Josh Allen says things are 'pretty bleak': 6 reasons Bills may struggle to make playoffs

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Across more than three decades of covering the Buffalo Bills, I’ve lost track of just how many times I have driven back to my Boston-area hotel trying to decipher deplorable performances against the New England Patriots.

I did not expect to be adding to that lengthy list in this 2023 season, but here we are.

Let’s face it folks, the Bills are not a very good team right now and that was clearly evident in an inexcusable 29-25 loss to a Patriots team that entered the day 1-5.

“We’ve got to continue to find answers to some of the reasons why we’re stubbing our toe,” coach Sean McDermott said. “We’re beating ourselves at times and we’re not linking up all three phases to control a game.”

Anyone who thinks the Bills are a Super Bowl-worthy team has not been watching the past few weeks. And right now, it’s hard to envision this team finding a way to earn a wild-card playoff berth with an offense that has gone completely off the rails, and a defense that has lost four of its best players and just gave up 29 points and a 75-yard game-winning drive to Mac Jones and New England’s typically anemic offense.

Unless things turn around very quickly - and I mean quick as in three days against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - this once-promising season will be teetering on the brink of extinction.

Bills report card: Buffalo is a mess after disastrous loss to Mac Jones and Patriots

Look at it this way. If it’s going to take 10 wins to get to the postseason as an AFC wild-card team, can the Bills find six more in the last 10 when there are huge road games at Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Los Angeles (Chargers) and Miami, plus stern home tests against the Jets, Cowboys and hey, even the Patriots?

“Our season is not over,” said Josh Allen during what was certainly the shortest post-game interview of his career as it clocked in at about 90 seconds. “It’s a long season. Feels pretty bleak right now, but we’re going to figure it out.”

Here are Sal’s Six Points:

1. The Bills tackling is still a key issue

This has been a multi-year problem for McDermott’s defenses and that has not changed in 2023. There were missed tackles all over the field, and none were more damaging than when Rhamondre Stevenson caught a screen pass to start the Patriots’ game-winning drive.

That play should have gone for about seven yards, but Jordan Phillips missed an open-field tackle so Stevenson kept rolling. And then Taylor Rapp missed a tackle and Stevenson kept rolling some more until he was shoved out of bounds 34 yards later.

That changed everything on that drive because now the Patriots could do whatever they wanted on offense, knowing they likely had at least a tying field goal locked up so they could press for the winning TD, which they ultimately got.

“The first play was a huge play for them, right?” McDermott said. “They throw a screen, we’re in four-under, three-deep defense. We didn’t do enough to leverage the formation and make the tackle where we needed to make it. We’ve got to be better just not allowing it to do what it did to us.”

2. Ed Oliver needs to get back soon

The interior of the Bills’ line was already weakened by the loss of DaQuan Jones, and then in this game, Oliver sat out with a toe injury. The run defense was allowing 5.4 yards per attempt coming into the day which was second-worst in the NFL, and the Patriots managed 4.0 and seven of their first downs were converted on run plays.

It just looked to me like DTs Phillips, Tim Settle and Poona Ford were getting moved too easily and then you have running backs reaching a second level that no longer includes play-making machine Matt Milano. Oliver was off to a great start, and if he has to miss more time, you know opposing offenses are going to keep pounding the ball at the middle of the Bills’ line.

3. First-half offensive woes continued

The Bills have now scored a mere 10 points combined in the first half of their last three games. All we’ve heard from players and coaches is that they’re working on solutions, but there were none evident through two quarters in this game.

“I wish I knew the exact answer because we’d have it fixed by now,” Josh Allen said of the slow starts. “We’re going to watch this film and find a way to get there, whatever it is.”

Allen sure didn’t help matters with his first-play interception. He tried to hit Dawson Knox but didn’t read safety Jabrill Peppers who left coverage of Dalton Kincaid to pick off the pass.

“We got hit on that play against them last year,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “We worked on it in practice. He played it well and did a nice job of high-pointing it.”

The second possession saw a touchdown wiped out by a pass interference penalty on Latavius Murray so they settled for a field goal. The third possession was killed by penalties and led to Buffalo’s only punt. And the final drive of the half died when Tyler Bass missed a 42-yard field goal.

4. Gabe Davis and Dawson Knox were invisible

Davis and Knox are supposed to be two of the key cogs in the Buffalo offense, but they have each been massively disappointing through the first seven games. Davis had one catch for six yards, Knox had one for 10 yards plus he caught the two-point conversion pass that gave the Bills a 25-22 lead.

Two catches from a pair of players who are on the field for major snap count totals is simply unacceptable. Allen talked during the week about needing to develop secondary targets beyond Stefon Diggs, and you would think Davis and Knox would be high on that list. Yet Khalil Shakir was more productive than either as he had four catches for 35 yards.

At least the Bills got rookie Dalton Kincaid involved. He had a team-high eight catches for 75 yards and on a couple of those he was able to get downfield a little further than he had on the bulk of his receptions coming into the game.

5. Patriots neutralized the Bills pass rush

The Bills began the day with the No. 1 sack percentage and fourth-best pressure percentage in the NFL and were tied for the league lead with 24 sacks. But the Patriots had an answer for that: Quick throws by Jones which prevented the Bills from getting to him.

Jones was sacked only once and that came on a safety blitz by Jordan Poyer. He continually utilized Stevenson out of the backfield, but he also stood in the pocket behind better than expected pass protection and delivered some beautiful balls to tight ends Pharoah Brown and Hunter Henry, and 10 of his completions were split by Kendrick Bourne and Demario Douglas as the Bills’ coverage was severely lacking. Jones threw only five incomplete passes.

He was at his best on the final drive, but he had help from some poor Bills defense.

“Big plays, big plays,” said safety Micah Hyde. “The first-and-10 screen (to Stevenson), we’ve got to rally to him and get him down. A couple of dink and dunk plays that they got. They worked their way down the field and worked the clock. It was just poor execution by us as a defense. We’ve got to do better.”

6. What’s up with Tyler Bass?

Look, kickers aren’t perfect. Bass began the day with an 85.2% success rate on his 108 field goal attempts since joining the Bills in 2020. Very good, but not perfect.

However, he has been so reliable that we take for granted when he lines up for anything inside the 50 because he has missed only nine times in his career. But Sunday, he missed for a 10th time as he was wide right from 42 yards giving him three misses in his last four attempts (he had two from beyond 50 fail last week).

“We missed a field goal, a 42-yard field goal,” McDermott said. “I mean, those are things we’ve got to do.”

With the way this offense is struggling, every point matters and Bass has to get back on track in a hurry.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana and on Threads @salmaiorana1. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out twice a week during the season, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills may struggle to make playoffs after deplorable loss to Patriots