Niagara Gazette

‘The Bills possess the talent to beat any of the remaining teams on their schedule, the problem is that they have barely shown the capability to beat bad to mediocre teams over the last six weeks.’

‘If the Bills can’t figure out how to turn the season around, the blame is now placed squarely on McDermott. And he hasn’t shown much ability to take public accountability for any of the team’s missteps over the years.’

‘“There’s things that I think are naturally just in my mind,” Brady said. “I’d be lying to you if, with the amount of time this week, I spent a lot of time thinking about those things. I believe in relationships with your players and I believe if we’re all on the same page with communication, everything’s going to take care of itself.”’

‘“I’ve never been nothing but fully invested,” Diggs said Thursday, “especially from a professional aspect, a player aspect, a captain aspect, a brother, a teammate.”’

‘“It hurts a lot to see someone you care about go through a situation like that and to know that if I could have done more, if this offense could have done more, we wouldn’t have had to do something like that,” Allen said. “So again, it’s an unfortunate series of events that have led up to it but again, as much as you can sit here and feel sorry for yourself and you can sulk on what’s going on, we got a game to prepare for and it’s four days away, so we can’t pay too much attention to it.”’

‘“The way they play defense is gonna smudge the offense,” Torrence said, “so we just got to be patient with our calls and running the ball, being OK with getting 2-3 yards at times and not getting bored with getting stopped.”’

‘Dorsey spent 26 games as the team’s offensive coordinator after Brian Daboll left to be the head coach of the New York Giants and statistically had one of the NFL’s best offenses. The Bills rank seventh in the NFL in yards and passing and eighth in points, a year after finishing second in points and yards.’

‘More frustrating is that many of the interceptions are throws that shouldn’t leave his hand, including one in the last minute of the first half that led to a Denver field goal. Teams live with mistakes from players the caliber of Allen, but at some point there needs to be urgency to improve.’

‘Special teams nearly cost the Denver Broncos a win, until the Buffalo Bills out-botched them.’

‘Despite all the bravado and reassurances, nothing seems to change. It’s the same, stale offense week after week. Instead of carrying the team at a time when the defense is missing five starters, it forced the defense to preserve a win or make a stop on the final drive for a fifth consecutive game.’

‘During Sean McDermott’s tenure as head coach, the Bills have gone 31-16 over the final eight games of the season, including a 7-0 stretch last year — the Bengals game, of course, was canceled after Damar Hamlin’s injury — and a 7-1 in 2020. Buffalo can’t afford to wait so long to turn on the jets this time, but McDermott has also guided the Bills to a 14-2 mark during regular-season games in December and January the previous three seasons.’

‘Shaq Lawson (toe), Oliver (toe) and Rousseau (foot) all missed games during the last five weeks, while Floyd has been nursing an ankle injury for most of the season, and that doesn’t include a pectoral injury that landed DaQuan Jones on injured reserve and Miller’s recovery from a torn ACL. The injuries have been overshadowed by major losses to Matt Milano and Tre’Davious White, but the ramifications have been significant.’

‘One of those concepts is the use of motion before the snap. Not only does motion give an offense free information because the defense typically tips its hand when an offensive player moves from one side of the formation to the other, but it also can create mismatches before the ball is even snapped. The Bills used motion on just 17 of their 55 offensive snaps, compared to the Bengals, who motioned on 31 of 67 plays. More puzzling is that the Bills were more successful when they used pre-snap motion.’

‘The Bills have surrendered 40 plays of more than 20 yards thus far, after never giving up 30 through the first nine games dating to 2020. Meanwhile, the offense has 27 of those chunk plays and hasn’t had fewer than 30 over the last four seasons.’

‘The Bills went without a huddle on 11 of 21 plays during their two touchdown drives and four out of nine plays on a drive that reached the Cincinnati 11 before tight end Dalton Kincaid fumbled. Those three drives netted 212 yards, while they went no-huddle on seven plays over seven other possessions, accumulating 105 yards.’