ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — It’s been four days since the Bills wasted an inspired defensive effort against the Panthers in a 9-3 loss at Charlotte.
Buffalo’s ‘D’ played so well that despite a less-than-anemic offensive effort the game wasn’t decided until Tyrod Taylor’s fourth-down pass glanced off the hands of rookie wide receiver Zay Jones at the Carolina 1-yard line with nine seconds to play.
For the game, Buffalo’s offense totaled a mere 176 yards on a paltry 51 plays.
The ground attack — 69 yards on 23 carries, 55 of those by Taylor mostly on scrambles — was awful, especially for feature back LeSean McCoy who had one of his worst games as a pro, 12 carries for nine yards.
Yet, tellingly, the real problem was Taylor and the passing game.
Despite Sunday’s lousy ground performance, Buffalo has led the National Football League in rushing the past two seasons. But, to be successful, the Bills must have at least modest success through the air to give opposing defenses pause.
Against the Panthers, Taylor was 17-of-25 for a microscopic 125 yards while converting only four of 13 third downs. Worse, the three wide receivers were targeted only 13 times — seven completions for 66 yards — and did none of the field-stretching that might have opened up the running game.
In fairness, Carolina has an impressive defense and it was the home opener. After two games, the Panthers lead the NFL in fewest total yards, passing yards and points surrendered (Buffalo is second, second and fourth in those categories). But it’s worth wondering whether Carolina’s stats are inflated merely because one of its two games was against the Bills’ struggling attack.
Predictably, during Wednesday’s media day press conference, Buffalo coach Sean McDermott, a defensive specialist by trade, got plenty of questions about his team’s offensive impotence.
As for the struggles of that unit he allowed, “When you go through a game like that, you have to listen and understand what the film is telling us. We’re looking at a lot of things.
“Our approach isn’t going to change in terms of we have to control the line of scrimmage, that’s where it starts. Then we have to keep ourselves out of some behind-the-sticks situations. (We have to) look to spread the ball around and keep people on their heels a little bit more.”
Still, McDermott views Sunday’s offensive struggles as an aberration.
“Really, when you look at a week ago against the Jets how we controlled the line of scrimmage and rushed for over 200 yards, this is one game,” he said. “That’s life sometimes in the NFL. It’s a good defense we just went against.”
But doesn’t the passing game, particularly the wide receivers separating from defenders, factor into any offensive success?
“We can do some different things there,” McDermott admitted. “We certainly have to work on getting better separation and winning our one-on-ones. That’s just not the receivers, that’s our backs, our tight ends, up front, we just have to do a better job of winning our one-on-ones.”
What about the contention that the Bills don’t have enough speed at wideout?
“I feel we do have enough speed at the receiver core,” McDermott maintained. “(But) that’s an area we need to work on. You come out of two games and you’re saying what needs analysis, what do we have to get better at. That’s one of the areas we need to improve on, our winning the one-on-ones, whether physically or with speed … find ways to win (those) match-ups.”
In Taylor’s view, “My initial feeling after the game and watching film, was just a lack of execution on my behalf (and) as a whole on the offense. Some plays we left out there that we would definitely like to have back.”
As for the lack of separation by his receivers, he added, “We’re going to have to pick and choose when we take our shots down field and be able to have that threat of going down field. We have the players on this team, Kaelin (Clay) and Brandon Tate, some of the quicker guys that can run down the field, as well as Zay, Andre (Holmes), those guys can stretch the field. We have to be selective when we call those plays.
“You face good corners every week. There’s going to be one-on-one battles that we have to win. I have confidence in all the guys that line up at wide receiver for us and we’re going to make those one-on-one battles work in our favor.”
Still as a former defensive coordinator, McDermott knows the advantage of shutting down the passing game of a run-oriented team.
“Naturally, you feel confident that you can load the box up,” he said. “It’s just a numbers game at that point. But there are things we can do, there are things we’re looking at. We have to continue to improve, continue to grow and build on what we’ve done within the first two weeks that has been positive, and there are things that have been positive.”
But there hasn’t been much positive in the passing game, and if that continues, Buffalo’s rushing attack — and by extrapolation its defense — will pay the price.
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
