CURTIS HENRY
Sports Editor
This. This is why it was so important for the Buffalo Bills to win their 5th straight game in Miami in Week Seven. A victory in Miami would have put the Bills in a worst-case scenario of 5-3 at the midpoint of their season, headed to Seattle for a Monday night matchup preceding their bye week.
Instead, the Bills flopped to the Dolphins in Miami and followed it up with another mediocre performance on Sunday against a fully healthy Patriots team. The final scoreline against New England reads 41-25, but any viewer of the game knows that the outcome was never in question.
Buffalo is a team that is desperately looking for an offensive identity. Four of the offense’s top six playmakers — LeSean McCoy, Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods and Marquise Goodwin — entered Week Eight with injury designations. Of the four, Woods was the only one to suit up on Sunday, and for the majority of the game he seemed hampered by the foot injury that has plagued the receiver for weeks. He finished the game with a stat line of four catches for 50 yards, but was held without a catch until the second half. By that point, the game was out of reach.
McCoy’s absence was subdued on the day due to the effectiveness of backup running back Mike Gillislee. Gillislee racked up 85 yards on only 12 carries and accounted for a touchdown, but Buffalo was forced to abandon the run game early on after the Patriots jumped to a three-score lead early in the second half.
The secondary was the glaring weakness of the roster on Sunday, allowing Tom Brady to surgically throw for 315 yards and four scores. Brady found success early and often picking on Bills cornerback Stephon Gilmore, notably on a 53-yard touchdown strike to former-Bill Chris Hogan.
The loss is bad news for Buffalo, a team which is only now entering the meat of its schedule. The matchup with New England begins a stretch of six games in which five of the Bills’ opponents are teams vying for a playoff spot. The Bills schedule over the next month and a half is as follows: at Seattle, Bye, at Cincinnati, vs Jacksonville, at Oakland, vs Pittsburgh.
That schedule is brutal, and while the Bills have shown flashes of competence with regard to beating good teams (Arizona, New England), there has to be a certain amount of pessimism regarding the team’s playoff chances.
While all of the upcoming games are winnable for the Bills, the team’s current state of health is the furthest thing from reassuring. A win in Seattle would be beneficial for the Bills, but the following four games will decide the fortune of the Bills’ season. The team currently sits 1-4 against AFC opponents, worst in the conference among teams .500 or better. That’s the tiebreaker that the Bills need on their side the most in order to capture an elusive wild card spot.
Buffalo fans may want to prepare themselves, because in all likelihood the Bills will be singing their goodbyes to the playoffs when December rolls around. Cue the hashtag: 17 beers for 17 years.