The Buffalo Bills have a few concerns heading into their upcoming playoff run. Despite it being the seventh-straight trip to the postseason, the longest active streak in the league, the Bills’ offense, despite all of Josh Allen’s efforts at quarterback, looks drastically different in the passing game.
The wide receiver room has been one of the most inconsistent units across the board for Buffalo this season. Unsurprisingly, as a result, there have been plenty of changes made to the room to find the right combination of players to give the offense its best chance at success each week.
However, all of those changes stick out when head coach Sean McDermott starts talking about continuity down the final stretch of the regular season. During his Friday press conference, McDermott was asked about his secondary going up against Philadelphia’s receivers without Jordan Poyer at safety this week, as he’s been ruled out, and he talked about the importance of continuity on the backend of the defense.
Later, another reporter asked about how that same philosophy stands up with so many changes in the wide receiver room.
HC Sean McDermott didn’t sugarcoat the reality of Buffalo’ Bills' inconsistent receiver room
“Like I mentioned earlier, when we were talking about some of the defensive pieces and things, you want to have continuity,” McDermott said. “Again, through the natural, week-to-week, injury things that every team faces, continuity gives you form this time of year, and structure, and just knowing each other, right? So, defensively, or in this case offensively in the pass game, that’s important for us. And so, we’re very aware, that heightened awareness of that, especially down the stretch.”
Of course, for Buffalo, it’s not just injuries the team is contending with out wide. Keon Coleman has missed three games this season, and he was a healthy scratch in all three instances. Brandin Cooks has one catch in four games as a Bill and twice as many drops. Injuries have played a role in Josh Palmer’s lack of production, but that hasn’t deterred Bills Mafia’s frustrations with a unit that has been largely underwhelming this season. And McDermott doesn’t disagree.
“That’s what we want, and where we’re at are, right now, two different things. And that’s just being real with you, here,” McDermott said. “We’re trying to find that, and in order to get to ‘here’, it’s just taken longer than we would’ve liked, at this point.”
While McDermott didn’t sugarcoat the receivers’ lacking collective performance, he left room for hope that the receivers will step up as the postseason nears.
“But, I remain confident in the guys in that room, and I’m looking forward to them coming out and playing with a chip on their shoulder and getting us in a groove here,” he said.
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Bills fans aren’t holding their breath, of course. Outside of Khalil Shakir, whose ceiling has been realized as a top receiver, Buffalo hasn’t been able to find any continuity in the unit beyond each receiver’s willingness to block in the run game.
Nonetheless, the Bills have who they have, and they’re going to have to make do with them. Allen’s late-game magic has been able to carry them through November and into December despite the receivers’ shortcomings. Bills fans might just have to continue to hold out hope that it’ll work just the same deep into January, too.