THE GOOD
For 58 minutes the defense held one of the NFL's lowest scoring offenses to 21 points. Enough to win the game. The defense was put in a tough spot the whole game and the performance was good to excellent for 58 minutes, but this was not the greatest show on turf they were holding at bay.
The offense was able to take advantage of the Bills defensive effort to get a lead with only 2 minutes left in the game, and the Broncos offense 75 yards from the end zone.
The game commentary was even handed and technically accurate for the most part
For 59 minutes the officials did not get involved in deciding the outcome of the game. Even the unfortunate PI call is more a problem of a bad rule, than a bad call.
THE BAD
Preparation. Sean McDermott has been the head coach for 6 years now. We still see too many games, where the Bills simply look unprepared. The offense looked like it was playing its 12 preseason game. The Bills were not prepared at the start. The Bills were not prepared for the scramble no time out drills for FG attempts at the end of the first half, or the end of the game.
Clock management. There was no reason to use up the time outs on second and third down at the end of the game. The Broncos were going to have the option of having plenty of time to get set on the field, and let the clock run down on any fourth down anyway. But since the Bills burned their time outs, even if the HC or one of staff had the situational awareness to know 12 men where on the field, they couldn't stop the play to do anything about it.
THE UGLY
Josh Allen may have had his worse game as a Bill. Early in the season we saw that the talent is still there. At this point I feel like he has been mis-coached into ineffectiveness. I hope like Seabiscuit, a change in coaching can turn him into the champion his talent suggests he should be
Fourth last drive defensive collapse of the season, on the last series. In my version of complimentary football, if the team has a lead with 2 minutes to go, and the other team has the ball 75 yards from the endzone, you should win those game. For professionals it should not matter how the team got into that position, it only matters that you are in that position. It seems clear every single opponent the Bills play has a 2 minute game plan to easily beat the Bills on the last drive.
Sean McDermott's post game press conference on twelve men on the field, throwing the team under the bus. "“We practiced two or three times that week, the substitution from a dime [defense] to field goal block, and at the end of the day we didn’t execute it. It’s inexcusable,” he said."
This commentary is wrong on two levels. One it is the wrong assignment of blame. The Bills knew for three plays, that the broncos were scrambling to set up the FG and were no longer advancing the ball. We wasted two time outs on second and third down. Its inconceivable that a coaching staff would not use those time outs to make sure the players were 100% aware of their assignments on the scramble play. If the coach thought "we practiced that earlier this week, in the calm of a practice, I am sure everybody knows what they are doing", that is insane. The proper comment was "I had another end of game brain cramp. I didn't get the player assignments for the scramble repeated twice during the timeout. I simply ASSumed that we were ready"
Even if this was not another coaching blunder this is not an appropriate comment for public consumption. A lame "we need to review what happened" would have been 1000x better comment in this situation. McDermott seems to be completely burned out and losing it at this point. This is actually understandable. Hi stress job. Tons of pressure. He needs someone above him to address this burnout situation. We can't have a head coach calling out the players over and over to blame his poor clock management and end of game management on.
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