up that the failures of this Buffalo Bills team lie with the head coach and front office.

The issues with the 2018 Buffalo Bills are those of Sean McDermott and the front office, not the players.

While the players deserve some of the blame because they are the ones who are in fact playing, they are put in poor situations due to the personnel moves and players put on the field. Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott are the two in charge of the organization, and I think Beane has done a good job getting picks for players and pulling off some great deals.

However, I think McDermott is the one pulling the strings and getting the final decision on who he wants on and off the team.

While the defense has been outstanding in the last several weeks, and McDermott deserves a ton of credit there, he has showcased he has not the slightest clue of what it takes to build an offense. Starting Nathan Peterman was defendable last season because Tyrod Taylor had issues moving the ball, but they he quickly lost credibility when Peterman came in and threw five interceptions in the first half.

Fast forward to this year where Peterman won the job after a good training camp and the team traded the veteran quarterback with success throwing a football to his own team. It took all of three quarters for us to firmly know that Peterman is not an NFL quarterback and he should not be on an NFL roster.

Here we are now after Peterman led the team to a lead on a beautiful ball to Zay Jones touchdown pass and then threw a pick-six to lose the lead and an interception to lose the game. While I truly do feel bad for Peterman, this is the fault of the Buffalo Bills front office and head coach.

After Peterman has time and time again proven he cannot play at this level, they have kept him on the active roster and lost the team multiple games. Peterman doesn’t throw those two interceptions against Houston if he is cut when he should be.

The team didn’t have to trade AJ McCarron for a fifth and the team didn’t have to draft Josh Allen, a quarterback that hasn’t shown that he can be a good quarterback even at the collegiate level.

The trades of Marcell Dareus, Sammy Watkins and others is fine with me. If they don’t fit in with what you are trying to build and can’t stay on the field for whatever reason, that’s fine.

What I don’t understand is why you draft a quarterback who, while he has all of the talent in the world, has not shown he knows how to consistently use it, do absolutely nothing to improve the receiving group he will be throwing to other than cut their starting slot receiver, fail to address an already weak offensive line and fail to have a veteran/proven quarterback in place that can hold down the fort until the franchise quarterback is ready.

The offensive side of the ball is pathetic. I have tried to give Josh Allen the benefit of the doubt, but it is getting difficult. As I said, he has a bad receiving group on the field, a suspect offensive line and we all know he should not be starting right now.

However, his issues in college are showing up right now and if I hear one more time how strong his arm is I will puke. That is great and all, but when is he going to read the blitz, find the hot receiver and make a completion for 10 yards? Sure he will jump over a linebacker, but when will he go through his progressions and throw his receiver open?

I don’t care that he can make the spectacular play once every four games, give me the quarterback who can make the consistent throw and the expected play every single time with great plays mixed in.

It is early in his progression as a franchise quarterback, and he wasn’t supposed to play now, but he is. It is this organization’s fault that he is because they thought Nathan Peterman would be able to hold down the fort after what he did last season. They didn’t have a backup plan if Peterman was bad. The fact they truly believed he could be good puts serious doubt in my faith in them.

Playing Allen should have been the last resort, not the second. Why was Derek Anderson not brought in sooner? Why was Josh Rosen not good enough for them? He has a personality, but so does Tre’Davious White. So does Jerry Hughes. So does every player in the NFL. This organization continues to ignore players that could clearly help them because they don’t fit whatever mold they want their players to be.

One of their players, Kelvin Benjamin, is bad. He doesn’t want to work hard and can’t hold onto a ball, but we keep him around because he is one of their guys. It is embarrassing.

McDermott said recently “culture trumps strategy.” If I ever had a coach tell me that I my jaw would hit the floor so hard I would receive a 15-yard penalty for roughing the passer. Peterman buys into the culture I’m sure and look how that has turned out. It is absolutely ridiculous to believe that if you all try to believe really hard that you all can do it.

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I believe in culture, I really do. I believe that everyone should work towards the same goal and be about the team, but if you believe in that so much you overlook certain aspects of the game then I don’t know if I can believe in you anymore.

With all of my anger of this loss, I still don’t expect much out of this team this year. What is more concerning for me is what I expect out of this team in the future. Last year was so wonderful with breaking the drought and the unexpected success this team had.

This regime got a lot of leeway with us as fans because they did that no other coaches or general managers have been able to do in 17 years.

To this point, however, my patience is thin with their abilities to successfully put together an offense. In an offensive league, that is scary.

I hope that Allen gets it together, that they can rebuild the offensive line, add weapons and take the next step as a team. I want our quarterback and offense to be like Philadelphia, Kansas City, Chicago and the Los Angeles Rams, but my hopes for that drops with each passing week.

dark. Next. Bills drop a winnable game in Houston in painful fashion

While there are several reasons as to why the team is struggling this season, they all come back to the coach and front office. Here’s to hoping they are here to stay and their plan works out because right now their culture is one filled with question marks.

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