The Buffalo Bills sure know how to break your heart four years in a row. After a 6-6 start, everything was breaking Buffalo’s way, and the team finally had a playoff game at home against the rival Chiefs. But despite a chance to win the game late, the Bills had a sequel to the two most depressing words in team history.
Wide right.
Kicker Tyler Bass was wide right on a 44-yard field goal with 1:43 left and the Bills lost 27-24 in the divisional round. It was the second-best showing any offense had against that tough Kansas City defense last year, but it was also another rough performance against Patrick Mahomes, the team’s nemesis.
Now the Bills are going to try things differently this year as they try to win the AFC East for a fifth year in a row despite some stiff competition. Wide receiver Stefon Diggs, a key to the offense’s turnaround in 2020, was traded to Houston in April in a move that could shake up the AFC hierarchy this season.
Are they putting too much on Josh Allen, who is second in MVP odds to only Mahomes, or is the departure of Diggs going to bring out the best in the quarterback we ranked No. 2 in the whole NFL this offseason?
This is an interesting, delicate time for Buffalo. We look back at 2023’s revenge tour that came up short, the key offseason changes, Allen’s future without Diggs, and the best Bills bets for 2024.
Table of Contents
2023 Season Recap: Still Not the Team of Destiny
When the Bills stumbled down the stretch in 2022 after being the preseason favorite for the Super Bowl, we at least could reasonably conclude that the shocking Damar Hamlin incident drained them emotionally for the playoffs. They were so flat in that 27-10 loss to the Bengals, the only time the Bills have lost a game by more than 6 points in their last 46 games.
Even though the Bills came up short again in 2023, it was an exciting season that resulted in another AFC East title, another playoff win, and another crack at the Chiefs.
The Night Ken Dorsey Fell on the Sword for the Bills
Just from Week 1, you could see this was going to be a wild season for the Bills:
- Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles just 4 snaps into the Week 1 game against Buffalo.
- But the Bills turned it over four times and lost 22-16 in overtime after a punt return touchdown.
- Buffalo rallied back with three straight dominant wins, including a 48-20 thrashing of the Dolphins a week after Miami scored 70 points against Denver.
- The Bills started to sustain a lot of defensive injuries and had a rough flight to London in a 25-20 loss to the Jaguars.
- The Bills were a 15.5-point favorite against the Giants on Sunday Night Football but struggled to pull out a 14-9 win with the Giants a yard away from victory at the end on an untimed down.
- They were not so lucky a week later when they allowed Mac Jones to lead about the only clutch game-winning drive of his career for the Patriots in a 29-25 loss that put the Bills at 4-3.
- The Bills then played a couple of 24-18 games, beating the Buccaneers before losing again to Cincinnati, a team that looks to be a problem for them in the AFC.
Unlike the previous two seasons, this team did not peak in October. The Bills hosted Denver in Week 10 on a Monday night, and the offense again was very sloppy with 4 giveaways much like in Week 1. Some were on Allen, and some were on running back James Cook.
While the Bills took a late lead, Denver drove into field-goal range. It looked like the Broncos missed a 41-yard field goal, but Buffalo was penalized for having too many men on the field, a crucial mistake. The Broncos made the 36-yard kick to win 24-22, dropping the Bills to 5-5.
Even though the offense was generally ranked high across the board and Allen was having a good season, the turnovers were an issue. Offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey became the scapegoat and fell on the sword with the team firing him after the Denver loss. Quarterbacks coach Joe Brady took over Dorsey’s duties for the rest of the season.
From .500 to the Playoffs
Under Brady, the offense did a better job of protecting the ball. If that was the main purpose of the switch, then mission accomplished. But there were certainly changes in how the offense performed, because the running game production picked up, and the connection of Allen to Diggs took a backseat to what the Bills were doing. More on that later.
In Week 12, the Bills lost arguably the best game of the regular season in a 37-34 overtime classic in Philadelphia. Allen played really well and gave his team the lead multiple times, but a 59-yard field goal to force overtime by the Eagles and a walk-off touchdown run by Jalen Hurts doomed the Bills to 6-6.
Things looked really dire at the bye week, but the Bills had to get ready for a huge game in Kansas City, which was going through its own issues with receiver mistakes. Sure enough, it was a low-scoring battle and the Chiefs made a huge error this time when Kadarius Toney lined up offside to negate a brilliant play by Travis Kelce on a lateral for a go-ahead touchdown. It did not count because of the rare offensive offsides penalty. The Bills hung on for a 20-17 win, their third-straight win in the regular season at Arrowhead.
The Bills pounded a good Dallas team 31-10 at home in a superb showing for the running game (season-high 266 yards) and Cook. The Bills then survived some scares from the Chargers (with Easton Stick at quarterback) and the Patriots, then caught another big break when the Dolphins choked away a 14-point lead against the Titans.
This set up the regular season finale in Miami for the AFC East title. Allen extended his NFL record with a 13th-straight game with multiple touchdown passes against the same opponent, and he is now 11-2 against the Dolphins. In the 21-14 win, the Bills got a full team effort with a 96-yard punt return touchdown by Deonte Harty, and the injury-ravaged defense intercepted Tua Tagovailoa to clinch another division title.
The Bills turned what looked like a season that would get head coach Sean McDermott fired into a No. 2 seed.
The Familiar Sting of the Postseason
After weather delayed the game to Monday, the Bills finally played the No.7 seeded Steelers on wild card weekend as a heavy favorite. It was a full team effort again and the Bills prevailed 31-17, setting up another rematch with the Chiefs, but this time it would be in Buffalo.
It felt like a case of history repeating itself. Steve Young’s 49ers lost to the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game in 1992 and 1993, but they got the game at home in 1994, and they beat Dallas to go on and win a Super Bowl. Likewise, Peyton Manning’s Colts lost in New England in the playoffs in 2003 and 2004. But in 2006, they got the title game in their building, and they came back to beat the Patriots in a 38-34 classic to go on and win a Super Bowl.
The Bills felt like that team of destiny from their 6-6 start to this run, and maybe things were finally going to go their way.
A lot of hype was given to this being the first time in the Mahomes era that the Chiefs ever played a true road game with a crowd. But at the end of the day, it’s still just football, and Mahomes and Kelce looked comfortable hooking up for a pair of touchdowns in a back-and-forth game.
The Chiefs finally hit some deep balls, which set up a go-ahead touchdown run to make it 27-24 a minute into the fourth quarter. These are the teams that scored 31 points after the two-minute warning in their last classic playoff matchup, so what would we see this time?
Shockingly, no other point.
The Bills scored 24 points on their first five drives – incredible efficiency – by running a very patient offense with a ton of run calls and short throws that served as runs. The strength of Kansas City’s defense was the pass rush and the way its top corners could cover, so the Bills beat them up with their backs, and Allen rushed for 72 yards and two touchdowns. Allen only had 186 passing yards on 26 completions, the fewest passing yards in a playoff game with at least 26 completions in NFL history.
It was an unorthodox strategy, but it was working, and the Bills had no turnovers on offense in the entire playoffs. That feels important to note when people always want to blame Allen’s turnovers for this team’s lack of Super Bowl appearances. They had no turnovers in the playoffs just like in 2021 when they had none against the Patriots and Chiefs.
But the Chiefs completely turned this game around with two-run stuffs in the fourth quarter. Three if you count the ill-fated fake punt using Damar Hamlin that the Chiefs didn’t get fooled by. Fortunately, the Bills caught another break when Mecole Hardman fumbled at the 1-yard line when he could have buried the Bills in a double-digit hole.
But the Bills had a run for minus-3 yards by Cook on that drive, then his next carry lost 4 yards to blow up the next drive, which ended with Trent Sherfield unable to pull in a deep pass on 3rd-and-12. Those two run stuffs changed everything as the Bills got behind the down-and-distance on two straight drives, then neglected the run on their final drive and chose to keep it in Allen’s hands.
Cook had a couple of runs on the final drive but again failed to get anywhere with them. Reaching the Kansas City 26, Allen went deep on back-to-back plays, hunting for the go-ahead touchdown instead of taking the safer plays that would keep burning the clock. Remember, we know Mahomes only needs 13 seconds to set up a field goal. There shouldn’t have been a rush.
But the Bills misplayed it, and they settled for a 44-yard field goal to tie the game. Bass is not a bad kicker but he’s no Justin Tucker. Now unless he gets another chance to redeem himself, he’ll be best remembered for missing this kick with 1:43 left, and there goes another Buffalo season down the drain.
To be fair, tying the game with over 100 seconds left sounds like a great way to lose 30-27 to the Chiefs on a field goal with no time left. This kick will never hold the relevance of that Scott Norwood miss in Super Bowl 25 for obvious reasons.
But it’s a big one and it stings for the Bills to come up short once again to the Chiefs. That means since the calendar changed to 2021, the Bills are 3-0 in the regular season against the Chiefs and 0-3 in the playoffs.
Buffalo Bills Offseason Review
The Bills decided to keep Brady as the full-time offensive coordinator, but you won’t see any more of Stefon Diggs now that he’s been traded to Houston. Even deep threat Gabe Davis (Jaguars) is gone, so there’s a major shakeup with the receiving corps that will draw most of the attention to this Buffalo offseason.
Let’s meet Allen’s new cast of receivers.
Keon Coleman: The New No. 1 in Buffalo?
Pretty much everyone knew the Bills were going to draft a wide receiver high in what was a very deep wide receiver class. But you really have to be nervous as a Bills fan that the team screwed up with the trades it made in April:
- In trading Stefon Diggs to Houston, they may have set up C.J. Stroud with the deepest set of weapons in the NFL for a team that’s very much on the rise.
- The Bills had the No. 28 pick in the draft, but they chose to trade down with the Chiefs, who took Xavier Worthy, the prospect with record-setting speed to give Mahomes and Andy Reid a new toy that could come back to haunt the Bills.
- Buffalo also traded down again from No. 32 to No. 33 with Carolina, who took Xavier Legette before the Bills settled on Florida State’s Keon Coleman.
Maybe the Bills wanted Coleman all along but losing that fifth-year option by taking him in the second round instead of the first isn’t great from a financial standpoint. Then you just pray that Worthy is the latest speedster to bust in the NFL and doesn’t turn into another DeSean Jackson or Tyreek Hill at the next level for Reid.
Coleman is a fine pick, but at 6’3” with a runtime of 4.61 seconds in the 40-yard dash, he might be a slower, taller version of Gabe Davis (with better hands) than a direct replacement for Diggs. Someone who could use his height in the red zone for Allen. He is not a burner, but he does play faster than he ran at the combine.
Coleman has already gone viral a few times this offseason, but it hasn’t necessarily been for anything he’s done on the football field. He has a very friendly personality, and let’s just say what can be best described as a childlike amusement about everything, including how to sign his contract.
Bills WR Keon Coleman didn’t know how to sign his contract 😂
pic.twitter.com/QiByZvxhB1— SleeperNFL (@SleeperNFL) July 23, 2024
He could be a fun character to follow this season, and he should be one of the leading receivers for Allen in 2024 along with slot receiver Khalil Shakir and the second year for tight end Dalton Kincaid.
The Other Guys in Buffalo
We noted the Bills were throwing deep to Trent Sherfield in the fourth quarter of that playoff loss, so upgrading the secondary receivers after losing Diggs and Davis was going to be important this offseason.
In joining Coleman and Shakir, the Bills have added some interesting options and not all are guaranteed to make the final roster.
One player you can expect to be there this season is Curtis Samuel, who the Bills signed in March to a 3-year deal worth $24 million. He has been stuck on Ron Rivera-coached teams in Carolina and Washington that generally had bad quarterback play. Allen will be easily his best passer yet, and he had a career-high 851 yards in 2020 with the Panthers. He can pick up some of the slack left from Diggs.
In May, the Bills signed Marquez Valdes-Scantling after he won back-to-back rings with the Chiefs. “MVS” should stand for “Mistakes vs. Speed” as you have to take the good (he’s fast) with the bad (he drops the ball) with him. But he did make key catches in both playoff runs for the Chiefs.
The Bills also kicked the tires on Mack Hollins, who had a career-high 57 catches for 690 yards for the 2022 Raiders, and he spent last season with the Falcons. The Bills also signed Chase Claypool, who hasn’t been the same since his 2020 rookie season in Pittsburgh. He’s already flamed out with the Bears and Dolphins, but we’ll see if he can make the final roster in Buffalo.
New Defensive Coordinator in Buffalo (Sorta)
Another change we could see in Buffalo is with a real defensive coordinator this season. With McDermott falling under the microscope more, he chose to leave that role open in 2023 after getting rid of longtime coordinator Leslie Frazier.
This season, McDermott has promoted Bobby Babich to defensive coordinator. He has been with the team since 2017 in a variety of roles, including coaching the linebackers the last two seasons.
It is not clear if McDermott or Babich will ultimately call the plays on defense this season, but it is a promotion for the assistant.
The Bills are returning a lot of familiar faces on defense this season with the hope they’ll have better health luck in 2024. One player who won’t be back is Leonard Floyd, who led the team with 10.5 sacks. That could leave a hole in the pass rush. The Bills also parted ways with corner Tre’Davious White, who has seen his once-promising career slowed down by a torn ACL and then an Achilles injury last year.
The biggest changes should be at safety as the Bills are not bringing back veterans Micah Hyde (free agent) and Jordan Poyer (Dolphins). They signed Mike Edwards, who played with the Buccaneers and then the Chiefs last year. They also used their other second-round pick on safety Cole Bishop from Utah, so he could have a chance to start this season.
McDermott’s defenses have been very good in the regular season, but their playoff performances leave a lot to be desired, and they usually have a couple of important players on the injury list come playoff time.
This Year’s Narrative: Will Josh Allen Prove His MVP Worthiness Without Diggs?
Josh Allen has been in the MVP mix in each of the last four seasons, but he has yet to put it all together and win the award. Last year, he threw 29 touchdowns while rushing for another 15 scores, but he didn’t even get credit for the Pro Bowl, much less win MVP. He did however get the only first-place MVP vote that did not go to Lamar Jackson.
But the stigma of Allen’s turnovers (a career-high 18 interceptions and 7 fumbles) was a lot to overcome, and it probably did not help matters that he only threw for 94 yards in an easy win over the Cowboys, or that he only had 169 yards and an interception against the Patriots in Week 17.
But can Allen actually be in a better position to win his first MVP in 2024 without Diggs in this offense?
It might sound preposterous on the surface since many MVP quarterback seasons are the result of the quarterback playing in one of the most talented offenses of their career. That would certainly apply to the first MVP wins for Joe Montana in 1989, Tom Brady in 2007, Aaron Rodgers in 2011, and Mahomes in 2018.
You could make the case Allen is about to have his weakest supporting cast since 2019, the year before his breakout season with Diggs. But that’s also exactly the argument to use to bolster his MVP case this year because if he plays at a high level with this new cast, that would be an impressive achievement.
You would not have guessed that Mahomes would have had one of his best seasons in 2022 after the team traded Tyreek Hill and had a committee approach to his No.1 wideout spot, but that happened. Maybe Allen, a great dual-threat quarterback, can do something similar.
A group of weapons that includes Cook, Kincaid, Coleman, Shakir, Samuel, and MVS isn’t that bad for Allen either. It’s certainly better than the pre-Diggs days when Cole Beasley was his best option. If Allen could throw for 25 touchdowns and do something incredible like rush for 20 touchdowns since he’s so good in the red zone at doing that, then the case will be there as long as the team continues its mastery of the AFC East.
But there is good reason to think Allen, at 28 years old, has outgrown the need for Diggs to masterfully run this offense. You can already see last year that Diggs had a big decline in the second half of the season:
- Weeks 1-9: Diggs averaged 7.8 catches, 92.7 yards, caught 7 touchdowns, 72.2% catch rate, and 8.60 yards per target.
- Weeks 10-18: Diggs averaged 4.6 catches, 43.6 yards, caught 1 touchdown, 58.7% catch rate, and 5.54 yards per target.
- Playoffs: In two games, Diggs caught 10-of-17 targets (58.8%) for 73 yards (4.29 yards per target).
This split almost perfectly coincides with the offensive coordinator change from Dorsey to Brady. The last game called by Dorsey (Week 10 vs. Denver) is the first game in the second-half split. But it doesn’t seem like Brady would forget how to use Diggs, and it’s unclear if there was any injury to Diggs, who played a normal number of snaps down the stretch.
This is not a normal second-half decline for a receiver either:
- There have been 104 seasons since 2001 where a receiver had at least 800 receiving yards through 9 games.
- They averaged 528.3 yards the rest of the season (excluding playoffs) while Diggs only had 349 yards.
- Two receivers (A.J. Green in 2016 and Cooper Kupp in 2022) had 0 yards in the second half due to injuries keeping them out of action.
- Diggs’ second-half average of 43.6 yards per game is the lowest for anyone who played more than 5 games, and it is the third-lowest average for anyone who played multiple games.
Terrell Owens (29.8 yards per game for the 2010 Bengals) and Marques Colston (33.8 yards per game for the 2006 Saints) were the only players to average fewer yards down the stretch than Diggs after breaking 800 yards in 9 games. But both were dealing with injuries that cost them multiple games. Owens was also 37 years old and in his final season, and Colston was a late-round rookie draft pick.
I am usually better than this at explaining an outlier in history, and sometimes it is as simple as “splits happen” and maybe this one means nothing, but it’s really weird that this happened to Diggs in his age-30 season.
Maybe the Bills are moving on from Diggs at the right time. Still, you would have liked them to steer him away from another AFC contender like Houston, but we’ll see how it works out.
The Bills have to make do without Diggs, but they already got some great practice down the stretch last year of excelling with minimal contributions from him. Allen may even feel liberated this year to not have to worry about feeding him targets.
Just keep finding the open receivers.
Best Bets for the 2024 Bills
Moment of truth time. Almost a year to the date, I picked the 2023 Bills to go over 10.5 wins, win the AFC East again, and liked their odds to win the Super Bowl at +900. Two out of three isn’t bad, but what about this season?
The Bills are +1500 to win the Super Bowl at FanDuel, which is tied with the Bengals and Texans for the sixth-highest odds right now. I’m not going to go there this time, because I’m not sold that McDermott is the coach that will get this team over the hump for that.
We just looked at Josh Allen’s MVP case, and that is a futures bet I’m going to sprinkle in with my preseason picks as the case is too clear-cut if he has a strong season without Diggs. Rushing for another absurd number of touchdowns while still throwing for over 4,000 yards should get the job done, but let’s not forget that 75% of quarterbacks who have won MVP since 1978 are on a team that’s a No. 1 seed. Over 86% of them are on a team with 12 or more wins, so that’s a high bar.
This is one of the toughest division races to handicap in a long time as it is a legitimate 3-team race with the Bills (+165), Jets (+170), and Dolphins (+220). Only the Patriots should be rotten this season. I could realistically see all three of those teams winning 10 or 11 games, making the head-to-head games so crucial.
The Bills’ over/under is 10.5 wins and the under is favored at -150 odds, which implies a 60% chance. As always, let’s go to the schedule:
- Buffalo has early home games with Arizona and Jacksonville and cannot afford to slip up there.
- The Week 2 game is a Thursday night in Miami, so hopefully it won’t be blazing hot at night, but a new safety tandem on a short week against Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle could prove problematic.
- A really tough 3-game road stretch in Weeks 4-6 when the Bills face the Ravens, Texans (Diggs revenge game), and Jets. They cannot afford to go 0-3 there.
- Home games with the Titans and Dolphins should be favorable.
- A trip to Seattle is winnable in Week 8 as is a trip to the Colts in Week 10.
- Another big showdown with the Chiefs in Week 11, but this will be a late-afternoon game in Buffalo. The regular season hasn’t been the problem against the Chiefs.
- A bye week before the 49ers in Week 13, which will be a tough game.
- In back-to-back trips to the Rams and Lions, Allen will need to crank up the offense and find a way to win at least one of those.
- If the Bills need another strong finish, they’re in luck with the Patriots twice and the Jets at home in the final three weeks.
- That Week 17 game against the Jets in Buffalo could be huge for the AFC East.
In playing the first-place schedule, the Bills have to play the Chiefs and Lions while the Dolphins and Jets do not have to play either team. That feels noteworthy, but again, the Bills have played Kansas City well in the regular season.
The Bills have been the new kings of the AFC East thanks to their mastery in these division games. I think that can continue this season given Miami’s shaky defense and poor track record on the road against good teams, and Aaron Rodgers in New York is a real wild card coming off a torn Achilles.
I’ll hold off on naming a division winner pick until we preview the Dolphins and Jets later this week, but you can bet it won’t be the Patriots this year. Instead, we’ll end by going with over 10.5 wins for the Bills as that combo of Allen and the defense has been fairly reliable over the years.
We don’t think of the Bills as a historic team because of their losses against the Chiefs in the playoffs, but they are historic. Since 2019, Buffalo has outscored its opponents by 684 points in the regular season (8.34 points per game) – the largest scoring differential over any 5-season span for a team that did not go to a Super Bowl since the 16-game era started in 1978.
They have a chance to improve on that mark this season given the 2019 team was only +55 on the scoreboard. But at some point, you have to get over the hump and get to the Super Bowl too. History suggests a quarterback as prolific as Allen will get to at least one Super Bowl in his career.
The Bills have helped the Chiefs create a dynasty. They may be one of the only teams capable of ending it as well. Stopping the historic three-peat would at least be some nice revenge for past losses.
NFL Pick: 2024 NFL MVP – Josh Allen (+900 at BetRivers)
NFL Pick: Buffalo Bills over 10.5 wins (+122 at FanDuel)
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