ALL-22 REVIEW: Houston Texans SHUT DOWN Buffalo Bills Offense, Key Failures and Missed Opportunities

ALL-22 REVIEW: Houston Texans SHUT DOWN Buffalo Bills Offense, Key Failures and Missed Opportunities

The Buffalo Bills offense had all the wrong ideas against the Houston Texans. I’m going to break down what the film revealed today on Locked on Bills. You are Locked on Bills, your daily Buffalo Bills podcast, part of the Locked On Network. Your team every day. What’s up, Bills Mafia? It’s Joe Marino, author of the Herd Mentality Substack, co-host of the Locked On NFL Scouting Podcast, co-host of the NFL First Read Podcast, and I’m your host of Locked On Bills. Locked on Bills is a proud part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network. Want to thank you for making Locked On Bills your first listen every day. And a big welcome and shout out to our everydayers. You know who you are, those of you who never miss a single episode. I appreciate y’all being here very, very much. Today’s episode is sponsored by Prize Picks. Download the Prize Picks app today and use code lockdown NFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Well, folks, welcome in. It’s time for my All22 review from the Bills 23-19 loss to the Houston Texans. I’ve studied the All 22 film and I want to share my top takeaways with you today. We’ll get into snap counts and studs and duds. We’ll talk about all the phases of the team, but I want to begin with this offense and in particular the passing offense where Josh Allen went 24 of 34 for 253 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions, faced a good amount of pressure, was pressured on 38% of his dropbacks, sacked eight times, plenty of protection issues. Josh Allen ran into three sacks. You had some problems here. And in studying the film, what became very clear to me is that the Bills didn’t have any margin for error against Houston. None. Right. This a really good, disciplined defense. And so things that the Bills can sometimes get away with offensively, they really couldn’t. You can’t have a quarterback turning down open receivers and searching for a little bit more down the field. You can’t have protection issues. You can’t have any of those types of errors. Not to the degree of frequency that the Bills had against Houston. And Josh Allen is a creative playmaking quarterback, maybe the best the NFL has ever seen. And Houston features this disciplined defense that plays a lot of zone coverage. Now, they ran a little bit more man than usual against the Bills. I think they were close to 30% man, and they’re typically about 18%, but you’re still looking at 70% zone. And against zone defense, it requires your quarterback to be a little bit more anticipatory. Anticipate receivers and throw them into some space. And it forces you to consistently make the right decision and you can’t be off, right? They’re very, very disciplined. And what stands out to me about Houston, in addition to them being disciplined, is that they don’t really do anything exotic. They have some nice coverage disguises, but it’s not like they’re blitzing you like crazy. They blitzed Josh Allen 15% of his drop backs. But what this defense is is it’s connected. It is connected. It’s all moving together. Watch it. Just watch it. Everybody’s moving together. They know how to layer zone coverage. They squeeze routes. They leverage routes. It’s a high-end unit. And you can tell the identity of what they want to be defensively is important to everyone on the field. That’s a defense with an attitude. They have competitive strain. They contest everything. They battle for their run fits. They drive on routes. They play with a lot of confidence. They play with great instincts and they play together. You know what? It reminded me of the early Shawn McDermott defenses in Buffalo. Nothing exotic, static back seven, but you know what? They took pride in their assignments. They get after it and they’re disciplined. They’re where they’re supposed to be. They’re confident. They’re flying around. that took advantage of a Bills offense that’s been unsettled all year. A Bills offense that has indecision, a Bills offense that doesn’t have enough dynamic playmakers, a Bills offense that’s very stubborn in what they want to be and who they are and yeah, kind of struggles to adjust. Now, I thought the Bills had some really nice schemed throws in this game, and I thought they were very close on a lot of plays. Close doesn’t get it done. Again, your margin for error against this defense is not very big. You can’t be close. You got to make it happen. You got to finish. And when the Bills went to their progression style passes, so non-skeem throws, non-play action, hey, drop back passing, read out of progression, throw the ball to the open guy. They were overmatched. Houston’s defense overmatched them. And their coverage and rush, it is connected. But ultimately, the Bills offensive tackles got worked. Got worked. Talked about it being a heavyweight fight. Two great edge rushers, Denil Hunter and Will Anderson against two great offensive tackles and Spencer Brown and Deion Dawkins. And we figured along the way that Hunter and Anderson that they would win a few battles, but for the Bills to decisively lose the war, oh, that’s tough. Spencer Brown’s given up seven pressures and two sacks. Deion Dawkins, six pressures and two sacks. I understand that Spencer Brown played a a meaningful amount of that game with basically one arm, right, with that shoulder injury. I give him some grace. But when that shoulder was okay early on, he was still overmatched. You had good on good, but it looked like good on bad, and you were the bad side of it. Let’s talk a little bit more about protection. thought Joe Brady failed the offense in a big way here. I hear you. I would have loved for that to be a little bit more of an even matchup between Brown, Dawkins, and Anderson and Hunter. I wish it was a little more even. It wasn’t. And it was pretty clear early on that it wasn’t even close to even. It wasn’t back and forth. It was one-sided. And 90% of the Bills non-playaction passes in this game, it was fiveman protection. That’s it. Fiveman, your offensive lineman, your front five versus whatever they sent 90% of the time, no help, which is actually higher than the season rate of 83%. They said, “You know what? That’s the best edge rushing group in the league. Let’s help our offensive line even less than we normally do. It’s pretty clear to anyone with two eyes, maybe even if you have one, that the Bills offensive tackles couldn’t hold up in that game. And Joe Brady did nothing, even when it was the backup right tackle in nothing. and he said in his postgame on Friday he wish he would have done more with the protection schemes. Well, that’s an unacceptable thing to say. You can’t say you can’t say that. The whole world knew the knew the matchup. The whole world knew the matchup. The whole world saw the game. And your hindsight thought on Friday is, man, I wish I would have done more to help the protection. Well, come on. Like, in the heat of action, you got to be able to get this done. The progression style passing was just not not possible to function. They needed the help. Bills made a ton of mistakes. Shakir fumble. Awful. Josh Allen’s first interception. That’s a mistake. But you know what? I I actually don’t really take much exception with it. I thought Josh had the right idea. It looked like that linebacker was driving down on the flat. He came back, stuck his hand up, and made a great play. It happens. So that’s ball, right? Sometimes that’s going to happen. But an unfortunate sequence, but all through all the problems that the Bills had in this game, they still had a great chance to win it, right? A great chance to win it. A great chance. And everyone’s going to talk about that last play, whatever they called OPI on Gabe Davis. I think that’d be a really tough pill to swallow if the Bills complete that pass and it gets negated by that penalty. You look at Dawson Knox being open. I’m not sure that Josh Allen could see him. I don’t think he could see him. I don’t I don’t think his vision was able to get the ball to Knox. Palmer kind of carried his route a little bit deeper. Josh thought he was going to cut it off and you threw a pick. I go to the play before that one, right? Of course, you have the Dawson or the Deion Dawkins false start, but the play before that was the ball that Will Anderson got his hands on. Josh Allen can get that ball up a little higher. That’s to secure who knows, it’s at least a first down, maybe a touchdown. Gabe Davis on the fade ball there at the end. Pinned up against the sideline. Couldn’t get the second foot down. The Bills had great chances to win this game despite their own issues. couldn’t make the plays there at the end. It’s happened a lot, right? How many times have we seen it? Offense has a really good chance there at the end. Maybe they shouldn’t be in that spot because you wish the defense played better earlier or whatever you want to say to, but offense had a chance to get it done. They couldn’t get it done. All right, I got a little bit more to say about the passing offense. I want to talk about mesh, right? That’s been a big topic kind of coming out of this game. It’s something I’ve talked a lot about uh before on this podcast. I want to talk about mesh. then get into the rushing offense where I I think the Bills really really blew it. I’ll be honest with you, with their rushing offense. We’ll talk about that snap counts, then get into the defense. So, folks, be sure to stick with me. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. The holiday season is one of the best times for sports. Bowl games, big basketball matchup, playoff pushes, it’s all happening at once. 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That’s code lockdown NFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup prize picks. It’s good to be right. All right, let’s talk about mesh. Mesh is a passing concept where you basically have a player from one side of the formation and a player from the other side of the formation. They both run shallow crossers and they mesh and then you kind of hope that one of them comes through the wash free and then you layer things on top of that. So the Bills like to run, you know, the mesh concept. You have the two shallows from both sides and some sometimes they’ll have a a sit route over top of that. Sometimes they’ll have a rail route from the running back. You know, they’ll do different things um to work around the mesh. But here’s the challenge with mesh. And the Bills have been running mesh for years, right? Years. They spam mesh more than any team that you’ll watch in the NFL. It’s a core foundational piece of their passing offense. And I think in some ways the league is caught up to this and they cap it, you know, and then it becomes on Joe Brady to kind of put in some cool wrinkles off of it. But the here’s the the number one challenge with mesh. And I’m not saying it’s a bad concept. I think it’s good in some ways. I like mesh. Maybe not to the degree that the Bills run it, but here’s what it comes down to. When you run mesh, those two shallow crossers, right? They have to clear each other before you can make a decision with the ball. So that means that Josh Allen just naturally has to hold on to the ball a little bit longer and you put a little bit more stress on your protection scheme. Did you hear what I just said? When you run mesh, you can’t throw the ball until the mesh clears, which puts more stress on your protection scheme and it doesn’t allow Josh Allen to make a very quick decision with the football. How could that be your play call in fourth and fourth in game? It’s fourth in game. You had protected all game. Got a backup right tackle in there. And you want to stretch your protection and not allow Josh Allen to make a quick decision on fourth and six. Fourth and game. It’s a bad play call. It’s BL. It’s it you’re you are you are leaning into the challenges that you have and making them even more challenging in the highest leverage moment of the game. Can’t call the play. You can’t call that play. Fourth and got to have it. He’s fourth and got to have it. We hadn’t protected all game. We got a backup right tackle in there. Let’s make it harder on our protection and let’s make it harder on our quarterback to make a quick decision. What are we doing? That’s the question Josh Allen has. What are we doing? I got the same question. Yeah. So, that’s a challenge with mesh. Sometimes it’s great. It can be really beautiful. You can protect and normally the Bills can. Normally they can. Somebody comes out the other side, you get some cool layers to it, find open guys. It’s also something you do when you don’t have very good receivers, right? you you’re looking to create natural rubs so that guys can get open. Well, why do you need to do that? Well, because they just can’t get open on their own. Let’s talk about the rushing offense. Bills ran the ball pretty well. 24 carries, 143 yards, that’s six yards a pop. James Cook 17 for 116. I thought Houston was inviting the run. They gave some really favorable run looks. And my my big prevailing thought with the rushing offense is that I wish the Bills ran it more. I wish they ran it more in a game that was always pretty close, right? It’s not like the Bills led for too much of it, but it was always a pretty close game. It never became a game where you had to throw the ball a ton, which was super shaky. But they gave a ton of light boxes in neutral boxes. In fact, on 74% of James Cook and Tai Johnson’s runs, so you had 17 runs for James Cook, you had two for Tai Johnson, 74% of them, it was seven or fewer in the box. And the Bills had a 73% success rate on zone runs. Like, there was some great opportunities and there were some very successful runs. Kyle Krabs texted me during the game. I think it was probably in the middle of the second quarter, maybe early second quarter. And Kyle and I really don’t text that much during football games, especially when our individual teams are playing. And Kyle sent me this text message. He said, ‘ Houston is playing with a ton of air, AIRir, air in the front seven tonight. Light boxes, wide alignments. They’re playing with fire. He said, “The Bills will finish with 200 rushing yards and three touchdowns at this point.” Not quite how it finished, huh? The looks were there. The looks were there. They they needed to run the ball more. They needed to run the ball more. I know you want to lean into your playmaking quarterback, but you also got a paid running back and in some ways a very paid offensive line. Four or five starters are paid. It’s okay to run the ball, especially in that game where you’re not protecting well. Shouldn’t have the right ideas. Spamming mesh, you can’t protect. not running it enough when they’re inviting you to run it. Having success running it, still not doing it. Some cool moments, right? We’ll always remember the fourth and 27 lateral. What a great play. We’ll forget it though because it doesn’t matter. The Bills lost the game. Just like the Jordan Phillips in the AFC Championship game, one of the one of the greatest defensive plays you’ll ever see. Nobody’s going to remember it because they couldn’t finish the game. Had some great opportunities. Couldn’t finish. It’s what it comes down to, right? Just couldn’t finish. 0 for two in the red zone. Only time you scored was on a kick return touchdown and from 45 yards out. You really couldn’t finish drives. You had some good chances to do it. Offensive snap counts. The Bills 66 snaps of offense. Josh Allen on the field for all 66. At running back, James Cook 36 out of 66 snaps. Ty Johnson 23. It’s nice to see Ty Johnson ramp up a little bit. He helps this team. He’s a good player. Ray Davis six snaps. Reggie Gilliam 11. At receiver, Khil Shakir 44. Ray Davis 36. Or excuse me, not Ray Davis. Gabe Davis. I’m still I got to recalibrate myself. When I see Davis, that’s what I have down. Davis 36. I got to remember that there’s a Gabe now. Gabe 36. And I I really appreciated Gabe again in this game. I thought the completion that he had on the left sideline against Kamari Lacer where he’s pushing vertical, runs a deep comeback, it’s an awesome that’s an awesome route on the on the linear plane. Push vertical, get into that blind spot, work back down, create a ton of separation, and the chemistry was beautiful, right? It looked looked so much better than when they try to run that to Kon Coleman. And then Gabe Davis, his uh for love of the game routes are pretty pretty awesome. He runs a lot of picks and he’ll do a lot of different things that are designed to get other people open and they do and he’s he’s a helpful player for sure. It’s a very very stark contrast between him and Keon Coleman out there. Bill’s offense is better because Gabe Davis is on the field. Josh Palmer 33 snaps, Elijah Moore 27, Tyrell Shavers 26. Tight end Dawson Knox 57 of 66 snaps. Spencer Haw did it again. Jacksonhaw’s 22 snaps out of 66. Collect laid two off the practice squad eight. Alec Anderson one. The offensive line, the middle three, Edwards, McGovern, Torrance played all 66 snaps. And Deion Dawkins played 62. Remember, he left for a concussion check. Spencer Brown 53, Ryan Vandermark 17. I wish that Spencer Brown played a lot less. They let him play through that shoulder like way too long. And I understand those are great edge rushers. But you got one hand, man. Yo, he’s got one hand. One arm against great pass rushers. I know Spencer Brown’s a great offensive tackle, but all due respect, he’s not that great with one arm. All right, we’ll talk defense on the other side of it. And let me say this before we get into the defensive conversation. Don’t let how good they finished in the second half distract you from how bad they were in the first half. talk about that here next. Get to studs and duds. So folks, be sure to stick with me. The NFL season is here and honestly, there’s nothing better than being in the stadium surrounded by fans cheering on your team. But let’s be honest, getting tickets can be a hassle between cues, login screens, and prices jumping at checkout. It is frustrating. That’s why I use Game Time, the app that gives the advantage back to fans. Game time is fast, it’s easy, and it’s backed by the Game Time guarantee. You’re always going to get 100% authentic tickets delivered on time and at the best price. Plus, all fees are included. So, the price you see is the price you pay. The app makes everything super simple. I love that you can even see the exact view from your seat before buying. Honestly, it’s faster, it’s cheaper, and it’s less stressful than any other way that I’ve purchased tickets. So, download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, that’s promo code L O C K E D O N for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go, download game time today. Welcome back, folks. Reflecting on the Bills 23 to9 loss to the Houston Texans. It’s our All 22 review. On Saturday, I sent out over an hour of me breaking down these plays, going through the narrative narrative of the game, showing all the big plays, showing things that stood out to me schematically. I sent that to anyone who has a subtext or a substack subscription. If you’re part of our substack, you get extra film and written content from me three, four times a week, sent right to your email box. If you’re part of our subtext community, you get text message from text messages from me all week long where if there’s Bill’s news, I’ll send it to you with my reaction. I give you in-game texts. You also get access to our all 22 film clips. Like I said, over an hour of me breaking down these plays. Had a lot to say about this one. So, if you want that supplemental content, you want to be part of these things, we have uh Discord as well. So, if you’re in either one of those things, subtext or substack, you get into our Discord community. Over 2,000 Bills fans in there with a big organized group chat. We’re talking all day long. We also go live every Wednesday where we break down film together and I take your questions and we have a herd hangout every single Wednesday night. So be part of what’s going on here. For more details, go to thejoino.com or you can go to the link in the show notes today. Uh they’re in everyday show notes, thejoino.com. You can see all the additional things that we have going on and be part of it. And would love for you to be part of our discord so you can be part of that community. want you to get these all 22 film clips where I think it really brings the conversations that I’m having right now to life. All right, we’re talking about the Bills defense now. Second half was amazing. The first half was bad. It all counts. It all counts, right? So, let’s be happy that they got better in the second half, but let’s not forget that they gave up 20 points in the first half and had three awful drives. Awful. We’ll start with the passing defense. Davis Mills 16 to 30, 153 yards, two touchdowns, only pressured on 27% of drop backs, did not get sacked. Bills only hit him four times. I think the Bills pass defense played reasonably well, especially with a mostly quiet pass rush. Now, they had the two touchdown passes. They had the big passing touchdown drive before the half that really bothers me. Nico Collins made a huge catch. Um 19yard catch. It’s the play where Cole Bishop smacks him smacks him hard. It’s a It’s a textbook legal clean hit when you got a a robber safety in the middle of the field with an incut. Bishop cleans him up in the most perfect legal way and that sucker held on to the ball. Held on to it. He took a shot. That’s a heck of a job by Cole Bishop that through that he’s able to pin that leg and get him down or else Nico Collins might pull away for a house call. And then the play a couple plays later, maybe even the next play, it’s the 33 yard connection to Christian Kirk. The Bills are in cover six. Cover six means cover four to one side, cover two to the other. Four plus two is six. So you’re playing quarter, quarter, half. One safety is responsible for half the field. Then you have the other two deep defenders. They have a quarter each, right? That’s how you space it. And the Bills are in this look and they got a great play call. Houston does where kind of put Taran Johnson in a lot of conflict. He squeezes a route that’s getting behind him, right? So, he squeezes and passes it on behind him. Then he’s got a a dig route that he’s going to try to like cap and squeeze, but he’s got to pass it off to Terrell Bernard and then he’s got to drive on a flat route. Meanwhile, Terrell Bernard is just drifting drifting and not really aware that that incut’s coming and he’s got to cap it. And Christian Kirk gets wide open and has a 33 yard catch and run. And I think the touchdown there is Cam Lewis. It’s the to Jaden Higgins. And I mean, he’s he gets his face crushed on a on an incut. You can’t do it. You got to maintain that leverage. And he gets completely washed. Easy touchdown pass. The other touchdown pass, miscommunication between Terren Johnson and Max Harrison. Um you can see they’re communicating before the half, but or excuse me, before the pass. They both cover the same guy. They both cover the same guy, which leaves the other one wide open. I think they were anticipating there to be a switch release between the two receivers, and they both kind of faked like they were going to, but then they didn’t, and that forced, for whatever reason, both Haristston and Johnson to drive on the outside player, and the inside player was wide open. So, I don’t know exactly who was wrong, but between the two of them, major communication breakdown, but for a a pass defense that really didn’t have much in the way of pass rush, and Davis Mills got the ball out really quick. I was pretty impressed with the pass defense. Again, I I I’m massively concerned about the pass rush. I think it’s completely depleted. It’s just they the tease that we got in that Kansas City game with Hoy, what we saw from Ed Oliver and now you don’t have either of those elements and Joey Bos is playing on one one hand. You don’t really have it. You don’t really have it. Three weeks in a row of pretty much non-existent pass rush. Rushing defense, they give up 26 for 108, 4.2 yards a pop. Boy, they got so much better in that game, right? It was ugly early. You thought the Texans were going to run for 300 yards against the Bills. Well, they they don’t even get to four and a half yards per carry. They hold them to 108 yards. The Bills rush defense for the most part was really really good except for early on. And there was a couple drives early on where Houston just pounded the Bills into oblivion. And there were three players in particular up front that were that were awful, but none more awful than Jordan Phillips 52. Just getting pushed all over the place. All over the place. And I don’t know, like I’ve I’ve watched Jordan Phillips for years now and he’s always been a pretty bad run defender, but he’s especially bad right now. And to me, that just makes it so phony with his energy that he tries to bring and pumping up the fans. It’s like, dude, how do you reconcile the way that you get blown off the ball? How do you reconcile that and feel like, you know what, I’m the guy that needs to be the energy provider? And I’m sure that’s a big part of what he brings to the team. And I’m not saying it’s not meaningful, but dude, you got to look yourself in the mirror. You can’t be getting blown off the ball eight 10 yards and and and try to be the tone setter. Like that the tone setting that you’re doing is getting blown off the ball. Like what’s the point? This guy’s kind of a joke, right? Like he’s on the wrong side of 30. He won’t even play for another team and he’s getting blown off the ball. Like what’s the point? What’s the point? He He was a disaster. Especially on that drive where they I would I mean they ran the ball extremely well. You know the one I’m talking about backto-back plays just blown off the ball 10 yards. I thought Deion Walker for the majority of the game was really good but on that particular drive he was he was just like Jordan Phillips getting blown off again. I thought he got a lot better as the game moved along. No question. And then TJ Sanders out there trying to play defensive end is a joke. It’s an absolute joke. You drafted this guy in the high second round, traded up for him to be a defensive tackle. Ed Oliver is not available to you. Like the player that you would think TJ Sanders can come in and replicate what you were getting. You’re playing him at faking defensive end. He can’t play defensive end. I don’t understand this. It’s not helpful to him. It’s not helpful to the defense. So why is it happening? Of course they’re going to run a reverse at TJ Sanders playing defensive end when he’s not a defensive end and he’s not going to be where he’s supposed to be. Of course he’s not going to be a consistent edge setter at defensive end. Of course he’s not going to be as good of a pass rusher from those wider alignments. What is happening? What is happening? You got him playing on the edge. Anything would be better because I want TJ W Sanders playing where he’s supposed to play on the inside. I’d take great exception with that defensive snap counts. 59 defensive snaps. Greg Rouso 44 of them. You certainly hope for more there, right? Going up against that a couple of bad tackles in my opinion. Quiet. Good run defense. Couple good pass rushes, but that’s a game where you want more. I get it. I love Russo, but need more. Bosa 39 snaps is one hand. I mean, I’m just going to keep saying it. Wa. Watch him play. Doesn’t have access to his other hand. AJ Epanessa 24 snaps. He’s doing that thing where he’s awesome for like the first 10 or 11 or maybe not 10. First few games and then he just disappears. TJ Sanders played 16 snaps. Uh only two of those were inside reps. Javon Solomon, five snaps. At defensive tackle, Dacoin Jones 31, Deion Walker 31, Jordan Phillips 23. It’s 23 too many, Larry Joby 22. Like, why wouldn’t you have TJ Sanders play those 23 snaps of Jordan Phillips and increase Epanessa snaps off the edge, increase Solomon snaps off the edge? Seems pretty obvious to me. at linebacker Terrell Bernard 30 before he got hurt. Shaq Thompson 34. Good football player, huh? Anytime that guy steps on the field, it’s just good football player. Matt Milano 31 snaps. I thought he really came on in the second half. Started just I think he got to that point where he’s just like, I’m just going to go. Like I’m not going to try to like get too cute or like read this. I’m just going to freaking go. And boy, it turned into some nice plays. I love seeing that. Dorian Williams 19 snaps at corner. Christian Benford 56. I kind of still continue to feel like he’s turning this season around. Playing a lot better recently. Trey White 33 snaps. Had a couple of really nice impressive reps. Max Haristston 29. Taran Johnson 41. You know how Bobby Babage used to say it’s hard to take Taran Johnson off the field. I don’t think it’s hard anymore. I think you think you want to lean into some base and some different ways to to help because he’s he’s massively regressed. At safety, Cole Bishop 59, Jordan Puyer 47. Heck of a game for Jordan Puyer. Really respect his effort, the tackling, stabilizing things on the back end. I thought he played well. Cam Lewis, 14 snaps, Jordan Hancock 12. Real quick on Ray Davis, because I’m going to do studs and duds and I’m not going to have any studs. And you’re probably thinking to yourself, Ray Davis had a kick return touchdown. And it was an amazing play. I loved it. I loved that play. Chris Dabers’s got a really cool scheme going right now where he’ll take three guys, put them in the middle, and then depending on the direction of the kick, he’ll they’ll go that way and they get great angles and it’s led to some really good kick returns and including that the kick return touchdown for Ray Davis. But then I thought he made two massive mistakes. And look, you I know you’re not going to want to hear this. I people are going to be like, I can’t believe you’re nitpicking this. Well, I think it’s pretty critical. So, hear me out. Amazing play. Then two massive blunders. The first massive blunder is the end of half, right? So, it’s the end of half. The Bills have like no time left. And he takes a knee. They kick it in the end zone. He takes a knee. You got to take that one out. You got to take that one out. You got a chance to score because otherwise you’re just going to take a knee and then Josh Allen’s going to take a knee. That’s what happens. No, no. Take the ball out and try to score. Then the opening drive of the second half, what does he do? He takes the ball out. He catches it like probably at least five yards deep in and he takes the ball out. And where does he get tackled at the 20? That’s a 15 yard loss. It’s a 15 yard loss because if you take the knee, you get it to 35. Do you understand the difference? It’s end of half. There’s nowhere to go. Josh Allen is going to take a knee on the next play. You got to take it out and see what happens. You got to then to open the second half. You catch it deep into your your end zone. and you take an and and you don’t take it out or you do take it out and you get tackled at the 20. If you take a knee, you get a 35, it’s a 15 yard loss. Those are two massive decision-making errors. I love the kick return touchdown, though, and I’m very excited about his trajectory as a kick returner, but I can’t put him as a stud when you had two errors on top of the one good play you made. So, no studs. I got three duds for you. Deion Dawkins, Spencer Brown, Joe Brady, and Jordan Phillips. All right, I’m excited to flush this one, move on, talk about something else. Uh so we will uh starting tomorrow. Um have some unique ideas for what we’re going to get into. We kind of have an open topic. So we’ll do that tomorrow and then uh Wednesday we’ll start uh getting ready for the Steelers and uh break that game down and get ready for it. So make sure you’re subscribed. I would love it if you took a second to rate, review, and share the podcast. Have a great rest of your day. Go Bills and I look forward to catching up with you again real soon.

Buffalo Bills fall to the Houston Texans after critical offensive missteps and questionable play-calling. Can Josh Allen and the Bills rebound before their playoff hopes slip away?
Joe Marino breaks down Buffalo’s 23-19 loss, spotlighting protection breakdowns against Houston’s disciplined defense and the disastrous impact of relying on mesh concepts with weakened offensive tackles. Key topics include Gabe Davis’s standout routes, James Cook’s explosive runs, and glaring missed opportunities in the ground game. The analysis covers defensive lapses in the first half, Jordan Phillips’s struggles up front, and the puzzling deployment of rookie TJ Sanders at defensive end. Upcoming challenges against the Pittsburgh Steelers loom large as Buffalo searches for answers.
Will the Bills adjust before it’s too late?
Visit https://www.thejoemarino.com/ for details on Substack, Subtext, Merch and more!

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