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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/hallach_halil on 2024-01-24 19:14:02.
Yet another Bills season just came to an end in gut-punching fashion. In four years straight now, they were eliminated after winning the AFC East and at least one playoff game – three times by these very Kansas City Chiefs.
We’ve seen slightly different versions of the team, but this year felt quite unique, because unlike prior iterations that would largely coast through the regular season, until they got their week 13 bye, it didn’t seem like this crew would even be part of the conversation down the stretch. They were coming off a heartbreaking loss to the Eagles, which dropped them to 6-and-6, in a year where we had as many teams battling for the final couple of AFC Wildcard spots as I can remember. Yet, despite off-field distractions and questions around their coaching staff, they went on win their final five regular season matchups and the division after all again, which after taking care of the Steelers in the Wildcard Round, set them up to finally host Patrick Mahomes and company in January for the first time in this rivalry. Yet, once again they couldn’t quite overcome their while whale.
I want to discuss the organization’s journey leading into 2023, the different stages of the season we just witnessed, how the fairytale ultimately came crashing down and then give a future outlook, as we consider where they may go from here.
| The journey here: |
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In order to truly understand what this season meant for the Bills organization in the grand scheme of things, we actually have to quickly run through the entire history of Sean McDermott’s tenure as their head coach. The former long-time positional coach for the Eagles and then defensive coordinator of the Panthers for six years arrived in Buffalo in 2017, taking over a franchise that had only finished with a winning record once in the millennium – a 9-7 (non-playoff) season in 2014 under Doug Marrone, who would step down from his job the following offseason.
Looking back at Buffalo’s depth chart from back in 2017 is actually quite funny (and recommendable), but relevant for this discussion is the fact that the only five players still around now is the safety tandem of Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde – who came in together as free agents that offseason and have been the key figures they’ve run their defense through – and three rookies in offensive tackle Dion Dawkins, cornerback Tre’Davious White and linebacker Matt Milano – with the latter only entering the starting lineup for the last month of the regular season. The low point of that year clearly were back-to-back blowout losses to the Saints and Chargers (by a combined 77 points) – the famous Nathan Peterman five-interception half. Yet, they reverted back to their bridge quarterback Tyrod Taylor and went on to sneak into the postseason, thanks to Andy Dalton hitting Tyler Boyd for a long touchdown on fourth down against the Ravens in the parallel game. That was a great moment for long-time veterans like defensive tackle Kyle Williams and they had a chance during the Wildcard Round to beat yet another upstart team in the Jaguars, who nearly made it to the Super Bowl, but clearly this Bills franchise was a year ahead of schedule. Why I felt like it was important to reference back to that season however was the plan McDermott laid out there, as he and general manager Brandon Beane came over from Carolina together and consciously brought in a bunch of high-character and high-football IQ guys to establish a culture around, in which they would insert the talent that was about to arrive.
However, that leadership group was self-aware enough that they saw the deficiencies of the roster and made a franchise-altering decision, when they traded up to the seventh overall pick in the upcoming draft to select a wild gunslinger from Wyoming named Josh Allen. Considering the discourse around this All-Pro level quarterback to this day, thinking back to the early stages of that tenure and the ups-and-downs it came along with is pretty hilarious. Buffalo went 6-10 in 2018 (5-6 when Josh was available), but had a vision to slowly add pieces to the operation, without splashing for available free agents, as they spent 20 million dollars fewer on their roster than any other team in the league that season. When Josh showed significant improvements in year two and they were a couple of magical Deshaun Watson plays in the Wildcard Round away from winning a playoff game at Houston, the organization decided that they can’t continue with John Brown as their number one receiver. That led to their first big external addition, when they traded a first-round pick to Minnesota for Stefon Diggs – the selection the Vikings used to directly reload with Justin Jefferson. Diggs promptly led the NFL in catches and receiving yards that season and it coincided with Allen becoming a perennial MVP candidate, as well as the Bills entering their championship window.
Over these last five years, they won double-digit games in each of them, at least winning one playoff contest in the latter four of those, before being knocked out by the Chiefs in three of them – including once in the AFC Championship – and once by the Bengals at home. Those two defeats I just mentioned both came by 14+ points, while the other two were the (in)famous 13-second game of 2021 and then hosting what had probably been the most vulnerable Kansas City team this past Sunday, when a potential game-tying field goal went wide right, to give the people from Buffalo who are old enough to remember the first of their four consecutive losses in the Super Bowl (against the Giants) flashbacks. Across that five-year stretch, only once did the Bills not end up as a top-four scoring defense, while Allen’s 202 total (regular season) touchdowns responsible for are 23 more than the next-closest quarterback – Patrick Mahomes. They’ve continued on that trend of building through the draft and paying their quality contributors, with the signing of Von Miller ahead of last year as the one move that was supposed to push them over the top, handing him a front-loaded deal with a 20-million per year cap hit – which he got hurt right before December in 2022 and then was making more headlines off the field as a part-time healthy scratch this season.
That gives us a little bit of insight into where the flaws of this operation recently have been however – James Cook this year was the first 1000-yard rusher Josh has played with in his career, they’ve struggled to find reliable number two options in the pass game next to Diggs, the defense hasn’t lived up to where they stack up statistically on the big stages, with the elite quarterbacks having answers to what they want to do structurally, and overall, they’ve simply lacked true difference-makers when they’ve needed them most. Let’s now focus on this season in particular.
| The 2023/24 season: |
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Coming off a deflating 27-10 loss at home to the Bengals in the Divisional Round, questions started to arise about how much longer this model would work for Buffalo, considering they were fielding the number two offense and defense respectively in terms of scoring, but there seemed to be a pretty clear delineation between them and the two teams that eventually battled for the AFC crown for the second year in a row (Bengals and Chiefs), especially when it came to the amount of guys who could just “make a play” when called upon. They went on to convince defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to “take the season off”, after they had just watched their offensive brainpower between Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka turn the Giants into a playoff team and be recognized as Coach of the Year.
Looking ahead to the 2023 season, you could look at the organization in two different ways I felt like however. On the pessimistic end, you might say that this group was inevitably going to get stuck in the road to the ultimate prize again, without any significant additions to the coaching staff or from a player perspective. At the same time, they were going to get Von Miller back – and understood that the smart move was to start him off on the PUP list in order to nearly get a full calendar year to return from the torn ACL – Sean McDermott was taking over defensive play-calling again after it felt like Frazier’s approach was too simplistic/predictable when they got to the end of the season, they put together what pretty universally was considered one of the stronger draft classes around the league and then they made several low-budget signings to address questionable spots – a veteran offensive lineman in Connor McGovern with flexibility on the interior to replace what had been a weak-link at left guard, a couple of depth pieces along their skill-position group, DaQuan Jones at (shade) nose-tackle to boost a rather soft run defense on the inside, another proven edge rusher in Leonard Floyd and a third safety in Taylor Rapp, who would give them more versatility in the personnel packag…
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