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Yet another Buffalo Bills season came to an end in gut-punching fashion. In four years straight, they have been eliminated after winning the AFC East and at least one playoff game – three times by the Kansas City Chiefs.
We’ve seen slightly different versions of the team every season, but this year felt unique. Unlike previous seasons in which they largely coasted through the regular season until their Week 13 bye, it didn’t seem like this crew would even be part of the conversation down the stretch.
A heartbreaking loss to the Philadelphia Eagles dropped them to 6-6, which was dangerous territory for them to be in, in a year where multiple teams were battling for the final couple of AFC Wildcard spots. Yet, despite off-field distractions and questions around their coaching staff, they went on to win their final five regular season matchups and clinch the division.
After taking care of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Wildcard round, they finally got to host Patrick Mahomes and company in January for the first time in this rivalry. Yet, once again they couldn’t quite overcome their white whale.
On that note, here's a look at the organization’s journey leading into 2023, the different stages of the season we just witnessed, how the fairytale ultimately came to an end, and where they may go from here.
The journey here
In order to truly understand what this season meant for the Bills organization in the grand scheme of things, we have to quickly run through the history of Sean McDermott’s tenure as their head coach.
The former long-time positional coach for the Eagles and then defensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers for six years arrived in Buffalo in 2017, taking over a franchise that had only finished with a winning record once in the millennium – a 9-7 (non-playoff) season in 2014 under Doug Marrone, who stepped down from his job the following offseason.
Looking back at Buffalo’s depth chart from back in 2017, what's noticeable is the fact that only five players are still around now. These are the safety tandem of Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde, who came in together as free agents that offseason and have been the key figures they’ve run their defense through, and three rookies in offensive tackle Dion Dawkins, cornerback Tre’Davious White and linebacker Matt Milano.
The low point of that year was back-to-back blowout losses to the Saints and Chargers (by a combined 77 points) – the famous Nathan Peterman five-interception half. Yet, they reverted to their bridge quarterback Tyrod Taylor and went on to sneak into the postseason, thanks to Andy Dalton hitting Tyler Boyd for a long touchdown on fourth down against the Ravens in the parallel game.
That was a great moment for long-time veterans like defensive tackle Kyle Williams, and they had a chance during the Wildcard Round to beat yet another upstart team in the Jaguars, who nearly made it to the Super Bowl. But clearly this Bills franchise was a year ahead of schedule.
Why I felt like it was important to reference that season was the plan McDermott laid out there, as he and general manager Brandon Beane came over from Carolina together and consciously brought in a bunch of high-character and high-football IQ guys to establish a culture around.
That leadership group was self-aware enough that they saw the deficiencies of the roster and made a franchise-altering decision when they traded up to the seventh overall pick in the 2018 draft to select a wild gunslinger from Wyoming named Josh Allen.
Buffalo went 6-10 in 2018 (5-6 when Allen was available), but had a vision to slowly add pieces to the operation, without splashing for available free agents. They spent $20 million fewer on their roster than any other team in the league that season.
When Allen showed significant improvements in Year 2 and they were a couple of magical Deshaun Watson plays away from winning a playoff game at Houston, the organization decided that they couldn’t continue with John Brown as their number one receiver.
That led to their first big external addition as they traded a first-round pick to Minnesota for Stefon Diggs – the selection the Vikings used to directly reload with Justin Jefferson.
Diggs promptly led the NFL in catches and receiving yards that season and it coincided with Allen becoming a perennial MVP candidate, as well as the Bills entering their championship window.
They've won double-digit games in each of the last five seasons, at least winning one playoff contest in the latter four, before being knocked out by the Chiefs in three of them, including once in the AFC Championship. Their other loss was to the Bengals at home.
Across those five years, only once did the Bills not end up as a top-four scoring defense, while Allen’s 202 total (regular season) touchdowns responsible for are 23 more than the next-closest quarterback – Patrick Mahomes.
They’ve continued on that trend of building through the draft and paying their quality contributors, with the signing of Von Miller ahead of last year as the one move that was supposed to push them over the top, handing him a front-loaded deal with a $20 million annual cap hit. Unfortunately for them, he got hurt right before December 2022 and then made more headlines off the field as a part-time healthy scratch this season.
That gives us a little bit of insight into where the flaws of this operation recently have been, however. James Cook this year was the first 1000-yard rusher Allen has played with in his career. They’ve also struggled to find reliable number two options in the pass game next to Diggs, while the defense hasn’t lived up to where they stack up statistically on the big stages, with the elite quarterbacks having answers to what they want to do structurally.
Overall, they’ve simply lacked true difference-makers when they’ve needed them most.
The 2023/24 season
Coming off a deflating 27-10 loss at home to the Bengals in the Divisional Round, questions started to arise about how much longer this model would work for Buffalo, considering it was fielding the number two offense and defense respectively in terms of scoring.
However, there seemed to be a pretty clear delineation between them and the two teams that eventually battled for the AFC crown for the second year in a row (Bengals and Chiefs), especially when it came to the number of guys who could just “make a play” when called upon.
They went on to convince defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to “take the season off”, after they had just watched their offensive brainpower between Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka turn the Giants into a playoff team and be recognized as Coach of the Year.
Ahead of the 2023 season, you could look at the organization in two different ways. On the pessimistic end, you might say that this group was inevitably going to get stuck on the road to the ultimate prize again, without any significant additions to the coaching staff or from a player perspective.
At the same time, they were going to get Von Miller back, and understood that the smart move was to start him off on the PUP list in order to nearly get a full calendar year to return from the torn ACL. Sean McDermott was taking over defensive play-calling again after it felt like Frazier’s approach was too simplistic and predictable when they got to the end of the season.
They also put together what pretty universally was considered one of the stronger draft classes around the league and then they made several low-budget signings to address questionable spots. They brought in a veteran offensive lineman in Connor McGovern with flexibility on the interior to replace what had been a weak link at left guard, a couple of depth pieces along their skill-position group, DaQuan Jones at (shade) nose-tackle to boost a rather soft run defense on the inside, another proven edge rusher in Leonard Floyd and a third safety in Taylor Rapp, who would give them more versatility in the personnel packages they could run, after being almost exclusively based in nickel.
You can group Buffalo’s regular season into thirds. After a somewhat odd overtime loss at the Jets in their Monday Night opener, they blew out the Raiders, Commanders and the high-flying Dolphins by a combined score of 123-33.
They would follow that up by going 3-5 over the next eight weeks, where outside of a dominant rematch with the Jets, they were shaky all the way through. Even in their two other wins, the final plays were shots into the end-zone, with a questionable non-call for pass interference and an opposing receiver failing to find the ball in the air.
In their losses, it was a combination of the offense not getting going early, the defense not being able to create a stop late and even special teams costing them, gifting the Broncos a re-do on an eventual game-winning field goal due to 12 men being on the field. They also watched the Eagles kicker hit a 59-yarder in the pouring rain to send that game to overtime and ultimately set up a comeback win for their side.
Following that heartbreaking loss at Philadelphia, in which multiple superhero-like plays from Josh Allen once again didn’t end up mattering, the early blame shifted towards their head coach. That was enhanced by the story coming out on McDermott using the 9/11 attack as a parallel to working together on a football field.
Yet, as bizarre as all that was, in a weird sense it felt like it brought this team closer together, as that locker room wanted to step up for their general and they became arguably the most dangerous squad in the league.
Under the surface, the Bills had already been a top-three offense in EPA per play and success rate at that point, which made the firing of then-OC Ken Dorsey quite surprising.
Yet, while the numbers overall were slightly worse with Joe Brady taking over play-calling duties, they did start taking a little bit off Allen’s plate with the increased involvement of James Cook. They also stopped squandering opportunities in scoring range.
Meanwhile, their defense only slightly improved their success rate allowed (41.8%), but they went from 14th to sixth in EPA per play, in large part due to averaging two takeaways and seven negative plays (sacks + tackles for loss) over that closing five-game stretch.
With McDermott taking back game-planning and being desperate to make a difference with that unit, you saw those specialized approaches down the stretch, with more diverse front dynamics and designer coverages, where they didn’t give opponents the answers to the test.
While the Chargers and Patriots games ended up being fairly close, they did win at Kansas City, absolutely steam-rolled the Cowboys at home and even with some bad mistakes in the regular season finale at Miami, they took care of business to secure the number two seed.
That’s how they went from out of contention heading into December to securing a couple of playoff contests at home.
The Wildcard Round against Pittsburgh was odd. The game initially had to be pushed back due to snowstorms in Buffalo and they were facing the number three quarterback in Mason Rudolph. While it felt like a blowout, if not for a couple of Steelers turnovers, the score could’ve been closer than the two-touchdown difference.
Yet, with the Chiefs being in control all the way against the Dolphins a couple of days prior, this set up the newest addition of Mahomes-Allen, which has entered the realm of some of the other great quarterback battles of the past.
For the first time since 2020 however, Buffalo would be playing host and for the first time ever, Mahomes would have to go on the road for a playoff game, in a season that felt like they were the most susceptible yet – at least on offense – with Travis Kelce showing some decline, the lack of reliable receiving options around him and the mishaps we had seen throughout the year.
Watching the newest addition to the Chiefs-Bills rivalry, you saw Buffalo move the ball very effectively and score on four of their first five possessions (three touchdowns). Unfortunately, without their starting shade nose-tackle and middle linebacker, Kansas City was able to run the ball with efficiency throughout the day. Even though this was the least productive passing attack led by Patrick Mahomes throughout a season, suddenly they were creating explosive plays reminiscent of the early years of the partnership between Pat and Andy Reid.
They hit eight plays of 20+ yards throughout the game, compared to zero for the Bills and unless you count a fumble resulting in a defensive touchback, KC’s offense wasn’t stopped until the final nine minutes of the contest.
Travis Kelce suddenly looked younger than he had for the entire year, Marquez Valdes-Scantling came up with a couple of big grabs after seemingly dropping every big ball during the regular season and even one of Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s two carries turned into his longest of the season (28 yards).
Meanwhile, Buffalo had to work hard for drives of 14, 11, 12, 15 and 16 plays respectively in order to get into scoring range – twice they settled for field goal attempts, with the latter one going down in history as an infamous “wide right” call, potentially as nothing but a bookmark in Mahomes’ illustrious career.
They had a couple of massive drops on what should’ve been completed deep bombs to Trent Sherfield and Stefon Diggs, who had a very quiet night once again. Even what seemingly were missed opportunities when they got stuffed on a fake punt at the start of the fourth and a questionable pass interference call, which gifted the Chiefs a first down were actually inconsequential.
Moreover, on the missed 41-yarder at the end, which would’ve tied up the score, Mahomes and company would’ve had nearly two minutes and a couple of timeouts left to still secure the win in regulation. So even with their quarterback playing a nearly flawless game, there wasn't one specific moment that made the difference.
The only path to making sure they’d advance was on that final drive – which lasted nearly seven minutes – to not get impatient following the two-minute warning, so they could milk the clock all the way down and reach the end-zone with no chance left for the other side.
On their final second-down play, Diggs was wide open on a shallow crosser, which would've moved the sticks and given them more control. Yet, Allen had Shakir about to break open in the end-zone, but at the very last moment, Chris Jones bumped his left tackle into the quarterback to affect the throw.
While there were many moments that could’ve turned the tide in Buffalo’s favor, ultimately there’s not a definitive play that would’ve changed the result. And that makes it even more frustrating for the Bills.
Looking to the future
On the surface, more casual observers will look at this Bills organization as still one of the powerhouses of the AFC, potentially just a piece or two away from finally getting over the hump. Contextualizing how they got here, what big-picture decisions may be on the horizon and where they see themselves in relation to the teams they’ll be competing with over the next several years however, is a situation worth digging into.
They’re in a similar position the Patriots were in when it comes to AFC East dominance for close to two decades. While it took a head-to-head win over the Dolphins in Week 18 to snatch the division crown away from them, Miami is about to make a massive decision on whether it wants to commit major financial resources to Tua Tagovailoa, which will have huge implications on the roster it can field around him.
Along with that, the Jets are hoping they can make a run at a championship for the next year or two with Aaron Rodgers, before they find themselves in search of a long-term solution at the most pivotal spot again. The Patriots may try to land a franchise quarterback with the third overall pick in the upcoming draft, but the biggest drawback for them is just promoted defensive coordinator Jerod Mayo having to fill the shoes of the greatest coach of all time in Bill Belichick.
Yet, as we zoom out a little further and look at the conference’s landscape, the challenges they might face aren’t becoming any less testing. The AFC North just became the first division in nearly 90 years where every team finished with a winning record, including a couple of perennial MVP candidates.
Heading down South, the Jaguars certainly had a disappointing end to 2023, but they started off 8-2 including a head-to-head win over the Bills. You also have two teams in the Texans and Colts that ultimately battled for the division title on the eve of the regular season and have the benefit of rookie quarterback contracts and plenty of cap space to quickly elevate themselves into true contender status.
Finally, in the West, you have another quarterback in Justin Herbert, who has the talent to be in the hunt every year, if the new brass they bring in is willing to tear things down around him to some degree and support him with net positive coaching. Then of course there’s still that monster in the Chiefs, who have ended playoff runs for Buffalo in three of the last four years.
Looking at how Buffalo has built up a program perennially competing with the top of the AFC, they’ve taken what generally would be considered a pretty healthy approach to roster construction.
Stefon Diggs was the one long-term piece they plucked from a different team and made a central figure of their operation, and they did spend for Von Miller two offseasons ago, on a front-laden contract with several void years, as the one veteran defensive piece to close out big-time matchups.
Otherwise, since Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane arrived in Buffalo in 2017, they’ve relied heavily on drafting, developing and ultimately paying their guys. So you could argue that this is a path that they can continue to follow. However, looking at some of Buffalo’s expiring contracts this and next offseason, along with the shelf life of the team and the sheer volume of challengers, it may be time to have an honest conversation.
According to OverTheCap.com, Buffalo is projected to be 29th or worse in effective cap space each of the next four seasons, in large part because Josh Allen’s cap hit goes from $18.6 million in 2023 to an average of $48.5 million per year over the five seasons remaining on his contract extension – and deservedly so.
That’s without several integral financial decisions being made yet. These next two years more specifically, (counting the guy they acquired at the trade deadline in Rasul Douglas as part of this) only one of their five starters in the secondary doesn’t have an expiring contract. That’s Tre’Davious White, who is coming off the more devastating of back-to-back season-ending injuries with a torn Achilles.
Their center Mitch Morse (32) and both starting tackles – one of which is turning 30 this offseason – are due for new deals in 2025. If you throw in a $13.8 million fifth-year option they’ll have to weigh with Gregory Rosseau until May 3, they could essentially be saying goodbye to every edge rusher on the roster not named Von Miller.
With how inconsistent he’s been, I don’t expect the Gabe Davis decision to be particularly difficult, but he was at least one of those guys who did show up in the big games. Plus, there are several of those finishing touch moves they made last year on one-year deals.
So as brutal as this business is, do you need to move on from what this organization has considered pillars to their success? Including the postseason, since Week 7, Stefon Diggs averaged less than 50 yards per game and scored just three touchdowns the rest of the way.
He became exceedingly frustrated with his role and probably his own play. Does he let it be known that he wants a fresh start somewhere and does it make sense to ship off the $78 million left on his deal over the next three years, if they get middle-round draft compensation in return?
I hated seeing White go down for the season again and it would be a shame to see his time in Buffalo come to an end this way, but considering his physical talent will only diminish further as he’s working hard to make another comeback, they may have to take the out in his contract to save nearly $23 million over the next two seasons.
How many of these role players on short-term deals are worth bringing back? And inevitably, as they possibly say goodbye to many of the faces we’ve been so familiar with and those who stepped up for coach McDermott, does ownership continue to look at this guy being able to take them to the promised land?
In addition, what are his plans in terms of offensive leadership and the people he surrounds himself with to take them to the next level after firing both his offensive and defensive coordinators within a calendar year?
The appeal of following a sports franchise is to live through the ups and downs, and watch them evolve throughout the years while trying to reach that ultimate goal. As long as Josh Allen is there, this team has a chance to compete at the highest level every year, and for as long as they keep McDermott and Beane, I believe the philosophies will be fairly similar.
However, it truly does feel like this version of the Bills could be coming to an end and they’ve hit a fork in the road. Do they finally throw caution to the wind and put their financial future in jeopardy with the types of contracts they choose to hand out? Or do they come to the conclusion that they will maintain elite quarterback play for several years still and that it’s maybe time to enter a new phase of this operation?
The latter would coincide with taking a certain step back however and you have to question if the guys at the controls currently should be charged with overseeing that transition period. So, we could see some massive decisions being made and don’t be tricked if it’s a fairly quiet offseason – that in itself is a pretty substantial commitment to what their future may look like.
