At 3-3, Buffalo Bills’ once-promising season hits a crossroads
Remember Week 1? The Buffalo Bills were riding high after a dominant win over the Indianapolis Colts.
Even a Week 2 loss to the New England Patriots didn’t completely ruin that momentum. The Patriots are the defending Super Bowl champs and might be even better this season. No shame in losing to them.
But the Bills haven’t looked like much of a powerhouse since then. As Buffalo heads to London to play the Jacksonville Jaguars next week, its hopes of breaking the longest playoff drought in the NFL might hang in the balance.
The Bills lost again Sunday and didn’t look very good doing it. The Cincinnati Bengals beat them 34-21 in Buffalo. The Bills had to play the undefeated Bengals without starting quarterback Tyrod Taylor, but there can’t be a guarantee that Taylor will return for the Jaguars game. He has a sprained MCL, and that’s not good for a mobile quarterback. He didn’t seem to be close to playing this week, no matter some overly optimistic quotes from Bufflao. But the Bills might take Taylor at whatever percentage he’ll be next week over EJ Manuel.
The Bills are 3-3 and talented enough to make a wild-card run. But they’ve also been inconsistent, and also worn thin by some injuries. But Taylor’s injury doesn’t fully explain why the defense was picked apart by Andy Dalton, and other injuries don’t explain why the Bills racked up 17 penalties in a home loss to the New York Giants in Week 4. Taylor was out, LeSean McCoy, Karlos Williams and Sammy Watkins have missed time, but the NFL isn’t going to stop for those guys to get healthy.
The Bills need to figure out a way to win games while they’re banged up, if they are going to make the playoffs for the first time since 1999. They don’t want to rally late, finish 9-7 and miss the playoffs, like last season. It doesn’t seem like they can afford to blow one against a beatable Jaguars team next week.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
