I hate to say it but your 4 sentences above ring very true to me. You can say it was a one game issue, though in my opinion you’d be wrong. The game in Cinci that was stopped due to Hamilin’s unfortunate ordeal, started out with Cinci looking better than the Bills.
I actually think it might have helped Buffalo to have played that full game and been beat. Had this happened, they would have seen schematically how they do not match up well to Cinci.