Bills’ Sean McDermott makes huge admission after embarrassing loss to the Falcons
Head coach Sean McDermott wasn’t thrilled with the performance.
The Buffalo Bills lost an ugly game to the Atlanta Falcons, a contest in which the offense and defense had their fair share of struggles.
Head coach Sean McDermott spoke to the media immediately following the contest, leaving nothing to the imagination. The team was bad, and they need to improve if they want a long, successful season. He made a huge admission about the team: they just weren’t good enough, and they need to make sure they have the right people in the correct positions to be successful.
“No, it wasn’t, and we gotta figure it out,” McDermott said. “We gotta dive deep into what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, making sure we’ve got the right people in the right position, the execution at the end of the day. We gotta start from ground zero and work our way back up.”
Buffalo battled through injuries
Injuries reared their ugly head, once again, but McDermott was quick to dismiss that as a reason why the team lost. There are no moral victories, and this loss stings from the coaching staff down to the players. They got beaten badly on the national stage after being beaten the previous week.
“Not the result we were looking for,” McDermott said. “I felt the guys played hard in the second half, fought, fought through some injuries, guys stepping up. Injuries are not an excuse; there’s no such thing as moral victories. But I did think they battled down to the end right there, which I appreciate. Not good enough, not good enough in the first half.
“Allowed them to be a two-dimensional offense, hit us on some long runs, and the receiver comes open, and so I thought we made some good adjustments at halftime on the defensive side, limiting them in the second half,” McDermott added. “Giving our offense some opportunities, just not enough overall as a team. Special teams blocking a kick, I thought, was big for us. Obviously, thought we had some momentum coming out of that.
“Then we had the third and short situation when the ball hit the ground, we gotta be better there,” McDermott said. “Overall, opportunities just are not good enough to get the result we want. We work hard at it, we gotta figure it out, it’s not going to be easy, but we gotta figure it out and work our tails off to get it done.”
Defense struggled in the first half, offense in the second
Running back Bijan Robinson and wide receiver Drake London made life difficult for the Bills’ defense throughout the contest. The first half alone, Robinson and London were breaking records left and right, both finding the end zone and tearing apart the Buffalo defense.
While the defense bounced back in the second half to slow the bleeding, the offense just couldn’t get anything going with quarterback Josh Allen, and the team stalled out drive after drive. McDermott opened up about how to avoid slow starts and what the Falcons did to be successful against them.
“Comes down to run defense, run fundamentals,” McDermott said. “They had some long runs; we had 8-man fronts called, defensive fronts, and defensive schemes called to stop the runs. And when they pop a run and somebody is out of their gap. A, we gotta be able to make a tackle. Put a defensive net on it, a secondary net [ . . . ] Secondly, we shouldn’t be out of our gaps to begin with. We gotta play better run defense because that opens up the pass. When you commit to the run, here comes the pass.
“Overall, a better start, but it’s never one position, and I thought the guys did a better job in the second half,” McDermott said. “I think they had 335 in the first half, 443 total, so about 110 yards total in the second half. We knew it was the run and five at halftime, thought we did a better job of handling five in the second half. So, we made some good adjustments, but at the end of the day, not enough.”
The Bills have now dropped two straight and know that nothing will change unless they do. McDermott’s message was clear: the problems aren’t isolated, and the fix starts from within.
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