WGR

‘In a nutshell, the Bills offense moved the ball but couldn’t finish drives over the final three quarters. The defense collapsed giving up touchdowns to the Jets on two of their final three drives and for the second straight week the Bills special teams were horrible.’

‘Just look at Buffalo’s drive charts. In the first half they had an 11-play TD drive, a three-play fumble drive, a seven-play touchdown drive, an eight-play field goal drive, a two-play interception drive and a 12-play blocked field goal drive.’

‘Bills’ linebacker Lorenzo Alexander said after the game that you don’t notice special teams until they cost you. Well, they certainly cost the Bills in this one. The special teams’ units may have had their worst day of an already bad season overall. There were plenty of issues. A blocked field goal. Another missed field goal. Then two huge kickoff returns against (and another that was eventually called back) that cost a ton of field position and made it easy on the Jets to score ten points. The Bills also had an illegal formation on another kickoff. It was an especially bad day for the special teams.’

‘With the release of Kelvin Benjamin and Andre Holmes this past week, the Bills clearly signified they are going with a youth movement at wide receiver. With Cam Phillips being promoted to the 53-man roster on Saturday, that means three rookies are among the six active wideouts on the roster. Phillips, Ray-Ray McCloud and Robert Foster. Two are in just their second season, Zay Jones and Isaiah McKenzie, who is questionable to play with a toe injury. Then there is seventh-year pro Deonte Thompson, as well.’

‘The Clemson product, taken by the Bills in the sixth round of this past draft, made the team’s initial 53-man roster back in September, but was inactive the first two weeks of the season, watching helplessly from the sidelines as the offense struggled in losses to the Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Chargers. McCloud finally got his chance to see the field, making his NFL debut against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 3. He then suited up the next couple weeks against the Green Bay Packers and Tennessee Titans, and even had a big catch and run on the final drive against Tennessee to help put the Bills in position to kick a game-winning field goal.’

‘“Any coach I ever played for, they know, I feed off mistakes,” McCloud told me this week. “I’ve had some of my best games off mistakes. On the first play of the game, before halftime. Some of those were the best games ever of my life. I was upset about it, like ‘dang, it’s time to show up now.’ I never got an opportunity later in the game to show that, but everybody learns from it. I made that second mistake before, and it was behind me 10 minutes later and it was time to move on and grow up and that’s just part of the game.”’

‘”This doesn’t help the quarterback. When you’re kind of going down and lessening the talent at the receiver position, to try and do that and a line that’s pretty shaky. Is that going to be best in the development of Josh Allen? You kind of wonder about that… You want to surround him with as much talent as possible, not minimize the talent. So, it was a curious thing to cut two receivers in one day.”‘

‘“But just as important for us is, I believe, is when things are no longer right for us as our football team and where we are and the vision we are trying to chase that we move forward, and that’s what we did. We’re going to continue to make every decision we feel is right, in the best interest of this football team.”’

‘Benjamin has been plagued by drops on jump balls, which is one of Benajmin’s strengths in his game, while his effort has been questioned by media and fans alike.’

‘Bodine played his first four years in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals, but was signed by the Bills as a free agent this past offseason to a two-year, $5 million contract after losing Eric Wood to retirement. He then won the starting center job over Groy after a lengthy training camp battle.’

‘”What you probably didn’t see was Zay Jones coming open over the middle. Josh [Allen] had to escape the pocket… Our protection broke down too early… Josh had to go off schedule… Just one of those opportunities we weren’t able to take advantage of.”‘

‘”What’s exciting is what he can do with his arm, with his legs and what he can do while on the run. Plays break down, and one spy is not enough to bring him down. He’s a hard guy to play man coverage against… He can do a lot of different things at a high level. He’s only going to get better.”‘

‘Miami’s offense didn’t get many yards throughout the afternoon, but hit the Bills where it mattered most with 3 touchdown passes from Ryan Tannehill. Tannehill was 16-of-24 for 137 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. Buffalo limited the Dolphins to only 60 yards rushing, with Kenyan Drake leading the way with 31 yards. DeVante Parker led Miami wideouts with 4 catches for 43 yards and 1 touchdown.’

‘I really felt bad for Allen who gave it everything he had in this game but came up painfully short. He will go to bed not only thinking of that final pass to Clay but I’m sure he will want the throw behind Jones in the end zone and the over throw of Foster on that bomb back.’

‘Far too often this has been an issue and written on this side of the Sticks this season. No doubt there were several calls that were questionable, to say the least (see below). But even with that said, 13 penalties for 120 yards is just unacceptable and several of those were critical blows to either the offense or defense.’