NFL Playoff Preview Countdown: No. 4 Buffalo Bills

This is an excerpt from this week’s edition of Mike Tanier’s NFL Walkthrough, available every Monday at The Messenger…

2023 Season in a Nutshell

Preseason favorites to win just about everything, the Bills tripped out of the gate with an overtime loss to the Jets. They kept on tripping until midseason, when embattled offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey was fired and replaced by Joe Brady. The coaching switch zapped the whole team back to life, and the Bills lived up to their reputation with late-season wins over the Chiefs, Cowboys and (on Sunday night) Dolphins, pushing them from the brink of elimination all the way to the second seed in the AFC field.

Quarterback Josh Allen

On his best days, Allen looks like a cross between peak Cam Newton and vintage John Elway. But as his first-half performance on Sunday night illustrated, Allen also has a knack for launching hero balls and succumbing to turnover sprees. Brady appeared to have reigned Allen in somewhat before Week 18, but the reduction in mistakes has come bundled with a reduction in production. Still, few quarterbacks in the NFL are as capable of single-handedly taking over a game.

Offense

Brady is much more run-oriented than Dorsey, with James Cook getting the bulk of the carries and Allen rushing more often by design than he did early in the season. The ball-control approach suits an offensive line that can overpower even playoff-caliber opponents (see the Cowboys game) and a team that had trouble protecting leads in the past.

Stefon Diggs has been quiet since the coordinator switch, and a quiet Diggs is often a dissatisfied Diggs. Diggs’ snap counts even dipped late in the season, for reasons we are sure to hear about if/when the Bills are knocked out of the playoffs.

Rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid is the de-facto possession receiver, Gabriel Davis the deep threat, Khalil Shakir the shifty slot guy taking snaps away from Diggs. Cook had an increased role in the receiving game when Brady took over, but the Bills passing game was content to let their running game and defense do the heavy lifting in several of their late-season wins.

Defense

Exceptional early in the year, shockingly awful for several weeks after Tre’Davious White, Matt Milano and DaQuan Jones got injured, then very-good-to-great again after reinforcements Rasul Douglas and Linval Joseph arrived and Poona Ford returned from an injury. Von Miller is back but looked like a shell of his former self in the regular season. He has been known to step up in the postseason (10.5 career playoff sacks).

Special Teams

The Bills allowed a game-ending punt return touchdown in the season opener and a game-opening kickoff return touchdown to the Patriots in Week 17. Kicker Tyler Bass has missed five extra points. On the plus side, Deontay Hardy’s 96-yard punt return touchdown on Sunday night caused a seismic momentum shift in the Bills’ favor.

Bottom Line

The Bills may indeed be the second-best team in the AFC, and perhaps the third-best team in the NFL. Yet a watermelon’s worth of seeds of doubt can even be found in their late-season winning streak: the passing game is more “different” than “better” under Brady, and the narrow wins over the Chargers and Patriots were not very convincing. Even Sunday’s win was more of a blooper reel than a victory lap until the fourth quarter.

The Bills may be the Team No One Wants to Face in the Playoffs, but they were supposed to be the Team To Beat, and it's worth remembering all the reasons why they were demoted before you place your faith in them or a wager upon them.