Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

‘And then there’s Ed Oliver. The former No. 9 overall pick does some good things that don’t always get noticed, but he also doesn’t get noticed very much and that’s not good. He has not been a difference-maker in any way, and while his pass rush improved this season, his play against the run is still sub-standard.’

‘Instead, what we got was a run game that was mostly dysfunctional from start to finish. Now, it’s tough to complain about an offense that scored 501 points, and coordinator Brian Daboll made the decision to move away from the run and turn the offense into one of the most pass happy in the league, but the Bills’ inability to run effectively was problematic and McDermott admitted it, saying, “I can tell you right now, we’ve got to run the football better.”’

‘“I still think we have to be very honest with where we’re at – we’re still not a Super Bowl team,” he said candidly during an hour-long season-ending Zoom call with reporters. “There’s one team happy at the end of the year. We made a great step last year in ’19 from ’18 and another step this year. We still have to go further. The goal here is to win that thing. Until we get in that game to compete for it, we can’t win it. So it wasn’t good enough this year.”’

‘“It’s probably premature to get into it too deep right now but generally speaking, we’ve got to improve,” McDermott said Tuesday during a 45-minute season-ending Zoom call with reporters. “I’ve got to improve, our teams’ got to improve, our staff has to improve. Here’s what I know from experience: If you sit here and say, ‘All we need to do is do this much more to make it to the Super Bowl’ you’re wrong. You’ve got to start over.”’

‘But take a step back and consider this: Last August when the team first convened in Orchard Park for training camp, a team that hadn’t won a playoff game or an AFC East title in a quarter of a century, and Josh Allen was still a great unknown in terms of being the franchise quarterback, did anyone really dare to believe that in late January 2021, the Bills would be playing for the opportunity to advance to Super Bowl 55?’

‘The nine-year veteran was on pace to register his first 1,000-yard season but suffered what was disclosed as a knee injury on Monday Night Football in Week 16 against the New England Patriots. He missed the regular season finale against the Miami Dolphins.’

‘The Patriots are old news now, there’s a new standard being set by the Kansas City Chiefs, and if the Bills hope to do anything special in, oh, maybe the next decade or so, it’s Patrick Mahomes who will be the Empire State Building-sized obstacle they’ll have to clear, and that’s not going to be easy.’

‘I’m not sure what he was trying to accomplish, especially having seen how futile his defense had been trying to stop Mahomes. Frazier just never dialed up pressure and he allowed Mahomes to play pitch and catch, and just as frustrating was the constant cushions he was allowing the Chiefs receivers.’

‘Coach Sean McDermott’s Bills, however, seemingly reverted to the Bills of yesteryear. You know, the pre-Stefon Diggs offense that used every ounce of energy to score 17 points.’

‘“I have some really good friends on that team and I was happy for them, but I’m in the place I need to be,” Morse back in August when the Bills opened training camp, the first time he spoke to reporters since the Chiefs’ victory. “I couldn’t be happier about that. Watching that game, I was happy for my friends. I know the work they had put in and couldn’t be happier for them.”’

‘My pick: Chiefs 30, Bills 27.’

‘Buffalo’s Dudley Meredith fumbled the opening kickoff, Jerrol Wilson recovered for Kansas City at the Bills 31, and three plays later Len Dawson faked a draw play and hit wide-open Fred Arbanas with a 29-yard TD pass just 1:43 into the game.’

‘“No matter what, my family is gonna come first, no matter what’s going on,” White said then when he was asked about weighing that against the very real possibility that the Bills, preseason AFC East favorites, could be in for a special year. “No matter how big of a season, I’m always going to put my kids first.”’

‘“The pressure is that to win the game you’ve got to score more than them and that’s exactly what it is,” he said. “They do such a good job of moving the ball and scoring, and it could be two plays over the top or it could be a 15-play drive where Patrick is just finding his outlets and using their RPOs. Their sights are the same as ours, one team is going to win and one team is going to go home, so we have to do everything in our power to make sure we’re the team surviving.”’

‘This was a team in almost nonstop disarray for 17 years before the tandem from Carolina took over the operation, and their handiwork has produced three playoff seasons in their four years on the job, topped by the 2020 team that ended Buffalo’s 25-year AFC East drought and has advanced to the title game for the first time in 27 years.’