The Buffalo Bills coaching staff burned out in Baltimore

The new Buffalo Bills defense suffered a long night against running back Derrick Henry and the Baltimore Ravens in front of a national audience for Sunday night football. Their coaching staff didn’t help them much either.

The Bills dropped a 35-10 game to the Ravens, snapping their streak of 43 games without a loss of more than six points. Buffalo’s defense was embarrassed on the ground, with the seemingly ageless Henry rushing for 199 yards, while quarterback Lamar Jackson racked up 54 yards of his own.

Ironically, there are parallels between this game and the last regular season game that the Bills lost by more than six points. In that game, Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor rushed for 185 yards on 32 carries with four touchdowns to bury the Bills at home, 41–15. The Colts didn’t have a wide receiver or tight end go for more than 30 receiving yards in the game.

Interestingly enough, neither did the Ravens on Sunday night. Largely due to the game script, the Bills made sure no player got more than 10 carries or more than 50 yards in either game. As with that match, the coaching staff is now at the center of a story that has emerged in the aftermath of a thorough turnaround.

Head coach Sean McDermott saw his offense take the field to start the game and signaled his intention to be aggressive, going for it at 4th & Inches on his own side of the field on the opening drive. Then, four plays later on 4th-and-2 from midfield, McDermott elected to punt. His explanation about that was captured postgame by Matt Parrino of Syracuse.com when he said he felt like it was “too early to take a risk.”

The implication is that he did not believe that 4th & Inches on his own side of the field was ‘taking a chance’, but that 4th & 2 in midfield was indeed something that would entail ‘taking a chance’.

Or he thought it was “taking a gamble” by kicking the ball and giving up possession en route to a team featuring Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson against a depleted defensive unit with none of their favorite starters in the box on the second level, is unclear. Whether the same logic applied later in the game when his team was down 11 on the exact same spot on the field facing a 4th-and-1 when he chose to punt is also unclear.

But McDermott wasn’t the only Buffalo coach who had a poor outing after Bills Mafia followed Carrie Underwood’s lead and waited all day for Sunday night. Offensive coordinator Joe Brady likely wants some of his play calling back. The pre-snap movement seen in previous games for the Buffalo Bills was significantly reduced versus the Ravens, who regularly sent free rushers to quarterback Josh Allen. The Bills’ plan to counter the Ravens’ pressure packages was inadequate.

And then there was the trick game.

The usual refrain after a play like the Bills’ in the third quarter, where Curtis Samuel made a direct play and threw it back to Josh Allen, is that it would have been a good idea if it had worked. Anyone who is critical of the play call is accused of results-oriented thinking.

What makes trick plays “difficult” is that they resemble a normal game. In its most basic form, a play-action pass is truly effective when it resembles a run until the quarterback moves the ball out of the handoff position and turns toward defensive coverage. By the time the alarm goes off in the minds of defensive players, it’s too late; the damage has been done and there is a big game to be played. Someone walks wide open through the field, and someone else fears the film review session that will take place in his future.

The Bills hadn’t played a single game with Curtis Samuel at quarterback this year before that second time Pro football focus. They had run two plays with him in the backfield. Bells, alarms and red lights went off for the Baltimore defense the moment he lined up a few yards behind center.

The Ravens couldn’t even expect a “normal” game at that point; just the knowledge that something was wrong and it was more important than ever to stick to your orders. The play would have been successful despite the design, not because of it.

Aside from the design of the ill-fated play “Samuel laterals to Allen, who then throws downfield,” which ended in a fumble recovered by the Ravens, was the timing of the call. The Bills had scored a touchdown on their final drive behind Josh Allen’s crazy sideline throw to wide receiver Khalil Shakir, capped by a touchdown gallop from running back Ty Johnson. They had held the Ravens to a three-and-out on the next drive.

For proponents of the concept of “momentum,” the bills had it. They came out on their next possession and hit a game-changing shoulder throw to Keon Coleman (who had dropped an excellent pass on Allen’s field in the first half) before getting two good gains from running back James Cook.

Buffalo’s offense worked its way back into the game with a good execution of the normal plan, with a dash of Allen heroism thrown in for good measure. This was the duck, duck, goose style offense the Bills relied on early this year, with lulls of boring short passes and runs capped by the occasional ridiculous play from Allen.

Trick games are by nature highly variable. When the game is on the line and the business as usual offense starts to work, that was not the time for high variance.

Other than that, no one should leave defensive coordinator Bobby Babich alone. Against a team that had just ground the Dallas Cowboys into dust with a steady dose of Derrick Henry directly in their faces, the Bills opted to operate from light boxes for nearly half of the defensive snaps on Sunday night.

“Let’s stop doing what the team does less well and be more vulnerable to what the team does better” may not find its way into the Game Plan Hall of Fame. Bill Belichick’s “let’s make them do left-handed work” approach to defensive planning works best when your opponent isn’t left-handed.

So the Bills take their L and head home to Buffalo, knowing they have the “Stefon Diggs revenge game” next weekend as they travel to face the Houston Texans and their potent, if stylistically different, offense. Hopefully the Bills’ coaches make better decisions in Houston after learning from their blunders in Baltimore.

…and that’s how the cookie crumbles. I’m Bruce Nolan from Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive and look for new episodes of “The Bruce Exclusive” every Thursday on the Rumblings Cast Network – see more in my LinkTree!