Sean McDermott makes it clear: Time for ‘moral victories’ is over
Another week, another tough loss to a top-tier team on primetime for the Buffalo Bills.
Following last week’s loss to the Titans, the Bills dropped their second game of the season to the Kansas City Chiefs, 26-17. Granted, both were against good teams, one of which being the defending champs. But despite the talent across from his team over the course of their last two outings, Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott said after the game that a loss is a loss, period.
“The minute losing gets easy, it’s not a good deal,” McDermott said. “We take it hard. There are no moral victories. We have to be truthful with ourselves at what needs to be corrected.”
One of the more glaring issues this season has been the Bills defense. Something we are not use to under McDermott-led teams. Against the Chiefs, the run defense was gashed for 245-yards despite KC missing two of their starters along the offensive line. But was that by design?
“You have to pick your poison,” McDermott said.
He went on to explain how when you have an explosive offense and a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes, you have to decide if you’re going to focus on shutting down the pass, or the run, because doing both is not realistic.
In focusing on thwarting the pass, McDermott explained that the Bills, at least, were in the game at the end as compared to other teams who were getting blown out after getting thrown all over.
Mahomes was asked about this very philosophy after the game.
“If teams are going to play us like this, you’re going to see us running the football, and we have the guys to do it,” Mahomes said.
McDermott made clear that despite back-to-back losses, beating the best is still what this team strives to do.
“I think the competition out there is elite,” McDermott said. “This is high standard, high quality football. We’ve come up short in these last two games and we’ll go back to the drawing board.”
While the Bills get a break from playing a top-ranked opponent when they head to New Jersey to face the 0-6 Jets next Sunday, their schedule still has its fair share of tough matchups remaining with games vs. the likes of the Seahawks and Steelers, just to name a few.
At the end of the day though, the Bills are 4-2 and in first place in the AFC East. While there is plenty that needs to be corrected on both sides of the ball, the season is far from over… even if after the last two games, it feels like it is.
