The Buffalo Bills had their first loss of their 2024 NFL season on Sunday Night Football this weekend, falling 35-10 on the road in Baltimore.
After a strong 3-0 start, the Bills seemed to be soaring following their biggest effort of this year’s campaign, and one of their strongest outings with Josh Allen under center, in a 47-10 rout of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
But the Ravens quickly grounded them in NFL Week 4, and Buffalo found itself on the receiving end of the type of dominant performance they had delivered to the Jags.
The Bills struggled on and off the field and lost in all three phases, and their head coach commented on that after the game.
“Give credit where credit is due, Baltimore Ravens came out and they beat us,” Sean McDermott said to the press. “They outplayed us. They outcoached us, and we’ve got to identify the problems and get them fixed.”
Baltimore scored early on an 87-yard touchdown run by Derrick Henry, and never looked back, dominating the rest of the way.
“Schemed up well, yes, because they executed and we really didn’t even touch the running back,” head coach Sean McDermott said about Henry’s run. “They ran what we call ‘wham’ exactly our three-technique there. We’ve got to be in better position. I know we’ve done that before, so that’s one of the things.”
It was a tough night overall for the Bills coaching staff.
The Ravens out-schemed them in this matchup, Buffalo was slow to adjust until the second half and was not aggressive on some 4th-and-1 plays, and mismanaged the following sets of downs after conversions on others.
Then there was that failed trick play.
With the Bills trailing 21-10 in the third quarter, offensive coordinator Joe Brady dialed up a trick call on 2nd-and-7 that fell apart at the line of scrimmage.
Quarterback Josh Allen lined up at receiver, while receiver Curtis Samuel lined up at quarterback, flipping the ball to Allen, who then got hit and stripped of the pass from a hit by Kyle Van Noy who had broken through to get to the QB. The target, WR Mack Hollins, had been in double coverage downfield, and the Ravens recovered the fumble.
“I think that’s something Joe and I will talk about and something we’ll learn from,” McDermott noted. “Certainly a momentum change right there.”
Obviously the timing of the play when the offense was trying to stage a comeback was ill-advised, though successful trick plays were a staple of OC Brian Daboll’s offense with the Bills, he’d scheme them in a way that got the targeted receiver wide-open downfield.
“That’s something that Joe and I will discuss at length. I’m sure he wants that call back. I do as well. We’ll learn from that and move forward,” he added.
The loss does give them a game to reflect on and learn from before turning their focus to their next opponent, another challenger, and potential playoff squad, the Houston Texans.
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