Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals was felt by many to be the beginning of the Josh Allen era for the Buffalo Bills. By the time halftime rolled around, Bills fans were left hoping the middle and end of the Josh Allen era will be much better than the starting line. Five sacks, not a whole lot of yards, and zero scores prompts the question, “what the hell happened?” The offensive line was a major talking point. How much of the burden do they bear? To find out, we timed every passing down where the snap to pressure (or pass) could be accurately recorded. If a pass was thrown without pressure, the timer ended at release. For a pressure, the timer ended when a defender was close enough to impact the play. Typically, this was either at about one arm’s length of Josh Allen, or in the case of a designed roll-out when the defender occupied a space that would have flushed Allen had he not already been running. Play 1 This illustrates that last concept. The timer ends at about 1.5 seconds when the defender is clearly in the backfield. Traditionally this isn’t a pressure, but for this article I wanted to identify “failures.” This is very much a failure on the part of Jordan Mills. Play 2 There were 16 passing plays/sacks where the snap to “end” was able to be recorded. On only two of those snaps did Josh Allen have a clean pocket. Even on those two throws, he never made it to three seconds of pass protection. If it makes you feel better (it helped me some), Allen delivered the ball accurately on both. Play 3 At the magic two-second mark, Josh Allen is staring at two orange and black helmets. He uses a little reset motion (not quite a full pump fake), which slows the defenders and possibly helps avoid a batted pass. Marshall Newhouse and Ryan Groy allowed the most pressures by my count. Jordan Mills, John Miller and Vlad Ducasse didn’t exactly have a stellar night, though. In 16 passes, none of these players allowed less than two pressures/failures as I’ve defined them above. Play 4 The players can’t shoulder all of the blame, however. Sean McDermott indicated he was testing out different combinations along the offensive line. Ideally, a game should consist of one five-man lineup on the line. Multiple tweaks throughout the first half didn’t help them find a rhythm. Play 5 This is one of those two clean pockets mentioned above. So, how bad was the line? On the recorded 16 snaps, the line averaged about 2.1 seconds of successful protection. Their best pocket of the night is the one right above this paragraph. Three snaps saw pressure in 1.5 seconds or less. The worst performance of the night saw pressure at roughly 1.25 seconds. With the regular season rapidly approaching, fans are right to be worried about the state of the offensive line.<doc-sep>Heading into the offseason, the Buffalo Bills knew there would be a question mark it had to answer in their secondary. The team thought it had filled EJ Gaines’s void with a veteran in Vontae Davis. That hasn’t been the case and during a 26-13 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, Davis’s job was handed to Phillip Gaines. It’s officially a late-offseason position battle for the starting cornerback job opposite of Tre’Davious White in Buffalo’s defense. “It’s just the competition at the position. There’s still open competition at every position, and that’s no different,” Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott said following the game. “It’s close. We were looking at combinations we had worked at this week in practice. I thought Vontae had some good moments in the game and some moments that he’d like back and the same could be said for Phillip as well.” Davis was noticeably beat on the first pass of the game by John Ross on a 57-yard touchdown. “They ran a double move and he got behind us,” Davis told the Buffalo News. “He made a good play. We weren’t expecting that out of the gate. It was a good play on their part. It’s something we’ve got to fix.” Safety Jordan Poyer was also in coverage on the play and took his share of the blame, too. “Today, it wasn’t us on the back end. It wasn’t how we want to play and what we want to be known for. It’s a lot of things we’ve got to correct, and I believe the guys in the room will get them corrected and we’ll move forward,” Poyer said to the BN. Buffalo’s secondary will hopefully move forward, as Poyer alluded to. The Bills will need them to. Davis took the brunt of blame for the early score though. He was eventually benched from his starting position against the Bengals and didn’t return to the field until the second half, when reserve players were in for the Bills. In 2017 Buffalo’s secondary thrived and turnovers helped the Bills crack the postseason for the first time in 17 seasons. It’ll be tough to imagine the secondary, with a struggling starting cornerback position, to repeat those kinds of successes without help from other position groups on the roster. Buffalo’s offensive line has held back the unit in two of three preseason games to this point and the defense’s new-look defensive line has looked the same as recent memories. “A team comes in here and hits us in the mouth … it’s something really good to learn from. We’ve really got to be critical on ourselves watching tape,” Poyer said. The lone bright spot on the day for the secondary was an interception from No. 3 safety Rafael Bush. Aside from that, Poyer and his teammates will have plenty to reflect upon.<doc-sep>Bengals QB Andy Dalton broke the longest playoff drought in major American pro sports last season, and gave the Bills their first postseason appearance since 1999, with a last-minute TD pass to Tyler Boyd that beat the Ravens in a meaningless game for Cincinnati. And Buffalo hasn’t stopped loving him for it. Advertisement In the aftermath of the regular season, ecstatic Bills fans donated $450,000 to Dalton’s foundation, and when he traveled to Buffalo for a preseason game on Sunday, Dalton got himself a standing ovation. Given the slim picking at the rest of the Bills’ skill positions—LeSean McCoy? Nathan Peterman?—Dalton might actually be the most popular football player in Buffalo at the moment. And he gets all that love just for giving the Bills the chance to put up three points in a wild card loss the Jaguars.<doc-sep>
The Buffalo Bills continued their slate of preseason matchup this past Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. It was an abysmal showing for both starting units but the backup and third-stringers led a small rally. Buffalo ultimately lost 26-13. Below are the players that stood out, for better or worse. Stock Down: The starting offensive line (outside of Dion Dawkins ) Dawkins gets a pass here because he was injured, but the Bills offensive line was completely manhandled by the Bengals defensive line. Vlad Ducasse, John Miller and Ryan Groy were taken to the woodshed by Andrew Billings and Geno Atkins, which led to five sacks of rookie quarterback Josh Allen. The tackles held up slightly better, but still managed to get walked back on bull rushes several times. John Miller committed three penalties. Not a good performance by any means. Stock Up: QB Nathan Peterman Peterman came into the game in the second half and promptly lead a 10-play, 79-yard drive capped by a 17-yard touchdown to tight end Jason Croom. He ultimately finished the day going 16-of-21 for 200 yards and the aforementioned touchdown. Granted, he wasn’t dealing with the Bengals starters, but the second-year quarterback’s day at the office was one of the few positives to take away from the game. Stock Down: CB Vontae Davis After Sunday’s game, head coach Sean McDermott essentially declared a competition for the starting cornerback role opposite Tre’Davious White. Given Davis’ struggles against the Bengals, you can see why. During Cincinnati’s first offensive series, receiver John Ross shook the Bills corner on a double-move, resulting in a 57-yard touchdown. Ross again beat the veteran CB on a slant pattern late in the first quarter, but Ross dropped the catch. Davis was eventually benched by the coaching staff. Stock Up: TE Jason Croom Croom was a former wide receiver attempting to transition to the tight end position so his development was always going to take some time. He burst on the scene during Sunday’s game with a spectacular 17-yard catch-and-run that resulted in a touchdown. Then, on the very next drive, Croom found himself wide open in the middle of the field off a play-action fake for a 21-yard gain. Those were the tight end’s only catches, but it may be enough to ensure he makes the team. Stock Down: LB Matt Milano It wasn’t all bad for the second-year linebacker. He had a nice pass breakup in the red zone in the first quarter and was in position to break up a screen pass early on. His coverage whiff on Joe Mixon lead to a huge gain and eventually a touchdown. With Tremaine Edmunds making some positive steps forward in the game, it was disappointing to not see Milano do the same.