Bills motivated to improve after loss
Sunday’s defeat served as reminder of gap between Buffalo and league’s elite
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.—Cole Beasley was so committed to being part of what became the Buffalo Bills’ deepest post-season run in 27 years, the veteran slot receiver spent the past three weeks playing on a broken leg.
The partially broken fibula will eventually heal without needing surgery. The pain of a 38-24 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday night’s AFC championship game might linger far longer.
“I’d expect everybody to take that feeling in the off-season and do what they feel they need to get us to where we want to go,” Beasley said Monday. “We’ve got to figure out what we’ve got to do to get better, because they ain’t going anywhere, but we aren’t either. We look forward to the challenge and look forward to another chance.”
Though listed on Buffalo’s injury report as having a knee injury, Beasley revealed he broke his leg in the fourth quarter of a 38-9 win at New England in Week 16. After sitting out the Bills’ finale, he was back on the field making seven catches for 57 yards in a 27-24 wild-card playoff victory over Indianapolis.
“There’s no excuses for anything,” said Beasley, who finished the post-season with 14 catches for 145 yards. “It was bad the first game I played, but after that, you take a few meds and suck it up.”
The same can be said of the Bills (15-4), whose visions of their first Super Bowl appearance since 1994 unravelled against the defending champions. In rallying from a 9-0 firstquarter deficit, the Chiefs exposed Buffalo’s deficiencies on both sides of the ball.
The Josh Allen-led offence, which set a single-season team record by scoring 501 points, sputtered in settling for field goals rather than touchdowns before the score got out of reach.
The defence was no match against a dynamic Chiefs offence for the second time this season. After allowing a seasonhigh 245 yards rushing in a 2617 loss to Kansas City in Week 6, Buffalo surrendered 325 yards passing on Sunday, with Tyreek Hill’s 172 yards receiving the most allowed by the Bills in the post-season.
The outcome served as a reminder of the gap still separating Buffalo and the NFL’s elite.
“Plain and simple, to get to where we want to be, that’s going to be the team we’re going to have to beat,” cornerback Tre’Davious White said. “That’s the standard there.”
If that’s the case, general manager Brandon Beane has more work on his plate. Last off-season, following a 22-19 overtime loss to Houston in a wild-card playoff, Beane addressed the need for more offence by acquiring receiver Stefon Diggs in a trade with Minnesota. This year, he has holes to fill on a defence which took a major step back in finishing 14th in the NFL in yards allowed after ranking in the top three each of the two previous seasons.
As evidenced by both losses to Kansas City, Buffalo experienced difficulties stopping the run and at the same time pressuring quarterbacks without having to blitz.
The troubles stem in part from an off-season in which Buffalo lost defensive linemen Jordan Phillips and Shaq Lawson to free agency.