The Buffalo Bills desolately started the new season and are already throwing rookie quarterback Josh Allen in at the deep end. Has the season been as good as over after just one game? Or is there really still reason to hope for the Bills Mafia?
The NFL is a miracle bag. It is a sentence that is confirmed year after year. Targeted contenders end up far behind in the play-off race, while alleged average teams are suddenly in the title race at the end of the season.
The just completed Week 1 underlined this fact again. While Ryan Fitzpatrick kicked the highly favored Saints out of the stadium, the jets, considered clear outsiders, plucked the Lions and the Browns ended their eternal defeat series against Pittsburgh’s actual division primus.
This unpredictability of every season and every game is always a straw that fans of the league’s worst teams can cling to. Anything is possible, nobody is without a chance.
The fans of the Buffalo Bills already know this rollercoaster ride of emotions from last season. Back then, around a month before the start of the season, the team gave up two pillars of the team with Sammy Watkins and Ronald Darby, and most experts knew that Buffalo as a team in tanking mode would be part of the league’s dregs. And yet this team, of all teams, which had been identified as a supposed transition team, celebrated what the franchise had not managed for 18 years: a playoff participation.
So the Bills Mafia may not have bothered too much that their team of experts and bookies were once again among the weakest in the league before this season. The previous season was still present as a counterexample. The mantra: Everything is possible, nobody has no chance.
However, it didn’t take 60 minutes of regular season football to shake this attitude in Buffalo to its foundations. The performance of the Bills in their first appearance of the new season was desolate. With 47:3 the Baltimore Ravens almost slaughtered their guests, already shortly after the half time it was 40:0, before the hosts from Maryland showed mercy and sent their reservists on the field. In the end, however, the Bills suffered the biggest opening defeat of all time and their second highest defeat ever.
Quarterback Nathan Peterman gave a particularly disastrous picture. Peterman of all people. The Peterman, who had thrown five interceptions in just one half time on his NFL debut as a starter last season and was only able to return to the top of Buffalo’s quarterback rankings this summer through Training Camp and the Bills’ preseason.
In Baltimore, Peterman kept to “only” two interceptions this time, but overall his performance was just as miserable as in his legendary first NFL game. The 24-year-old finished the game with a pass rating of 0.0 and only 24 passing yards. In the history of the NFL, just ten players managed the feat of delivering an even worse game (i.e. the same register rating but fewer passing yards).
Peterman’s problems were – one could already have guessed it – of different nature. He seemed insecure in his reads, moved poorly in his pocket and alternately missed accuracy or timing in his throws. Symbolic of his performance: In the first quarter Peterman read a Fire Zone Flash (a flash in which one of the defensive lines drops back into the zone coverage) of the Ravens completely wrong and was surprised by the pass rush. Only a short time later he recognized the defensive play correctly, but then threw his open receiver Kelvin Benjamin over the middle so badly that Ravens-Safety Tony Jefferson landed the ball almost perfectly in his arms.
For head coach Sean McDermott, Peterman’s cruel performance led to a dilemma. His options: Continue to hold on to Peterman and thus practically admit that winning games for the Bills this year does not have to be the primary goal. Or rookie Josh Allen, who had already been allowed two on the field against the Ravens in half time, and on the one hand take back his own – after weeks of observation – decision for Peterman after only one game and at the same time throw Allen into an offense, in which he lies practically as on the presentation plate.
Peterman’s performance was undoubtedly inadequate. At the same time, however, the first game of the season proved what observers had feared for weeks: The Bills’ offensive line will be one of the worst in the league. Peterman had an average of 2.41 seconds for a roll (fourth worst value of the league), help from the running game was equally unlikely. 3.8 yards before contact was the eighth worst value in the league. While teams like the Bears or the Chiefs are trying to support their young quarterbacks with as many resources as possible, the Bills and Allen are currently the opposite.
Despite all these obvious deficits, McDermott chose option number two during the week and thus Josh Allen as the new starter. As last year, the head coach is therefore showing little consistency in his quarterback decisions in the new season.
The conditions for everyone could definitely be better. Against the Ravens he looked better than Peterman, but not at all good either. Allen’s flaws are known. Arm talent and stature are already outstanding, but accuracy and timing regularly leave much to be desired.
For many experts, therefore, from the top quarterbacks of this year’s drag, he was the player who seemed least suited to start early at the NFL level. The question that also needs to be asked in this context, however, is: How much could Allen learn from the bank behind a quarterback like Peterman, who obviously has no starter level at the NFL level himself?
“For rookie quarterbacks to have a good game, the other players have to make it easy for them. If he makes a mistake and throws a ball that’s hard to catch, catch it anyway,” says Running Back LeSean McCoy. “All the little things are crucial to this game and to a rookie’s confidence. They’re so young, they need to get rolling and get more confidence with every play.”
In any case, the fact is: With the Los Angeles Chargers, the team that won the five interceptions against Peterman last year is waiting for Allen in the next game. With Joey Bosa, one half of the Chargers’ two-headed pass rush monster drops out, but the secondary around the interception machine Casey Hayward is still one of the better in the league despite bad luck.
One glimmer of hope that Bills fans still have despite the miserable start to the season and the screwed-up quarterback situation is their own defense. Already last year the unit around Rookie Tre’Davious White and the safety duo Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer Buffalo made it into the playoffs and also against the Ravens the defense looked at least better than the 47 points could suggest.
After a lousy start with two allowed touchdowns at the first three drives the defense started to catch up. Baltimore’s points resulted mainly from his sometimes absurd field position. From drives with -3 yards (field goal), 8 yards (field goal), 14 yards (touchdown) and 1 yard (touchdown) the Ravens scored 20 points. 20 points by 20 yards. The hosts started their drives on average at their 41.3 yard line. No team in the league had a better score.
It may be a faint glimmer of hope, but the view on the Bills’ side must go forward. “At the end of the year, you don’t look at the scores. We won’t look at the scores next week,” explains receiver Andre Holmes. “We’re looking at 0-1. We have to come back from that and try to win.”
“The good thing and the bad thing about the NFL is that there’s always next week,” says Defensive Tackle Kyle Williams. Currently, practically everything speaks against the Bills, but nobody in the team wants and will give up so quickly. Anything is possible, nobody is without a chance.