3 improvements Buffalo Bills need to make heading into Week 5

It’s not the end of the world for the Buffalo Bills, but they did suffer a harsh reality check on Sunday Night Football against the Baltimore Ravens. They didn’t just lose, they were crushed on primetime by a team that they could easily see in the playoffs. The Ravens defeated the Bills 35-10, giving Buffalo their first loss of the season.

Was Baltimore simply the better team? Or did Buffalo just not show up to play at all? You could make the argument for either one, but the fact of the matter is that the Ravens made more plays and they kept Buffalo out of this game all night.Even though it is just one loss, Buffalo still has to go on the road for the next two weeks so they are already at a disadvantage. They are going to need to lock in and get back on track for their next Sunday matchup against the Texans.

While there were plenty of takeaways on what the Bills need to improve on, there are three specific factors that Buffalo needs to work on heading into Week 5.

Implement more quick pass plays

The “everybody eats” mentality was not there for the Bills in this game. Part of the reason why is because either Josh Allen couldn’t find an open target, or he was running for his life against Baltimore’s pass rush. Through the first three weeks of the season, the Bills played the short-field game and got the ball out quickly on short passes. That wasn’t the case tonight.

While Dalton Kincaid finally produced more in this game than he had all season, there were still plenty of opportunities for the Bills to utilize the short passing game. Buffalo doesn’t have a breakaway receiver who can open the field down the sideline so they will need to go back to the basics with the short passes.

Wide receivers getting separation

To go along with the offense, the wide receivers for the Bills almost had no true separation from Baltimore’s defensive backs. It seemed like there were only a handful of plays where a Bills target was more than one yard open. Even on Josh Allen’s third quarter sensational throw where he threw it 52 yards off of his back foot to Khalil Shakir, it still took Shakir having to play backyard football to get open to allow the pass to work.

Mack Hollins, Keon Coleman, and even Khalil Shakir all struggled to get some sort of separation in this game. Even though Allen is a magician with the football, he still needs a little bit of help.

Work on man-to-man coverage

Buffalo’s defense made no adjustments whatsoever against Lamar Jackson and his offense. While it was a true runfest led by Derrick Henry, the Ravens still managed to establish a passing attack that the Bills couldn’t defend. Part of the reason as to why is because of their scheme.

Defensive coordinator Bobby Babich and Sean McDermott like having a 4-2-5 scheme, making there more defensive backs on the backend. The problem is that most of the time, they run a zone coverage to not let the ball get behind them. Jackson was able to complete passes 15-yards+ a handful of times because there was no man-to-man coverage.

That is one of the many adjustments the Bills should have made.

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