Buffalo Bills: 3 questions the team needs to answer during the bye
These are three questions the Buffalo Bills need to answer this week.
The bye week is always a good time for NFL teams to reset and evaluate where their team is and how they can improve. The Buffalo Bills are no different as they should feel good about being 7-3 but coming off a loss against the Arizona Cardinals, there is plenty of room for improvement.
We recently focused on those areas of improvement but aside from things they can improve, they also have some personnel questions the coaching staff should try to answer this week. These are the top three questions they should work on addressing during the bye.
What to do with the offensive line?
This only became a question after this weekend’s game when Mitch Morse did not play after clearing the concussion protocol earlier in the week. The thought would be that he would return to starting at the center position and Jon Feliciano would return to guard.
However, that wasn’t the case and Feliciano remained at center with Ike Boettger getting the start at left guard. Head coach Sean McDermott didn’t help the speculation on Monday when asked about Mitch Morse and said according to Joe Buscaglia:
#Bills HC Sean McDermott said Mitch Morse was healthy enough to play, but it was a coach's decision to rest him another week. McDermott felt like they had some momentum with the previous starting five.
— Joe Buscaglia (@JoeBuscaglia) November 16, 2020
It is hard to fault McDermott for his thought process because the offensive line had looked pretty good in the nearly two weeks they had Feliciano at center. However, the Bills signed Morse and made him one of the highest-paid at his position, for a reason. That reason is when healthy is an excellent center.
The personnel decisions are likely not to get any easier in the coming weeks either with Cody Ford hopefully returning soon. Once everyone is healthy, does Morse remain on the bench with Feliciano at the position or does Feliciano move to right guard, where he started 16 games last year, and replace Brian Winters? Another option is to move Ford to the bench and slide Feliciano to the left guard.
The good news for the coaching staff is they will have plenty of options but coming out of the bye they need to have a concrete plan of what the best offensive line looks like.