Seems like a bit too much panic right now

[Johnnycage46]

1 hour ago, PatsFanNH said:

Who would be favored in the AFC against them in the playoffs in Buffalo? Now the SB is always a dice roll

 

Bills were favored Sunday night at home...and they lost. The Bills have had the same issues year after year. Weak, soft defense, WRs who can't separate. Poor coaching in big games.

[DapperCam]

I think some concern is warranted. The offense has looked out of sorts for large portions of every game except the Jets game (and even that game the passing offense wasn’t really clicking).

 

We all know the defense has a lot of issues in all phases, and really lacks talent.

 

If the hope/expectation is to win a Super Bowl this season, there is a lot to work on and it’s possible we don’t have the players to fix the issues. It’s looking like a Super Bowl victory will require Allen to go off and have a little bit of luck.

[JP51]

1 hour ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

The chiefs loss def muddied the waters a bunch…I think the more pessimistic crowd thought they had turned it on week 4 and were just gonna coast.
 

agreed

[Mark Vader]

I'm not panicked over this. Lots of season to go. This has happened to the Bills before, and they've always bounced back.

 

More angry about the missed opportunity.

 

Had a chance to be 5-0 with a 3 game lead in the division this early in the season. Losing at home and worse, losing to the Patriots*. It doesn't bother me that Diggs was on the opposing team, he was great for us when we had him. What's done is done.

 

For me there is nothing more awful than losing to New England. Say what you want about the Chiefs, but I have a lot of respect for them, even though I hate losing to  them. The Chiefs are nowhere near as vile as the Patriots* and their scummy fans.

It just brings up massive tons of PTSD for me.

As if someone just dropped 10 Blue Whales on your back and added in a few Humpback Whales and a Beluga for good measure.

[Nester]

We only beat the Dolphins because a chump hit the kicker.....

Let that sink in. 

 

[Bruffalo]

Just now, Nester said:

We only beat the Dolphins because a chump hit the kicker.....

Let that sink in. 

 

And we only lost the Patriots game because of a obvious uncalled DPI (one of a few, really). What's your point? That the Bills are bad because they won the game, but not in the way you wanted them to? 

[TheBrownBear]

13 hours ago, folz said:

 

I think you have things a bit backwards or are thinking back too much to last year. 

 

The Bills are currently 10th in receiving yards and tied for 6th in receiving TDs. They are 3rd in 20+-yard passing plays. It's not as bad as some of you guys think. Our offense has been very good except for the 2nd quarter of the Saints game and the first half vs. the Pats.

 

The Bills defense is currently 2nd in the league against the pass (yes, some of that has to do with our poor rush defense, but I don't think you can totally discount a 2nd-place ranking). The Bills are 9th in the league in yards allowed/14th in points allowed. The problem thus far has been the run defense, not the pass defense. 

 

And as far as the pass rush, the Bills are tied for 5th in sacks (though there are ties in front of us as well, basically, 8 teams have more sacks than the Bills). The Bills are currently 2nd in QB hurries, 3rd in QB pressures, and 2nd in QB pressure percentage. So, I'm not sure what games you are watching if you think our pass rush has been "missing".

 

And yes, the secondary is still a bit rough. But Cole is improving each week and Hairston will be back (and hopefully ready to take over). Benford and Johnson are both very good players, and Rapp is at least solid. As far as fixing the run defense, we have Oliver, Hoect, and Ogunjobi coming back and the young guys should get at least marginally better as the year progresses (Walker, Sanders, Jackson). 

 

 

And let Kraft, Diggs, and the Pats fans gloat. They won the battle, but they will lose the war. The season is a marathon, not a sprint. We have loftier goals than beating a division rival in week 5.

 

Thank you. I think outside of having both the #1 ranked rushing and passing offense and defense, a kicker who never misses and an undefeated record where we never win by less than two touchdowns, there will be some here who will be dooming about one thing or another. Now, please understand, there are legitimate complaints to be aired and discussions worth having, but I think far too often many here lose sight of the reality in front of them.  We have the #3 offense, #9 defense, a 4-1 record and arguably the best QB/RB combination in the league. Life is good for a Bills fan.

[billsherd]

14 hours ago, GASabresIUFan said:

The Bills always have a clunker early in the year

 

2025 - L Week 5 to NE 20-23   Final record .............?

2024 - L Week 4 @ Balt 35 10  Final record 13-4 and the East

2023 - L Week 5 Jax (Lon) 20-25 Final record 11-6 and the East

2022 - L Week 3 @ Mia 31-21 (only blemish in a 6-1 start) - Final record 13-3 and the East 

2021 - L Week 6 @ Tenn 34-31 (we beat KC the previous week) Final record 11-6 and again winning the East

2020 - L Week 5 @ Tenn 42- 16 (after a 4-0 start)  Final record 13-3 and winning the East

2019 - L Week 4 to NE 16-10 (after a 3-0 Start)  Final record 10-7 and a first JA playoff appearance

 

The Bills have played well after early losses. In addition to the above examples they also lost game 1 to Pitt in 2021 (won the next 4), the Jets in 2023 (won the next 3)., of the 7 examples above they won the next game in 5 of these 7 Times The exceptions were a second loss to KC in 2020 and a 2nd loss to Hou in 2024.  They followed the 2nd loss to KC with 3 straight wins and the 2nd loss to Hou with 7 straight wins. 

What those losses show is Mike Vrabe is problem. 

[SoTier]

14 hours ago, thenorthremembers said:

Not panicked in the least.   Just frustrated because the loss was avoidable.   Very little room for error in the NFL. 

 

I agree that the loss was avoidable, but in the modern era (ie, since 1970), only 2 teams have gone undefeated in the regular season: the 1972 Dolphins and the 2007 Patriots, so losses are bound to happen.   Sometimes it's just not your day (or night), and manure happens.  I can take a loss to the up and coming Pats better than I could take a loss to the Fins or the Jests, and NE isn't a real threat for the #1 seed.  Since the Ravens, Chiefs, and Chargers all lost, the Bills didn't lose ground to them.   The Colts and Jags are ahead of the Bills on tie-breakers IIRC, but I don't see them as threats to take the #1 seed, although it's looking like one or both might make the playoffs.

 

There's still 70% of the season to go.  The Bills have plenty of time to improve their defense, especially since they'll be getting back some defenders in the next few weeks.   If the defense is still struggling (a relative term because there are several much worse defenses out there) come Thanksgiving, then it's time to worry.

[Mr. WEO]

59 minutes ago, The Jokeman said:

You can only play the team lined up against, not our fault we've played bad teams. That said we should be beating the bottom half of the league. I get losing to the Patriots though as they're a division rival and as we know divisional games are no guaranteed wins. 

no reason they should have lost to NE, a team clearly inferior to the Bills.

[Success]

Just now, Mr. WEO said:

no reason they should have lost to NE, a team clearly inferior to the Bills.

 

Good teams lose to "not as good" teams all the time.  That's why they play games, and it's why even the top teams in the league end up with 3 or 4 losses by the end.

 

[RiotAct]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

This team hasn’t played a team with a winning record yet

and that will continue for at LEAST the next two games!  Oh well.

[SoTier]

18 minutes ago, TheBrownBear said:

Thank you. I think outside of having both the #1 ranked rushing and passing offense and defense, a kicker who never misses and an undefeated record where we never win by less than two touchdowns, there will be some here who will be dooming about one thing or another. Now, please understand, there are legitimate complaints to be aired and discussions worth having, but I think far too often many here lose sight of the reality in front of them.  We have the #3 offense, #9 defense, a 4-1 record and arguably the best QB/RB combination in the league. Life is good for a Bills fan.

 

Totally agree.   The team needs to have all its ducks in a row come December and later, but wins in September count as much as wins later in the season.  They're doing what they should do: stacking wins.  I think too many posters are worrying too much about what might happen in the playoffs rather than enjoying the Bills current success.

 

Life is indeed good for a Bills fan these days.  They won't last forever.

[Chaos]

Really not sure I have seen a lot of panic.  Frustration yes. But mostly there seems to be a recalibration of expectations that the the season is past the quarter poll. 

 

The reality is the record of the 4 opponents the Bills have beaten is 3-13. The one team who beat us 3-2.   I think the loss to the Patriots feels like it fits part of the pattern is consistent with the Bills failing in the playoffs.  Part of that pattern is blundering a chance at the number 1 seed each year by losing games it probably should have won. Another part of the pattern is beating up on the truly awful teams like the Jets. My personal expectations were the Bills will certainly reach the playoffs, and we will see what happens after that. That is still my personal opinion. I also believe it represents  a consensus opinion.   The good news is the AFC has no teams breaking out, and the recent powerhouses, the Chiefs and Raven's floundering.  A win this past week, would have been the mark of the time of team who can step on the challengers throats in route to winning it all.  This opportunity was missed. Missed opportunities is part of the pattern.  It is fair for people to be disappointed we missed the opportunity. 

 

[BigAl2526]

I wouldn't say I'm panicked.  I think the loss sent a message to the players-that they can't take the playoffs for granted.  Injuries are going to happen.  There is not a great deal teams can do to prevent them, beyond making sure they have a good training staff.  Too many players had a sloppy game against the Patriots.  There were way more penalties than what one might consider acceptable.  It wasn't all due to officiating.  Several skill players on offense were careless with ball possession.  The coaches don't escape blame either.  Brady seemed to fail to take Patriot weaknesses and vulnerabilities into account in his game planning.  More than one observer has said that in the first half it was like he was throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what would stick.  Babich gets a bit of a pass because of all the injuries on defense, but injuries happen and it is his responsibility to deal with them.

[mjt328]

Not in a panic yet.

 

But I'm concerned that our offense has been slowly trending down for the last month. 

I'm also concerned that our defense looks worse than last season, when we needed it to get better.

 

Getting upset once hopefully won't be a huge deal by season's end.  But you really never know.  Games like this have cost us homefield advantage and the bye every single year.    

[Nester]

1 hour ago, Bruffalo said:

And we only lost the Patriots game because of a obvious uncalled DPI (one of a few, really). What's your point? That the Bills are bad because they won the game, but not in the way you wanted them to? 

 

My point would be that i don't think we are as good as our recorded suggests,  changes are needed if we are to achieve our post season goals. 

I don't think we get very far this year with the current team situation.  Really need Ed back and the new guys off suspension. 

[KOKBILLS]

16 hours ago, Success said:

 

 

I still think this is the best team in the AFC, by a somewhat comfortable margin.

 

 

 

I'm not panicking at all..

But I do not think they are THAT good right now... Maybe they will be by the end of the year... But I think any of the top 7-10 teams in the AFC...if healthy... can give the Bills a tough game currently... Yes, if the Bills play their best game and are on point they will win those games...Probably by a TD or more. But outside of the Jets game they have not shown that kind of 4 quarter consistency yet. I can't remember the last time this Defense was remotely healthy, and there are massive question marks on that side. Like... There are legit doom scenarios on the Defensive side of the ball... It could get worse. I don't think that will happen... But it's not outside the realm of possibility. And while I believe the Bills Offense should be the best Offense in the NFL, I have zero confidence in Brady's ability to consistently call games to take advantage of the opposing Defense's weaknesses... 

I think a lot of feedback is the reality that right now...this does not look like a team that can win a SB... It looks like a team that can definitely win a SB if this, this, this, and this happens... But we have not seen all the this' happen yet... And the injuries are clouding things a bit... It's not panic... But it's uncertainty...

[Psautcsk]

1 hour ago, Mark Vader said:

I'm not panicked over this. Lots of season to go. This has happened to the Bills before, and they've always bounced back.

 

More angry about the missed opportunity.

 

Had a chance to be 5-0 with a 3 game lead in the division this early in the season. Losing at home and worse, losing to the Patriots*. It doesn't bother me that Diggs was on the opposing team, he was great for us when we had him. What's done is done.

 

For me there is nothing more awful than losing to New England. Say what you want about the Chiefs, but I have a lot of respect for them, even though I hate losing to  them. The Chiefs are nowhere near as vile as the Patriots* and their scummy fans.

It just brings up massive tons of PTSD for me.

As if someone just dropped 10 Blue Whales on your back and added in a few Humpback Whales and a Beluga for good measure.

Same with me living in New England.🐳

[Lionel Hutz]

I don't think it's overreacting to just 1 loss. It's the fact that we are seeing the same problems we've had for the last 5 years and they're doing nothing to correct them.