It's time for the Buffalo Bills to rest up as they are in their bye week after back-to-back wins out west against the Los Angeles Rams and Las Vegas Raiders. Head coach Joe Brady has the Bills at 5-1 and they are back home for a Week 8 showdown against the Baltimore Ravens. After Week 7 is over, the Bills won't stop playing football until atleast January.
So, this is the perfect time for the Bills to get healthy, and utilize the extra time to prepare for a tough AFC matchup against the Ravens. Even though both teams have rookie head coaches, both squads are still considered championship contenders.
The Bills will have an advantage for Week 8 since they don't play this weekend, and the Ravens are going to be playing in a tough divisional game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Bills' bye week couldn't have came at a more perfect time
Even though the team sits at 5-1 and in first place of the AFC East, the Bills have three major problems to address:
1.) Defensive struggles
While Buffalo's offense is thriving, the defense is in trouble under Jim Leonhard up to this point. Sure, the run-defense is playing much better than last season, but defending the pass has been their Achille heel. Through six games, Buffalo is allowing 285 yards per game through the air.
Their third-defense is allowing a 45% conversion rate as well, which is what keeps Josh Allen and the offense off the field. Let's not forget, C.J. Gardner-Johnson is set to miss Week 8 due to being suspended from spitting inthe direction of Brock Bowers, a move that caused him to be ejected so the secondary took even more of a hit.
While the Bills did bring back CB Tre'Davious White to the practice squad, with the expectation that he will be activated to the active roster, there has to be more moves made to help the secondary because the rate that they are playing at is going to cost the Bills big time at some point this season.
2.) Injuries
The Bills have been dealing with some injuries this season, which included DJ Moore and Ed Oliver missing the last two games. Moore has been dealing with a shoulder injury since Week 2, Oliver suffered a knee injury in Week 4, and the Bills have been dealing with a good amount of reported injuries each week.
The bye week is a great opportunity to get as healthy as possible. While Moore and Oliver were true gametime decisions the last two weeks, the Bills opted to keep them sidelined which was the smart move. They will need them both at their best from Week 8 and on.
3.) Clean up the penalties
The Bills are one of the most undisciplined teams in the league in terms of penalties. They have had 51 accepted penalties called on them for a combined 429 yards. They've had 3 games where they had 10+ penalties and they haven't had less than 5 penalties in a game. That is a Joe Brady issue, and he needs to fix it immediately.
Funny enough, the least amount of penalty and penalty yards that they were called for were in Week 4 against the New England Patriots, which has been their only loss on the season. Other than that, they are getting called constantly and it's has got to stop. This type of stat falls strictly on the head cach.
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