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To quote Charles Dickens, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” with the latter certainly pertaining to today’s 9-6 loss vs, the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Coming into the game as heavy favorites against the lowly 1-6 Jaguars, no one gave Jacksonville a chance, but in the end they handed the Bills their third loss of the season.
“You have to come every day ready to play. It’s the National Football League, we understand that,” Bills safety Micah Hyde told reporters after the game. “Doesn’t matter what the record indicates. Don’t think we were ready to play today.”
A player making a statement about not being ready to play isn’t something you hear too often. When pressed to explain why that was the case, Hyde seemed to be out of answers.
“If I knew, I would’ve fixed it going into it. I don’t know.”
Bills center, Mitch Morse, discussed the offensive line’s apparent struggles throughout the loss and was also asked if he felt the team was prepared.
“You’d like to say so, but I guess we weren’t,” Morse said during his post-game press conference. “For us it’ll be finding ways to maybe change up your routine because today unfortunately it was not it. So we’ll have to reevaluate and go from there.”
While the o-line had major issues, Bills quarterback, Josh Allen, had one of his worst performances of the season as well, turning the ball over three times (two interceptions and one fumble.)
“Credit to them, they came out and wanted it more,” Allen told the media after the loss. “We had a lot of little things add up to big things. I put the ball in danger too often… bit us in the butt. Played like sh*t, excuse my language. That starts with me. I gotta be better for this team.”
While it seemed improbable that a team with one win could take down a Bills team that has been repeatedly coined a Super Bowl contender, it is truly a league that thrives on parity.
“This one stings, but this one makes the other games feel better,” Allen continued. “Having this pit in our stomach right now, puts things into perspective. It’s a week to week league. Any given Sunday, any team can come out here and play well and beat the other team. That’s just how it goes, it’s life sometimes. We’ll use this to our advantage We’ll be better from it.”
One point of clarification, while the Bills admitted they felt perhaps they weren’t prepared well enough and that Jacksonville wanted this game more, Allen would not go as far as to say that the Bills overlooked this Jaguars team.
“No. It’s the league,” Allen said. “It’s hard to win football games no matter who you play. We’re all grown men. We all get paid to play this game. They came out and wanted it more.”
While head coach, Sean McDermott, stated that he still believes in his players, he admitted there was a lot that needed to be addressed after the loss.
Once again his own team’s readiness to compete was called into question.
“It’s a one week at a time league,” McDermott said after the game. “You guys know that. We preach that. But give them the credit. They were ready to play and we weren’t.”
While one of the main takeaways for me after watching this abysmal loss and hearing the players and coach speak, was that the team just didn’t seem mentally into this game… it appears the same could be sensed by the Jaguars.
During Jacksonville’s post-game press conference, Jaguars cornerback, Shaquill Griffin, spoke to the difference in energy he saw on the two teams’ sidelines.
“I was just looking on their sideline, and one thing that I noted was I don’t think they have the same energy as us,” Griffin said. “I feel like if one team deserves to win, it’s us, but you gotta believe that. So that was one thing I kept preaching, I had everybody look: ‘Look at their sidelines. Just watching them walk around, like they don’t care.’ I said they don’t deserve this. Let’s show them why.”
And show them why, the Jaguars did.
It’s a pretty painful reality check for the Bills to have a team at the bottom of the league want the game more than them. Some might refer to it as a “trap game,” but the bottom line is, they just got beat.
Regardless of what exactly went wrong, the Bills need to get it fixed quickly. They head back to Buffalo to take on a divisional opponent in the 2-6 New York Jets next Sunday. And while on paper this should be a win, if they aren’t prepared and don’t want it as badly… we’ve all seen now what can happen.
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