Buffalo Rumblings
What an embarrassing loss for these Buffalo Bills. There’s no excusing a blowout defeat at this point in the season. But that only tells half the story in losing 30-13 to the Miami Dolphins. To be clear, Miami was ready, and they play a pretty great game of football most of the afternoon. The score somehow still doesn’t tell the full story of just how awful the Bills played.
The defense has been an issue all season, so expecting magic two weeks in a row was essentially a lottery play. When you consider the massive amount of injury bleed, the writing was on the wall for a potentially awful outing. Yes, giving up a back-breaking 59-yard house call to running back De’Von Achane is inexcusable, but this loss is squarely on the offense. From penalties to turnovers, every promising moment seemed to be wiped away by mistake after mistake.
Looking for silver linings still? It’s best to head over to the Buffalo Bills official coverage for anything other than the fact that this hurts the Dolphins’ first-round pick next April. You could also always turn on Heidi.
It’s not any one thing, and the concerns will be difficult to wash away completely in one offseason. It’s not going to be a fun week for general manager Brandon Beane. There will be calls for his job after failing to land a trade for wide receiver Jalen Waddle, the guy who just torched rookie cornerback Maxwell Hairston and Buffalo’s defense for five catches, 84 yards, and a touchdown.
What unfolded in South Beach is ultimately on head coach Sean McDermott. He’s the one person with the longest tenure outside of ownership. To go in at halftime down 16-0 meant McDermott had to give a speech that rallied his players, and coached some real and positive urgency in their play. It seems that happened, at least with running back Ray Davis who shot out of a cannon on the kickoff return out of halftime. But remember, that return was nullified and penalized thanks to a costly penalty by usually trustworthy tight end Jackson Hawes.
Offensive coordinator Joe Brady seems lost in his game plan, and doomed when tight end Dalton Kincaid isn’t available (which is trending too often). When the best wide receiver is only catching swings and screens at the line of scrimmage, it demands a lot of work after the catch. It doesn’t make a ton of sense when Josh Allen’s arm exists, but the truth is that no wide receiver is consistently or reliably catching downfield passes. That’s why Kincaid is so important, and why his current injury-prone status is a concern.
Further on Kincaid, many believe that his emergence would see the team move on from tight end Dawson Knox. That doesn’t seem wise to me, even when considering the cap savings. Tight ends are too important to this team’s run game, and Knox is just far more available...
