Jim Rassol/THE PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK
The Bills are right back where they belong after a roller coaster season.
The Buffalo Bills enter the NFL Playoffs as the AFC’s No. 2 seed after winning the division for a fourth straight season, and they have the third-best odds to win the Super Bowl, according to DraftKings Sportsbook.
That’s a statement that would have come as no surprise entering the 2023 season. Not when Buffalo was easily among the NFL’s top title contenders and looked primed for another special season.
It’s also a statement no one would have seen coming as we entered the month of December, back when the Bills were easily one of the league’s most disappointing teams.
Things didn’t look too bad to begin the season. Sure, they opened the year with a road loss to the New York Jets in overtime, but they followed that up with three dominant wins over Las Vegas, Washington, and Miami by a combined 123-33 margin. That’s the Bills team everyone thought we’d get this season, but from there, things went south in a hurray.
The Bills would go on to have one of the worst stretches they’d had in years, losing five of their next eight games. It wasn’t just that the Bills were losing. They were struggling against some of the league’s worst teams.
There was the Week 1 defeat vs. a Jets team that lost Aaron Rodgers for the year on the game’s first drive and went on to finish 7-10. It was largely overlooked since Week 1 can produce some wild results, but that loss turned out to be a sign of things to come.
In Week 6, the Bills barely won at home vs. a Giants team that finished 6-11, thanks in part to a controversial no-call at the end when it appeared Taron Johnson held Darren Waller, but no flag was thrown.
In Week 7, Buffalo went into New England and lost to a Patriots team that would finish 4-13.
Then in Week 10, the Bills fell at home to a Denver team that was 3-5 at the time and would finish 8-9.
Following a gut-wrenching overtime loss at Philadelphia in Week 12, the Bills entered their bye week at 6-6 and fading fast in the playoff race.
The Bills would come out of the bye three games behind the 9-3 Miami Dolphins in the AFC East while preparing for a brutal two-game stretch at 8-4 Kansas City and at home vs. 9-3 Dallas.
Making matters worse was a story emerging on Dec. 7 about head coach Sean McDermott holding a team meeting in 2019, where he discussed how Bills players should work together like the 9/11 terrorists did to emphasize the importance of communication.
Yes, that actually happened, and it felt like something that could be the final straw on the Bills’ back.
Things were grim, but to the Bills’ credit, all six of their losses were by one score, and two came in overtime. So it’s not like the Bills were getting blown out. They just couldn’t make that one last play they needed to close out those games.
That changed in a big way coming out of the bye, as the Bills would reel off five straight wins, four of which came by one score. That included the Week 18 finale at Miami, where the Bills would rally in the fourth quarter to score the game’s final 14 points in a 21-14 victory for the division and the AFC’s No. 2 seed.
So, what changed?
The biggest spark down the stretch was the Bills defense. After allowing 37 points to Philly, they allowed a mere 16.8 points per game over their five-game winning streak. That included holding Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to just 17 points at Arrowhead, then suffocated the Cowboys at home en route to a 31-10 victory, in which Dallas didn’t score a touchdown until there was just 2:48 left and finished with just 195 total yards.
After allowing 300+ yards in eight of their previous nine games, the Bills only allowed the Chiefs to top that mark in the final five games. Buffalo event went into Miami and held the high-scoring Dolphins offense to just 275 yards and 14 points, and that was with Josh Allen committing three brutal turnovers in Dolphins territory.
All of this came with the Bills defense getting hit hard by injuries to key players, including losing All-Pro cornerback Tre’Davious White and All-Pro linebacker Matt Milano to season-ending injuries in early October. It took the defense time to adjust to those losses, but it’s back to playing at a high level at the best possible time.
We also can’t forget what turned out to be a massive move at the NFL trade deadline, when Buffalo sent a third-round pick to Green Bay for cornerback Rasul Douglas and a fifth-round pick.
At the time, it looked like the Bills were overpaying for a quality veteran on an expiring deal, but it turned out to be one of the biggest trades of 2023, as Douglas has been one of the best cornerbacks in the entire NFL.
Entering the playoffs, Douglas has a Pro Football Focus coverage grade of 84.4, the sixth-best of any NFL cornerback playing in at least 20% of his team’s defensive snaps.
Losing a player the caliber of White could have been devastating, but the Bills managed to replace him with a player who is having a standout season and making himself some serious money entering 2024 free agency.
Now, after years of promising seasons that came up just short of the Super Bowl, will this be the Bills team that finally breaks through?
Despite everything they’ve overcome, this team is back to looking every bit like one capable of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy when it’s all said and done. And while Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, and the Bills offense deservedly get much of the attention, it’s the defense that has made this resurgence possible.
