Bills expect too much from Josh, can’t stop the run or the virus
Updated Wednesday, September 1, 2021
The Buffalo Bills on Saturday unveiled their 2021 first-team offense, and even with All-Pro receiver Stefon Diggs resting a sore knee, it was a splendid thing to see. Josh Allen, whose skill set compares to Patrick Mahomes, completed 20 of 26 for 194 yards, 2 touchdowns, no interceptions in a 19-0 preseason shutout of Jordan Love and other Green Bay Packer backups.
And yet, I suspect these Bills are counterfeit, far from being the NFL’s No. 3 team, where various power ratings put them. They make no pretense of having a running game or even wanting one. Devin Singletary and Matt Breida are good on long runs but not short ones. The power back is Allen, who last year rushed for 8 TDs.
And as good as their air game is, it would benefit, as would the ground game, from a competent tight end. With all the tight ends in the NFL, couldn’t they find a better one than Dawson Knox? Last season he caught 24 passes, and he did not make the top 32 in Pro Football Focus rankings of that position.
On defense the Bills have dazzling stars in the backfield: Tre’Davious White, Jordan Poyer, Micah Hyde. Directed by a defensive-minded head coach, Sean McDermott, and a long-underrated coordinator, Leslie Frazier, their zone defense is one of the league’s most disciplined. But elsewhere they have more holes than the Bismarck.
General manager Brandon Beane addressed one need, the pass rush. Buffalo’s best edge rushers of 2020, Mario Addison and Jerry Hughes, combined for 9.5 sacks, and both are 33 years old. So Beane’s first draft pick was defensive end Greg Rousseau from Miami. He’s 6-6, 266 pounds, and Bills Hall of Fame defensive end Bruce Smith compares him to one of the all-time great sackers, Simeon Rice, “in body build and some of the things that he can do on the field.”
But Rousseau’s slim, lanky physique is not ideal for stuffing runs. Last season Buffalo yielded 119.6 rushing yards per game – 10th most in the league. Opponents averaged 4.6 yards per carry.
Ed Oliver was drafted in 2019 to plug the middle, but he’s been a first-round bust. Another defensive tackle, veteran free agent Star Lotulelei, signed a $50 million contract with the Bills in 2018, and so far they’ve received little return.
Lotulelei took the coronavirus opt-out last year, which makes it surprising that he didn’t get vaccinated. He was among five Bills recently landing in Covid reserve.
Which brings me to another reason to discount the Bills. With anti-vaxxer All-Pro slot receiver Cole Beasley exhorting his teammates, they have the worst Covid problem in the NFL. At 80% they rank near the bottom in vaccinating.
Beane was reprimanded by the NFL office for saying he’d consider cutting unvaccinated players to meet the 85% vaccination threshold required for teams to operate with minimal restrictions.
Beasley and another Buffalo receiver, Isaiah McKenzie, were fined more than $14,000 last week for not wearing masks, which unvaccinated players are required to do. They should not feel secure, considering how well Gabriel Davis is competing.
A fourth-round draft pick last year, Davis scored 7 touchdowns as a rookie. He’s taken a step forward this preseason. In Saturday’s exhibition he caught 5 for 75 and a TD. He’s now Allen’s No. 2 option, behind Diggs, which leaves the 32-year-old Beasley battling for the slot with the faster and ascending McKenzie, who’s 26.
Beasley tweets almost daily about the futility of vaccines and masks. If he were on a battlefield he’d toss his helmet and say, “It’s uncomfortable and hot, and if I wear it I can still get killed, so why wear it?”
If the Buffalo Bills tire of Cole Beasley’s relentless nonsense and cut him loose, he can go back to Texas, where he was born, and run for governor.
McDermott, who’s considered one of the most intelligent, most detailed of head coaches, insisted, “We’ve done our part to educate our players, build awareness.”
Unfortunately, this football season, like the last one, is at the mercy of the pandemic. Teams that try to protect themselves will do better than teams that don’t. A study released by the Centers for Disease Control last week showed that unvaccinated people are five times more likely to contract Covid than the vaccinated. Last year, Covid probably cost New England a winning record. Quarterback Cam Newton was never the same after an early-season bout with the virus.
One reason the Patriots this week released Newton was to avoid a repeat of that scenario. Bill Belichick will go with a vaccinated rookie, Mac Jones. The Patriots are rejuvenated, re-stocked, ready to reclaim the AFC East that Buffalo seized last year. Even without Newton, one of the most mobile quarterbacks ever, the Patriots have a power run game that the Bills are ill equipped either to match or to stop. They could be relying too much on Josh Allen.
