ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Bad enough that the Bills were embarrassed, 47-10, by New Orleans on their home turf on Sunday afternoon at New Era Field.

Even worse, in the locker room afterward, nobody was quite sure what to do in the face of an epic team-effort collapse.

There was plenty of blame to go around in Buffalo’s second straight blowout loss as the offense was awful, and the defense was worse.

The most galling statistic put up by the Saints was a numbing 298 yards rushing, the most the Bills had surrendered since Seattle ran for 311 in a 50-17 victory at Ralph Wilson Stadium in 2012.

New Orleans had two 100-yard rushers — Mark Ingram (131) and rookie Alvin Kamara (106) — en route to five TDs on the ground (3 by Ingram) and a numbing average of over six yards per carry.

That domination led to the Saints’ one-sided statistical edge in offensive yardage (482-198), plays (73-45) and time of possession (41:23-18:37).

But as bad as Buffalo’s offense was, a big part of the problem was the Bills’ inability to get New Orleans’ offense off the field (no punts, 8-of-12 on third or fourth down).

Afterward, first-year Buffalo coach Sean McDermott lamented of the defense: “We were getting knocked out of our gaps and not (defending) the run the way we need to. We’ve got to take a hard look at it.”

As in, was it a talent issue or coaching?

Veteran defensive tackle Kyle Williams, disinclined to toss anyone under the proverbial bus, seemed to opt for the latter.

“When you’re giving up yards like that, it goes beyond the physical aspect of it,” he said.  “We were in the wrong places, we were not where we’re supposed to be. It was an all-around bad deal. We got off to a bad start and it snowballed into a nightmare. We got beat physically (and) we were out of our gaps.”

And that was obvious to fans sitting in either end zone when New Orleans had the ball. Saints backs seemed to burst for five yards before they faced contact.

As Ingram noted,  “It’s fun whenever we’re scoring at will.”

That’s exactly how safety Jordan Poyer saw it.

“They were able to do whatever they wanted on any down,” he said.

And middle linebacker Preston Brown admitted,  “Every play they got what they wanted to do … it was bad. Part of it is wanting to stay in your gap. I have to tackle better, we all have to do better for the defense to be better as a whole.”

But how to do that?

Outside linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, at 34 the Bills oldest player, conceded, “I don’t have (an) answer as far as what we can do. We’ve just got to be professionals, correct (the mistakes) and have a better total effort defensively the next game.”

To which Brown added,  “We have to change something (but) I’m not sure what that is right now.”

And maybe that’s the most troubling takeaway from Sunday’s loss.

Is something flawed in Buffalo’s scheme on both sides of the ball? Has the talent been overestimated? Is there a coaching issue?

Guard Richie Incognito allowed of the Saints defense, “We prepared for everything they did … they didn’t really hit us with anything we weren’t expecting.”

Was the offense not given enough options to deal with what New Orleans showed or is the line merely as bad as it’s looked the past two games?

Wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin, acquired in a trade with Carolina 12 days ago, and familiar with McDermott from his days as Panthers defensive coordinator, saw his first game devolve into a resounding defeat, but tried to see an upside.

“It was a big loss, a personal thing, everybody felt it,” he admitted.  (But) 5-4 is not bad as a record … we control our own destiny.”

Meanwhile, McDermott faces a crisis in confidence for his team.

When the Bills got off to that 5-2 start, the locker room was awash with enthusiasm for his everybody-has-each-other’s-back, all-for-one, one-for-all approach.

But two consecutive blowout losses — the 34-21 defeat by the Jets at the Meadowlands two Thursdays ago wasn’t quite as ugly — can’t be dismissed as aberrations.

Now comes the toughest part of the season with three of the final seven games against division leaders: New England (7-2) home-and-away and at Kansas City (6-3).

“We’ve got to get things corrected … take a hard look at this film, learn from it, coach better, play better and most importantly hang together as a team,” McDermott said. “You’ve got to take them one game at a time … you look too far ahead and you get yourself in trouble.”

Sorry Sean, but the Bills already appear to be in trouble.

(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)