I am sure that most if not all Buffalo Bills fans have opinions about what went wrong against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday night football. The Bills started off their first offensive drive taking the ball down the field to get into the endzone after giving up the game's first touchdown. After that, the Bills would not reach the endzone until the fourth quarter to make it a six point game after being down by 14 at one point.
With this loss, the Bills are sitting at 5-4 and are currently not in the playoff window as it stands. They have lost to two AFC East opponents and two AFC current playoff teams in the Jacksonville Jaguars and Cincinnati Bengals. We are at the point of the season where the Bills are now in trouble.
They don't look prepared on offense as they are too inconsistent and the defense can't go one game without some injury hitting them. The Bills' defense may lost linebacker Terrel Bernard for potentially one game after being diagnosed with a concussion.
Whether you believe it is the lack of production on the players end, or the questionable playcalling from Ken Dorsey and Sean McDermott, the Bills don't look scary and this is only the start of a horrendous schedule that they have coming up.
Sitting at 5-4 going into Week 10 for a Monday night battle against the Denver Broncos, the Bills will need to wake up and find a way to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Here are the 5 things that need to happen moving forward if the Buffalo Bills want to stay in playoff contention.
5.) No longer send more than four defenders at the quarterback
When the Bills were on defense against Joe Burrow and the Bengals, there were a handful of times where the Bills not only blitzed four but as much as six and would still not get into the pocket to pressure Burrow.
This allowed the Bengals to have a free man down the field for a big gain against a banged up secondary. The Bills like to show different schemes but they have become predictable in recent weeks, making it easier for quarterbacks to pick them apart.
While there is an understanding that the Bills have a ton of injuries on defense, this “next man up” mentality is not working and it is keeping the Bills in close games where they either just get by or end up costing themselves a potential win.
Moving forward, Sean McDermott will need to play more zone coverage on all three downs because there is no point in sending five or six defenders if none of them can get inside the pocket.
4.) Go back to the basics
Yes, the Bills have a big-arm quarterback in Josh Allen to go with weapons like Stefon Diggs and the rise of tight end Dalton Kincaid. However, the Bills have complicated everything it seems like and there is no flow to the offense.
The offense only has one injury on that side of the ball in Dawson Knox so it’s not like they are down much firepower. However, the Bills’ offense is not the knockout unit it was from Week 2 - Week 4 as it has been up and down in every game since Week 5 in London.
The Bills need to hit the reset button somehow and not make the offense so complicated. One of the factors of doing this is becoming more vanilla. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to get the run game first and only pass when needed.
Especially since the running game was almost nonexistent between James Cook and Latavius Murray (8 carries for 24 yards combined), while Allen led the team in rushing with 44 yards. I never thought I would say to run the ball more but the passing game has not been the same since early October.
3.) Get Josh Allen involved in the run game
Remember when the Bills’ rushing attack was Josh Allen at one point? There was reason to be upset about it because all it took was one big hit to Allen to knock him out of the game. We are at the point where it seems like the Bills are avoiding the run game as much as possible and making Allen drop back into shotgun formation on almost every play.
With the Bills’ offense searching for answers on what is wrong and what they need to improve, it might be time to make up those quarterback-designed runs and just hope that Allen is responsible rather than taking unnecessary hits.
On one drive against the Bengals, Allen took off with the ball and managed to build up tiny moments of hope in the second half. I’m not saying to make the run game all Allen, but he does serve as another weapon on the ground that can make plays aside from the services of Cook and Murray.
2.) Get more looks for other weapons on the outside
Even though the last two points go into going back to the basics and getting the run game going again with Allen, the Bills are still going to throw the ball at times when they need to and want to. However, the passing game as of recently has been a mixture of Diggs and Kincaid, the two best options right now for Allen.
Other guys like Trent Sherfield, Deonte Harty and even Gabe Davis have not been big contributors this season. While Davis has seen production here and there, the fact that he went catchless against the Bengals, while Tee Higgins, who is the Bengals second option went over 100 yards receiving against Buffalo, it shows that Davis either can’t get open or Allen doesn’t look his way.
Davis is set to be a free agent after this season, and the Bills more than likely will not re-sign him so Buffalo will need to get Davis involved more for the rest of the season. As for guys like Sherfield and Harty, both of them bring speed and Sherfield is a big weapon who can open the middle of the field but it has not been shown this season through nine weeks.
1.) Have a heart-to-heart amongst the team
Before the Las Vegas Raiders parted ways with Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler, it was reported that the Raiders held an organization meeting where it gave everyone from players to coaches express their frustrations and figure out what the issues were with the team.
While it was reported by Jay Glazer that McDaniels did not take well to that meeting, the Bills may want to consider setting up some kind of meeting that gives everyone an opportunity to talk about what issues are going on.
Whether it is the play calling or players not playing well, a heart-to-heart is something that the Bills could use to fix any issues that could be affecting the team’s play.