← Buffalo Plus: A Buffalo Bills podcast
Buffalo Plus: A Buffalo Bills podcast
Reaction to the BILLS FRUSTRATING and CONTROVERSIAL LOSS to the Texans
00:24:40
Reaction to Bills loss to Texans
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- [00:01]
A
I love Josh with the ball in his hands. You know I do. And, you know, again, efficient offense was. That was the right approach there, and I didn't have us do that.
- [00:20]
B
This is the Buffalo plus podcast, brought to you by Connors and Farris.
- [00:26]
C
Okay. Welcome Back to the Buffalo Plus YouTube channel, presented by Connors and Ferris. Mike Catalana. I am Jenna Cosby. Please be sure to, like, comment, subscribe and share. We always appreciate it. Mike. We're here in Houston. The Bills losing this game to the Texans, 23 to 20. The Bills fought their way back into this game, tied the game, and then late, it all went wrong.
- [00:49]
B
So at some point, a rational mind would say it's really important that they fought back in this game, because they didn't last week, at least briefly, they did fight back. They played much better. They made a lot of plays defensively. They made plays, came down to the end. The question is, was it the wrong decision by Sean McDermott in order to throw the ball three times at the end of the game? Houston had three timeouts. So if you just run it up the middle, unless you get 7, 8, 9, and then maybe a chance to get the first down, you're not going to get it. I think you can go either way on it. A lot of people don't think Sean McDermott is aggressive. That was pretty aggressive there to throw it three times.
- [01:30]
C
I feel like there's a line between aggressive and kind of reckless. And for this team, like, to have three. To take three shots, to me, I was like, okay, the first one didn't work out. Was it the first one initially to Keon and then the penalty. And that was the penalty. And then that was huge. I figured they would throw in a run or something. And then I just was shocked when it was like. And it also speaks to how much Josh was, in my opinion, let down by his wide receivers today. But I was not surprised. But I kind of was like, what is going on?
- [02:03]
B
Well, here's Sean McDermott. Afterward, he was asked and he said he's got faith in the quarterback, but there's one thing he thinks he should have done differently.
- [02:14]
A
I love Josh with the ball in his hands, you know, I do. And, you know, again, efficient offense was. That was the right approach there, and I didn't have us do that. And, you know, so again, we learned from that tough situation. You know, they're holding three timeouts. Like I said, they got a good field goal kicker. And, you know, you go back and forth, you know, and, hey, probably. I probably should have Run it on the first play and just said, hey, where are we now? Either way, we're probably going to have to move the chains one time, right? To not give them a chance. But again, those are situations and that's on me.
- [02:51]
B
You're right. If you split up the two, if you run it twice and then throw it, they still have timeouts left. The idea was they were trying to burn a little bit more clock. Look, let's be honest here. At that point with no timeouts left, you're just trying to get to overtime. Yeah, it'd be great if somebody broke one and went 70 yards. You're just trying to get the game to overtime. That did not happen. I don't mind the passes as much as the throws that Josh made deep at the sticks, like maybe a dump one underneath on first down and get five or six yards instead. They did that. I think they did that in total too many times in the game because it wasn't working. There's another way you could think of it and say, either way, if you give them the ball back with X number of seconds on the clock, they need to make one play and either spike it if they had more time, or call timeout and kick the field goal. They have a very good kicker who made it from 59 yards. They won the game.
- [03:49]
C
I think that's when I say, like, the Reckless 2 is some of the decisions in terms of those throws that you talked about, because they were longer throws where it was like, okay, maybe give your guys an opportunity to make a play underneath. And then, I don't know, I just, for me, I was kind of like watching what was happening and was like, what is the penalty killed them. That's tough in general. But then to have the drive go the way it did and end the way it did, I was like, you deserve to lose the game when you do that.
- [04:18]
B
Sean McDermott gives a lot of autonomy to his coordinators. I think in the last couple of weeks, they've let him down a little bit. Defensive strategy by Babich, who I think is a really good coach. And offensively, you know, McDermott, you know his guy's calling the plays, right? Joe's calling the plays. He was going to be a head coach after three weeks. They're going to lose him after three weeks. I think with that group out there, without Khalil Shakir, that is not an NFL level 5 wide receiver group. They're all players that can play in the NFL. But when you have all five of them, that's your Group. It's not NFL level. That is a well below average group of five players.
- [05:02]
C
So I said in the podcast leading into today that I was genuinely concerned about this wide receiver group without Khalil Shakir. And you said, well, yes, but Khalil Shakir is not like a world burner like all these things. That is absolutely true. But I think you missed what Khalil Shakir could be and the fact that he is dependable. He is the safety blanket. He makes some incredible catches and then he makes some average ones. But either way he's catching the ball. That is why I was so concerned. So I was like, who is going to step up and make a play? And a lot. Four receivers made like what?
- [05:36]
B
Jenna's right.
- [05:38]
C
Credit to me.
- [05:38]
B
Credit to you because you talk about Shakir. What did he do? He set a record for most consecutive targets with a catch. And today 18 targets to the wide receivers. And I said to you, the hope is that Curtis Samuel, who has played that role in the NFL before with Joe Brady, could make some plays. He was negative yardage in this one. He was minus one on a pass play and then or they called it a run or a pass and then he didn't catch any of the other balls. It's negative yardage. And this is a guy who has had 800 yard seasons in the NFL. Nothing. I don't know what to make of Matt Collins. He made the one catch. He should be your fifth wide receiver on there. A limited amount of time and they just didn't get enough out of him. If the group is not good enough, even with Shakir, it's not good enough to be really good. But you are right, they missed him.
- [06:28]
C
Out there on this game side note too. So he was not. We did not see him out on the field. In terms of like guys that will travel, it usually means when they're injured, they're getting a little bit closer. All this stuff, we did not see Shakir out there today. So that to me was kind of something to note. So what that means for his injury, I don't know. Ed Oliver was also not here. Whereas Matt Milano obviously Terrell Bernard played, but Taron Johnson was out on the field. Yeah, the wide receivers, look, Josh was nine for 30, which is insane.
- [07:01]
B
I could ask every one of you. Josh Allen threw 30 passes in the game. He had a bad game. How many did he complete? I don't think anybody would be less than 16.
- [07:12]
C
I agree.
- [07:13]
B
17, 15. Somewhere in that range.
- [07:16]
C
If I'd be like he had a bad day 12.
- [07:19]
B
Yeah. Nine in a game.
- [07:21]
C
Nine.
- [07:22]
B
I give Coleman credit for this heck of a play. Great call. The touchdown got him right back into the football game. That was great. The rest of the time I don't know what's going on on the deep balls. You know, listen, Josh is awesome and he's not great at the deep balls. I'm not pinning this all on him, but I do wonder sometimes about when players look up in this place. It's an awesome place. But Mack Hollins did not track the ball well. One, the ball went sort of over him.
- [07:55]
C
Yeah.
- [07:56]
B
Twohee's, Matt Collins.
- [07:58]
C
I thought he was very close.
- [08:02]
B
Yes.
- [08:03]
C
That counts for something, right?
- [08:04]
B
What is it? Only in horseshoes and hand grenades, right? Is what they say. And then he went deep for the other one to Kincaid. Now, if there's no defender there, it's a beautiful deep ball because it would have hit him right in the hands. There happened to be a defender and he knocked the ball down. So they haven't hit on the deep balls. You know, Kincaid made the one. Nice play over the middle, by the way. Dawson Knox was wide open. I don't know if they showed the replay. He had gone the left side. He's standing in the end zone. But they got it from Kincaid down close. And then James Cook took it in for the touchdown. But Kincaid had a couple of chances to make catches and he didn't do it either. So that was an issue.
- [08:38]
C
He did not either. Did Dawson Knox have a catch today?
- [08:42]
B
No.
- [08:44]
C
You're paying like you're paying these guys. That's a second contract too.
- [08:48]
B
Yeah.
- [08:49]
C
What do you think this says about Bean?
- [08:52]
B
It's not a good enough group that he's put out there. Now the question is, do they make a move? Devontae Adams, all that stuff. Look, devontae Adams would be by far their best wide receiver. How much do you want to give up? I still think this is a good football team. I think when this defense gets healthy, because we can talk, and we will, about some of the guys, the young guys who made plays today and are playing better and showed a lot. And when you get the other players back, it's going to be really good for this defense. But come on, this is the group he brought out there. He paid Curtis Samuel not doing anything and Vs nothing. One ball thrown his way. The defender got a hand on it. But you're a veteran receiver. You got to make a play for him. Matt Collins should be the fifth guy. Special teams, blocking, that's who he should be. Instead, he's out there as a regular target for Josh, so. No, not good enough. Shakir's a real. I think if you have Shakir and Coleman, great. Give me a number one to go with those guys, and then you could be in. You could be in good shape.
- [09:52]
C
Well, you're. You're sounding just like how Josh Allen predicted that we would sound after the game.
- [09:58]
B
You guys are going to be.
- [09:59]
C
You guys are going to go wild with this. Should I put in the sound bite?
- [10:02]
B
Yeah, go ahead.
- [10:03]
C
Okay.
- [10:04]
B
Well, it starts with making better decisions on my part. And I know didn't. Didn't complete the ball at a high rate tonight, put the ball in harm's way, especially early in that first half. But I trust our guys. I know you guys are going to be wild this week, but love my guys and we're going to keep working. And, you know, this isn't a defining moment in our season. You know, it's a chance to learn and grow from this, and that's what we're going to do.
- [10:27]
C
You guys are going to go wild with this. Do you think.
- [10:30]
B
Doesn't go you guys very often, does he?
- [10:32]
C
I think he was a little perturbed.
- [10:35]
B
Yeah.
- [10:35]
C
Had the loss.
- [10:38]
B
He took some hits, too.
- [10:39]
C
He. Do we want to talk about that.
- [10:42]
B
With him going out and coming back?
- [10:44]
C
No, just in general. Like, he took some big hits in this one.
- [10:47]
B
Yeah, he took hits last week, too. Yeah.
- [10:51]
C
Makes me concerned.
- [10:52]
B
Not all on the offensive line, though. You can say it on the line, but, you know, he does hang in there and he'll try to make a play. He got lit up on that play. And, you know, Mitch came in and by the way, all Mitch did was hand off on the one play. Then Josh came back out. But it's what I always say when people will say the backup quarterback. If Josh gets hurt, they're done anyhow. Yes. For the season. But what if Mitch needed to throw the ball there right now? They ended up not scoring, not doing anything, and had to kick the field goal. That was their opportunity. When they got the ball back deep after the fumble by C.J. stroud, that was the opportunity to take the lead and really put the Texans on their heels.
- [11:31]
C
Who did he throw it to? Kincaid?
- [11:33]
B
Yeah, he threw to Kincaid.
- [11:34]
C
That's. That right there. When that happened, I was like, that's. You gotta capitalize on that.
- [11:40]
B
They had their chance. While I'm mentioning that, man, Dorian Williams flies around the field.
- [11:46]
C
He does. When he's downhill, it's like, oh, snap.
- [11:49]
B
Yeah, he was flying around down on the field. And they got that play. I think it was Smoot that knocked it loose. What a play, right? You had the Bernard interception, which was fantastic. And by the way, C.J. stroud is really good. Made some really good plays, but he kept the Bills in this game. Yeah, I mean, the interception. Never saw Bernard. The fumble, not good ball security. And he got called for the same kind of grounding call that Josh got called on last year, where it's definitely a miscommunication, but he throws it the other way. And they call grounding because there's nobody there. Kind of a dumb rule by the NFL. The ref should be able to say, it was obviously just. The guy went. They went the wrong way. But it was a good benefit for the Bills because they ended up getting the ball.
- [12:33]
C
Yeah, it was nice seeing Terrell Bernard back. That is massively. That is massive. I did not see the Dorian Williams fumble recovery because I was actually at the tent waiting for Josh Allen to come out, because at that point, I didn't know if it was like, a chest injury, a shoulder injury, or what.
- [12:50]
B
Let me ask you this. Did he sort of sprint out and then they stopped him and then he went back.
- [12:55]
C
So from where I was standing, he went into the tent, and he was starting to come back out, and they pulled him back into the tent. And then Mitch ran out onto the field. And then Josh, shortly after, like, ran out, grabbed his helmet, and, like, sprinted onto the field.
- [13:12]
B
He was in a panic because Mitch was in the game.
- [13:14]
C
Well, I don't know if I can say this.
- [13:17]
B
Go ahead.
- [13:18]
C
Well, while Josh was in the tent, he was like, having the. Like, what's going on? Like, what's going. Like wanted to. Which is fair. I would want to do the same. But. But, yeah, he took a lot of hits. It is week four.
- [13:31]
B
Yeah. Week five.
- [13:32]
C
Week five. Yeah. Week four. Week five. Where am I? But that is one thing that I. You don't love to see it ever.
- [13:39]
B
No.
- [13:40]
C
But it's still early on in the season and some considerable hits. You see Josh Allen go down. It's never a good sign.
- [13:48]
B
No, they got behind in this one. Let's talk about the play, the deep ball. It was a beautiful throw. I could have caught it. I couldn't have run to get down there, but I could have caught a beautiful throw. He's wide open. Guys aren't going to tell us, but Rasul Douglas was looking over at young Cole Bishop, who. He said, cole will be fine this week when we talked to him on Wednesday, and that's. He's Confident in his teammate. I don't know the call. I'm only saying what I look to see. I saw the way Rasul responded. He absolutely thought he had deep help on that play. Breaking news, he did not have deep help on that play. It's a beautiful play. If you're just watching sports and you aren't following the Bills, because it's like, wow, what a throw. What a catch. Nico Collins is great. And Collins went out with a hamstring, which was.
- [14:40]
C
Did he limp on that play?
- [14:43]
B
He walked to the end zone. So maybe. I don't know.
- [14:45]
C
Maybe someone was saying he was limping heading into the end zone. I couldn't see because it was so far away.
- [14:49]
B
I thought that was just like a flex. Like, look, I don't even have to run fast to beat you guys. It was great that he was out.
- [14:55]
C
Yeah.
- [14:56]
B
Because he's a hell of a player. But the Bills were missing a bunch of players, too. Collins is really good.
- [15:01]
C
They were. Yeah. Nico Collins was very good. I thought a couple guys we talked about on the defensive side of the ball, Cole Bishop kind of had that struggle. But I really like Dwayne Carter. He had a couple nice pops, nice flashes. You could tell he was pumped up, but getting some pressure. He just. He brought juice, which is. I was concerned because we hadn't seen. Obviously, Austin Johnson was out, Ed Oliver was out. What would that look like? So I was pleasantly surprised by him.
- [15:26]
B
He got off blocks like he did, and you're like, man, that's Carter again, especially early. So that's encouraging because I don't know how long Ed's going to be out again.
- [15:35]
C
He did not make the trip here, which to me is hamstring.
- [15:38]
B
And it's Houston. This is home for him.
- [15:40]
C
I know that's.
- [15:40]
B
So you figure he'd want to be down here, so. So that's part of it, where he. You know, those guys made some plays. It was great to see Bernard and Dorian in there together. You know, they. They obviously attacked the safeties, and let's be honest, they attacked him a lot with Stephon Diggs. Diggs was really good in the game.
- [16:01]
C
Diggs was good. He led the Texans in receiving yards.
- [16:04]
B
What do you have, 88 yards? I think.
- [16:06]
C
Well, on that. Right before the Terrell Bernard interception, I was. We were talking on the sidelines, me and the other photographers, and I was like, I'm feeling a shot to Diggs.
- [16:15]
B
Yeah.
- [16:16]
C
And obviously Diggs was targeted on that interception from Terrell Bernard. But, yeah, Diggs was. Diggs is good. And breaking news. He was good today.
- [16:24]
B
Yeah, he was good. It ended up being not much. No pregame meetup between the two.
- [16:30]
C
That was surprising. Can I, can I just say that was. Look, we, we talked about it on Thursday on the podcast of like what's it gonna be like the, you know, go over dap each other up? Yeah, I, I was surprised that there was no pre game thing. We were out on the field waiting. Figured it would be, you know, before warm ups happen when the guys are out on the field. That was not the case. Josh left the field before Diggs was even out on the field, which I thought Diggs kind of came out late and Josh kind of left early. And then for the captains, I was curious because Josh Allen is a captain, obviously. Stefan Diggs is the captain for the, the Texans. And Josh did not go out there and look post game, I got the video. You know, the Bills had just lost on a tough field goal walk off win from the Texans. So I'm not going to be like Josh wasn't happy enough for me. But in the same moment, it's what a pro does.
- [17:26]
B
You shake hands.
- [17:27]
C
Yeah.
- [17:27]
B
You know, this was not bro hugs and we're great. It was also not Belichick and McDermott, you know that like brush off and they could barely look at each other. It was just what you do. And then Deion talked to him. Whatever moved past it. Diggs was better in this game. Maybe they meet up in the playoffs. We don't know. It'll be way different the next time. Now he's just on the other team. They're not in the same division. They may not play again. Honestly, there's a chance they never play against each other again in their careers. Like you never know how it works out.
- [17:57]
C
Yeah. Diggs on a one year deal, so who knows?
- [17:59]
B
But he won today and his team won and Josh had a rough day. Nine of 30, nine of 30.
- [18:05]
C
That's wild. I mean the Bills, I mean, I thought we were in for a very long day with the way things started. And this is something that we saw last week against Baltimore. This team has been getting off to slow starts. Also penalties out the gate. Yeah, we're really killing them, killing any momentum. Three and outs, three and outs, all that stuff. How do you change that?
- [18:26]
B
It's an odd thing that they come out now. Now they have had some different players on the field. They started out poor in the Arizona games, first game of the season, so that's different. But you get to this point with these games and you're like, I do understand. You got Cole Bishop out on the field. You got Dwayne Carter out on the field. These guys haven't played right. You have wide receivers, some who shouldn't be on the field, but they're out there for you. So there's a little bit of that to it. But there's other players. I mean, Spencer Brown had two big penalties in the first half of this game. He's a veteran. It is loud in here, right? Dan told you how loud. Well, you've been here before, but how loud it was. But come on, your vets are the guys that need to make those plays. It was funny because the Texans are known for their penalties this year, and then they started to pick up all the penalties in the second half, and that helped the Bills get back into the game. A few of those calls. But no, you can't start games like this and try to come back, especially against two very good teams, teams that are probably going to win their division. What are you laughing at?
- [19:27]
C
We were joking. When the Bills started their comeback, we're like, so is the trick play now? Is it now or is it. Is it later?
- [19:33]
B
So I tweeted that out. I had that one in the Twitter holster, ready. As soon as the Bills got the stop, I'm like, down two scores, third quarter, time for the trick play. And people are like, no.
- [19:46]
C
Too soon.
- [19:47]
B
No. But they gave you plenty to complain about with the clock management and the decision making, and sprinkled in some of.
- [19:54]
C
That for your viewing pleasure.
- [19:55]
B
I'll finish with this.
- [19:56]
C
No, I got one more question.
- [19:57]
B
Well, I was going to say, I don't think. I don't think. Like I said, Sean gives autonomy to these guys. I think that's going to be something about the play calling at different times. You got to know who your people are out on the field. Josh was having a rough day. His receivers were bad. Honestly, the farther you throw the ball down the field, the tougher the plays are going to be in this game. They just, you know, James Cook made a great catch, couldn't get his feet in. Kincaid had one. And when it hit the ground, by the way that hit the ground, there was no great replay. The ball was coming out. They weren't going to give him that catch. I thought they were going to challenge it. I finally saw what looked like more of a replay. It's because it was out of bounds. It would have been a big play early, but he didn't make it. There was another one that literally hit Keon in the head. Because he wasn't ready for the ball. So Keon, to have one ball hit you in the side of the head while you're not paying attention and then take the next one and take it into the end zone for a touchdown.
- [20:53]
C
So Week five in the books. Bills are three and two. They head into Monday Night Football against the jets, who are 2 3. The Bills are right now still in the top spot in the AFC east because of the jets record. What do you make of this game and what it means for where they're at right now and what's ahead?
- [21:14]
B
They did not play well. I think the Texans are good. They're not great. When Nico Collins is not on the field. That is not a great offense. It is good. It's not great. The Texans defense, I guess, played well, but the Bills missed opportunities to make plays against them. There wasn't a lot in this game to make me encouraged about the way the Bills are playing. What I'm encouraged about is on defense. You're going to get some of your players back. Hopefully they get Shakir back. But I'm worried about this offense going forward. I'm worried about they can run the ball decently. Josh Allen isn't going to have a lot of nine for 30 games, but you got to give him more help. I don't know if they do anything. I know. You know?
- [21:56]
C
Yeah, I don't know. That's the thing. I don't know if help is on the way realistically, like, who is going to walk through that door? I don't believe people.
- [22:03]
B
People at home right now are writing in devonte Adams. Devonte Adams.
- [22:06]
C
But, you know, realistically, do I expect them to make that move? I don't. But maybe after today they're thinking, okay, we need to adjust some things or something's got to change because it was not good enough. Yeah, you say nine for 30, which is crazy because the game was came down to the last second. Like, it's like Josh didn't have his best day. And yet the Bills were still tied going in with a second left on the clock.
- [22:32]
B
And the jets are not good. They came back in the game in London. Aaron Rodgers threw three picks. He threw a bad one at the end. He threw a pick six. That's tough. As Bills fans know, when your team goes to London, you lose a tough game. That's tough coming back. And Rodgers was awful early and then got a little better. They got some help and then he had a chance. The field goal of death is what Minnesota did. They went up six jets were moving. You're like, oh, boy. Missed a couple of throws, got one picked at the end. So they were not great. They had a chance to still win. So. And Minnesota's a good team, but they had a chance to win. So that game is. It's the most important game of the season until the next jets game. You got to beat out the jets, you got to win the division to.
- [23:24]
C
Get to the playoffs. That is, yeah, the easiest, most simple math to get there. All right, that'll do it for us. We'll have plenty more coverage leading into Monday night's game against the Jets. For Mike Catalana, I'm Jenna Cottrell. Please be sure to, like, comment, subscribe and share. We'll catch you next time. Oh, Dan was in the studio. That's why he wasn't here. Please be sure to, like, comment, subscribe, subscribe and share again. And yeah, we'll see you next time on the Buffalo Plus YouTube channel.
- [24:04]
B
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C
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