Buffalo is incompetent in its nightmarish loss to the Texans

HOUSTON – If there's a silver lining to what happened Sunday afternoon, it's that the Buffalo Bills are still in first place in the AFC East.

Hey, it's something.

Even though they suffered a disheartening 23-20 loss to the Houston Texans after a 59-yard field goal from Ka'imi Fairbairn, their 3-2 record is still the best in the division because, like Josh Allen is the Jets' Aaron Rodgers failed to complete his comeback from an early 17-point deficit and New York lost 3-2 to the Vikings in London. And Miami's win at New England only pushed its record to 2-3.

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However, how much longer the Bills can stay in first place is the question, because right now they don't look like a first place team at all due to an incompetent passing game, an injury-plagued defense, and a schedule that is already me start grinding them up.

“They’re down,” coach Sean McDermott said of his players. “There are no moral victories (by almost coming back to win). I liked how they fought; to fight back after going down like we did. We have a lot of young guys out there, especially on defense, playing and fighting, which really gives us great effort in all three phases. The margins in the NFL are slim and we have to keep working to improve and get some guys here healthy at some point. That would help, but that's no excuse. We have to find ways to get these out.”

This is how I evaluated the bills:

Pass offense: F

I'm not sure I've given a Josh Allen-led offense this grade this decade. If so, I apologize for not remembering it. Oh never mind, I just remembered that. It was that ignominious loss to the Jaguars in 2021. Yes, that performance from Allen and his misfit group of receivers was just as egregious as that game, and it was the main reason the Bills lost.

The Bills have one of the NFL's greatest talents at QB, but even the greats are helpless when they don't have help, and that's the case with Buffalo. Not having Khalil Shakir was tough, but the fact that no one stepped in and closed the gap was a failure of the first order.

If the Bills are still preaching this silly “everyone eats” mantra, then maybe they should ditch the Weight Watchers menu and start eating real food because this offense is in starvation mode.

Allen completed just 9 of 30 passes for 131 yards and his WRs – Keon Coleman, Mack Hollins, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Curtis Samuel and Tyrell Shavers – were targeted 18 times and caught four times for 76 yards, with 49 of those coming in one play, Coleman's TD in the third quarter. Part of it was because Allen was struggling with his ball placement, part of it was because Allen was running for his life because the offensive line couldn't keep the pocket clean, and part of it was because those guys – and that includes I TE Dalton Kincaid, too – just won't open. It was a nightmare from start to finish.

RUN OFFENSE: B+

James Cook was by far the Bills' best offensive player. The line blocked the run game pretty well and Cook was able to rush for 82 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries. Unfortunately, offensive coordinator Joe Brady decided not to trust Cook on the Bills' fateful, disastrous final possession when they couldn't bide time because Brady called for three pass plays, all of which were incomplete and had almost no out-of-time time.

Yes, the Texans had all their timeouts and would have been ready for the run, but maybe, just maybe, Cook could have found a wrinkle and made some positive gains in three runs, maybe even enough to take the elusive first place spot on the Bills urgently needed to achieve. While Allen added 54 yards, the Bills finished with 150 yards and a 5.4 average.

Pass Defense: D-

Texans QB CJ Stroud is awesome and he had his way with the Bills' usually reliable pass defense, completing 28 of 38 for 331 yards, and he did most of that without his best WR, Nico Collins, coming in Game came He leads the league with 489 yards. Collins caught a 67-yard TD pass in the first quarter, but suffered a hamstring injury on that play and was ruled out for the day.

Guess who filled in for the Texans? Yes, Stefon Diggs, who caught six passes for 82 yards, single-handedly outscoring the Bills' entire WR corps. Stroud killed the Bills on third down when the Texans were 8-of-16 overall, and five of those conversions came on passes while the game was still on third-and-5 or longer. He completed nine passes of 14 yards or more.

The pass rush was inconsistent and Stroud was sacked only once, although that was a big mistake as Dawuane Smoot forced him to fumble and Dorian Williams recovered at the Houston 15 in the fourth quarter. He was hit only six times in the game (three by Greg Rousseau), and that allowed him to make some of the crucial third-down throws. His only bad pass was the interception of Terrel Bernard, which cost the Texans a scoring opportunity early in the fourth quarter.

RUN DEFENSE: D

The Texans played without their top two running backs, Joe Mixon and Dameon Pierce, but still managed to run for 94 yards, including a 15-yard TD run by Cam Akers on a play where he was barely touched.

Of course, the Bills played the game without defensive linemen Ed Oliver, Austin Johnson and Von Miller, as well as safety Taylor Rapp and nickel corner Taron Johnson, and they had to play with four rookie defensive linemen and a rookie safety, Cole Bishop was certainly one the reasons why the Texans finished with 425 total yards. One of those rookies, DT DeWayne Carter, made several notable plays, including two tackles for loss.

Williams led the Bills with 11 tackles, while Damar Hamlin had nine and Cam Lewis had eight tackles.

SPECIAL TEAMS: C+

Sam Martin punted just twelve times in the first four games, but was used eight times in this one and was arguably the Bills' best player. He averaged 41.9 net yards and trapped the Texans inside 20 yards five times. On his punt at the end of the first half, a 59-yarder, he beat his coverage and Robert Woods grabbed a 36-yard return that set up a Fairbairns field goal on the final play of the second quarter was part of a very special day for him , when he scored the winning goal with 50, 47 and 59 shots.

Brandon Codrington had a five-yard punt return and a 26-yard kickoff return, while Woods had a 31-yard kickoff return for Houston, so the coverage wasn't great.

Tyler Bass was perfect as he hit both his field goals and his two extra points.

COACHING: F

The Bills blew their last possession and on a day when so much happened, you had to attribute this loss to just that failure. They had to find a way to get more time out of this situation, but stopping three failed pass attempts was about the worst thing they could have done.

Brady wasn't able to plan much in the passing game, the fourth-down play that led to Coleman's TD being the exception. While the pieces on his chessboard can't win most stretches, it's up to Brady to find ways to put them in better situations, and he hasn't been able to do that in the last two games.

Unlike Brady, who had everyone available except Shakir, defensive coordinator Bobby Babich is trying to pull things together while several players are out with injuries. With all the juniors and backup players on the field, it's no surprise that the Texans made big play after big play, and holding them to 23 points was actually pretty impressive. Previously, that was good enough for Allen and the offense to win games, but 2024 is a very different year for the Bills.

Sal Maiorana has been covering the Buffalo Bills for four decades, including 35 years as a full-time beat writer for the D&C, and he has written numerous books on the team's history. He can be reached at [email protected] and you can follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

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