Are the Bills Contenders or Pretenders?

Sports Illustrated

The Buffalo Bills suffered a disappointing 29-25 loss to the New England Patriots giving Bill Belichick his 300th victory.

Transcript

00:00 The Buffalo Bills, not blameless in their loss, of course,

00:03 to the New England Patriots.

00:04 That's a rough one.

00:05 Bill Belichick's 300th win.

00:08 And just another in the, you know,

00:10 list of things that make you go,

00:11 hmm, are the Bills actually for real?

00:14 So are they pretenders or contenders?

00:17 - This one is weird for me,

00:18 because one, it's a divisional game.

00:19 Divisional games are always played tough.

00:21 But kind of similar to how I feel about Herbert,

00:24 kind of feel the same thing about Josh Allen.

00:26 I think Josh Allen has all the physical tools

00:29 to be a very elite quarterback,

00:31 but his decision-making sometimes,

00:32 which you've seen in past seasons,

00:35 including this season, is like, eh,

00:38 I feel like there's more there to be desired

00:41 from this Buffalo Bills team.

00:42 I'm not convinced they're a contender.

00:45 I think they have the benefit of the fact that the AFC,

00:48 other than Kansas City and Baltimore,

00:51 every other team in the AFC that you would consider

00:53 to be a legit team has question marks.

00:55 We just saw what happened to the Dolphins against Philly.

00:58 So it's just like, they might be a contender

01:01 just because there's not a lot of other options in the AFC.

01:04 We haven't even talked about the Bengals

01:06 and what's going on with them.

01:06 So they may be a de facto contender,

01:09 but in terms of having faith in them to be successful,

01:13 I'm gonna say no.

01:14 - They're in the mix.

01:15 They're not a top-tier contender,

01:16 which is what you would have thought going into the season.

01:18 And last season was the expectation for them as well.

01:22 I disagree on Josh Allen.

01:23 No, I think they're over-reliant on Josh Allen.

01:26 The reason that we believe in the Bills

01:28 is because you think that Allen

01:29 can almost do everything out there.

01:31 He can run between the tackles.

01:33 He can take off and run.

01:34 He can throw the ball down the field.

01:35 Yeah, there's some turnovers,

01:36 but when you look at the supporting cast there,

01:39 it's not like there's a litany of support around Allen.

01:42 Outside of Stephon Diggs, it's kind of mid.

01:44 So I think they're overly reliant on Josh Allen.

01:48 - Let me ask you a question.

01:49 Let me ask you a question.

01:50 Do you think that there isn't enough criticism

01:53 about their coaching then,

01:55 to which you just said that they're too reliant

01:57 on Allen?

01:58 - Maybe that's part of it.

02:00 Maybe it's also the roster construction too, right?

02:02 Like you talk about Davis is a decent deep threat at times,

02:06 but you know, Cook is the running.

02:07 There's not a bunch of personnel out there

02:10 that's really scaring you.

02:12 And as far as the Bills go,

02:13 I think the reason that we believe in them is Josh Allen.

02:17 So he's sort of in a lose-lose situation.

02:19 Yeah, because you know, if he gets all the way there

02:22 and fails, it's like, it's on you.

02:24 But if he doesn't get there, it's still on him.

02:27 when really he's the reason we're even talking about.

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