CURTIS HENRY
Sports Editor
With their fourth consecutive victory coming on Sunday, the Bills have the longest winning streak that the franchise has seen since 2008 when the team started 4-0 with Trent Edwards under center. That team, as avid fans will recall, won only three of their remaining twelve games en route to a disappointing 7-9 finish.
However, the team’s current winning streak does warrant some cautious optimism in Buffalo.
Sunday’s 45-16 victory over San Francisco gave the Bills — and the Washington Redskins, for that matter — a unique distinction. Each team started 0-2, and with four game win streaks, both the Bills and Redskins have become the fourth and fifth teams in the last twenty seasons to follow and 0-2 beginning with four consecutive victories.
There are still questions surrounding the team, particularly in the passing game. The one obvious flaw this Bills team has shown is that they’re benign in their passing offense, which currently ranks last in the league in yards per contest.
The lack of a passing game can be offset, however, by how good the defense has been over the past month. Per ESPN stats and info, the Bills are ranked in the top three defensively in each of the following categories since Week 2’s loss to the Jets: Opposing QBR (2nd), sack rate (3rd), interception rate (3rd), opposing third down conversion percentage (2nd), and red zone conversion percentage (1st).
What does this all mean?
Simply put, it implies that the Bills defense has been historically good over the last month. The defense hasn’t only been reminiscent of how good it was in 2014, it has been better.
Yet there’s uncertainty surrounding this team as they move forward. It is fair to wonder whether or not the Bills are legitimate and this success-on-defense approach is sustainable. The last three quarterbacks to play the Bills were Jacoby Brissett, Case Keenum and Colin Kaepernick. That isn’t exactly an all-pro list.
Furthermore, the next month will potentially be the most trying of the season. The Bills will spend Week 7 in Miami, against a talented (but inconsistent) Dolphins team. They follow that up with a visit from Tom Brady in Week 8, who is playing arguably his best football since 2007. Week 9 holds a trip to Seattle for the Bills, a game which will be played on Monday night. A bye week in Week 10 precedes a Week 11 trip to Cincinnati, another team that made the playoffs in 2015.
A lot is going to be learned about how good this team actually is in the next month, but there is reason for the Bills fanbase to be excited about the team’s recent success. A probability simulator done by ESPN’s Power Ranking Index gives the Bills a 76.4 percent chance to qualify for this year’s playoffs and end the longest playoff drought in all four of the major American professional sports.