In the hunt.
If you aren’t one the undefeated teams coasting to a division title (See: Bengals/Pats/Broncos/Panthers), that’s the graphic that every team hopes to be on for at least the next 2 months. The in the hunt graphic is ultimately the brass ring that fans want to hold onto, especially if you are a starving fan base like the Bills are. For too many years, the Bills would be eliminated from the “In the hunt” graphic by the time December rolled around. As it stands right now, the Bills are the 8th seed in the conference and are just one game behind the Jets who just lost Fitzmagic. Its amazing that if the Bills didn’t screw up the end of the Jags game, they’d be the 6th seed.
I can say this without any pause, but I will take a shitty Bills team finishing 8-8 or 9-7 in order for them to just get in the playoffs and get blown away by whoever the division winner is. This team on the surface isn’t really good, but with the AFC being a shit storm, I don’t think we should just throw in the towel. Of course, you can’t just rely on the bad teams to keep losing because eventually you’ll have to win some games. Here are a few things the Bills need to do in order to stay in the hunt and actually win a prize at the end of it:
Fix the running game- The Bills ground and pound philosophy has resembled pounding ground beef into a White Castle burger. In other words, hot fricken garbage. It is imperative that the Bills get their running game in order because if they put everything on the QB to make plays, they are in serious trouble. Obviously there are a few factors that are kind of out of the running game’s control (IE: Injuries and playing from behind), but even when the Bills have been rushing the football, they haven’t been doing it well. Here are some shit stats to support my POV…
- LeSean McCoy is averaging 3.9 yards per carry- Lowest of his career.
- Bills running backs are averaging 3.2 yards per carry on the season.
- No running back has had over 20 carries in a game.
- The Bills have had just one 100-yard rusher since week 2 of last season (Karlos Williams)
- Jerome Felton has averaged just 16 offensive snaps per game.
- The Bills have had 29 rushing attempts that have lost yardage (Top 5 in the NFL)
- If you take away the 46 run attempts from EJ/Tyrod, the Bills running backs have run the football 154 times on the season.
- McCoy is averaging just 15.6 carries per game and has just one run of 20+ yards.
Prior to the season, if you wanted to get in that comfort zone of the Bills contending, running the football was in your top 3 wishlist realistically. The Bills have been mediocre across the board in that regard. When Tyrod Taylor is either your leading rusher or tied for it in 2 of his 5 starts, you have issues.
Stop playing from behind- In all 4 of the Bills losses this season, they have trailed by 24, 13, 20, and 24 points. In their last 3 games at home, they have been outscored by 29 points combined in the 1st half alone and have trailed at halftime in 5 of their 7 games. This is why they’ve been abandoning the running game. Chris Tabasco sauce had a stat last week stating that the Bills have thrown 40+ times in 3 games this season, while when Greg Roman had Kaep/Smith, they never went over 40 throws in 4 seasons. Why? Because the 49ers were a really good team (3 straight conference title games) and weren’t the type of team to trail by a lot.
Its football 101 to know that no matter how much you love to run the football, if you are trailing by double digits or in the Bills case, by 20+ points, you are going to abandon ground and pound. When LeSean McCoy has more carries (31) when the Bills are behind than when they are ahead (26) or tied (21), that should tell you everything you know about the running game distribution. It would also help if Tyrod Taylor gets off to a faster start. Don’t forget he had 72 yards passing in the first half combined against the Giants/Titans.
Stop getting hurt- Seriously, ENOUGH!!! Bring in Mr. Miyagi or throw an injured player in the water pit that The League of Assassins use in the show Arrow. Let’s go over key players who have missed games: Kyle Williams, Aaron Williams, Leodis McKelvin, Sammy Watkins, Percy Harvin, Tyrod Taylor, LeSean McCoy, Karlos Williams, Seantrel Henderson, and Jon Miller. On offense, that’s 6 starters from your opening day roster and 2 starters on your defense. 8 of your 22 starters on opening day have missed games. The Bills original skilled guys from opening day have played a total of 8 quarters together this season.
The triplets of EJ Manuel/Woods/Tits Dixon aren’t going to put the fear of god into anyone. Injuries aren’t an excuse, but they are facts. If the Bills were healthy, I think their record wouldn’t be below .500. Frankly, getting healthy is the only silver lining I can find with this team being better than we think they are currently.
Force turnovers and get sacks- I was listening to WGR (Big mistake) after the Bengals game, and Jeremy White was trying to defend the defense and even had the audacity to downplay the accomplishments of the defense from last year. Pretty much his POV was that great QBs are going to burn great defenses. That’s BS if we are looking at what the Bills did last year to go along with the fact that they are paying a shitload for a number of defensive players. Last year, the Bills held Rivers, Stafford, Peyton Manning, and Aaron Rodgers to 22, 14, 24, and 13 points. This year, against the better QB teams, the Bills have allowed 98 points to Brady, Eli and Andy Dalton.
Last year after 7 games, the Bills had 24 sacks (Tops in the NFL). This year after 7 games, the Bills have 11 sacks (28th). The Bills have forced just three turnovers in their last 4 games.
Besides Mario Williams, no one else on the Bills defense has more than one sack. Think about that…Hughes/Dareus/K. Williams have 3 sacks between them! If you want to play the “Well, sacks are overrated and its about pressure” card, keep in mind that Jerry Hughes has 2 QB hits on the season (Ranked 28th for 4-3 DEs) and 15 QB hurries (tied for 11th for 4-3 DEs). Kyle Williams has the 26th fewest QB hurries for DTs with 7 (Above Defensive stats from PFF). Against the Bengals/Giants, the Bills had zero sacks and just 1 QB hit.
On the year, the Bills have 73 QB hurries which ranks 26th. So, “the pressure” narrative is kind of BS, right?
For the most part, the Bills have been able to inflate their defensive stats by beating up on bad teams. Even when the Jags scored points, the defense shut them down until the final drive of the game. I’m not going sit here and pretend to be Mr. All-22 guy with why they aren’t as good this year as last year. I can only tell you the difference stat wise and its quite telling IMO. The bottom line is that the Bills aren’t winning games if their defense doesn’t carry the ball. The offense, while not putting up a lot of yards (24th rank), have somehow averaged 25PPG which ranks 9th best. The Bills have given up the 19th most points in the league (24PPG). If the defense was as good as it was last year, they’d be in better position W/L wise.
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