Do the Bills have a safety problem? Cole Bishop, Damar Hamlin get torched by Bears

Do the Bills have a safety problem? Cole Bishop, Damar Hamlin get torched by Bears

What is up everybody? Welcome in to shout a Buffalo football podcast coming to you live from inside Soldier Field where the Buffalo Bills just got absolutely destroyed. Ryan Talbot, uh I I think I saw a tweet from Thad Brown that this is the worst preseason loss the Bills have had in 50 years or something like that. Did you see that? Yeah, since they lost like 35 to3 I believe he said to the Chiefs or something along those lines. I did see the tweet. So definitely in terms of the final score, not so pretty. Obviously, most of the starters weren’t in this one, but still tons to talk about, Matt. Yeah. And I I also wanted to tell fans about the new um format for the Sha podcast. We’re going to be doing a little bit more immediate reaction, right? Like like we usually do, right? The big big takeaways. Then we’re going to come back with a Monday episode after after we get a chance to maybe talk to the coordinators, uh do our our own deep dive on the the game. Although I don’t know how much we’re going to take away from a rewatch of this one. It was pretty brutal. Uh shouts as always is brought to you by Amtrak. Uh if you’re looking to book a trip throughout New York State, the best way to travel is on Amtrak. They have stops in uh Rochester, Udica, Syracuse, Pikipsy, everywhere you need to go in New York State. You can get there uh on an Amtrak. And there’s it’s great, Ryan. There’s no uh baggage fees, free Wi-Fi, plenty of leg room. It’s the best way to travel within New York State. Absolutely. Amtrak has you covered if you’re looking to book a trip for the end of the summer. All right, so I just got out of the locker room. Got a chance to catch up with Jordan Hancock, which I know a lot of Bills fans are probably like, “Okay, this is one of the only bright spots of this game. How brutal is this that he gets hurt in this game, leaves it with a shoulder injury, doesn’t return. We got a chance to catch up with him for a few minutes.” Said he’s feeling a lot better already. So, you hope that maybe the severity of that uh injury I is limited. Uh the big storyline though in this game going into it, Ryan, was Cole Bishop and the fact that he was probably going to be one of the few starters that saw game time in this game with almost every other starter not playing in this game outside of Josh Palmer who, you know, wanted to get some some reps and some snaps as well on the offensive side of things. So, it was a big opportunity for him playing alongside Demar Hamlin. I know the rest of the starters weren’t in there, but it went about as bad as it could go. And you know, the the big takeaway on that first drive is a missed tackle, and you’re you’re looking for him to maybe get his uh feet under him, which was what he just told us in the locker room afterwards. We’ll get more into that in a second. He lines up one-on-one with Olamide Zakius, the speedy slot receiver who had a really good day in the joint practice on Friday against the Bills. And it’s a tough matchup, right? Like I I don’t want to sugarcoat it too much. out. I don’t want to give Cole Bishop too much of a pass, but that is a really tough matchup. One-on-one for a safety up in the box, one-on-one within like those five yards uh that he has to play him. He just blows by and puts a nice move on him at the line of scrimmage. Cole can’t recover. Kind of looks a little bit slow on the play, but he said, I mean, he’s not practiced all summer. He’s been back at practice, but in a limited basis, it showed out there today. Now, I don’t want to completely hammer down the panic button necessarily, but I do think what we’re seeing right now with the injuries to Taylor Rap and Cole Bishop this summer already. Uh Demar Hamlin also struggling quite a bit today. Cam Lewis, who would probably be your four safety, he’s not available today and they’re going to need him in the slot as the main backup to Taran Johnson. We saw the slot play tonight. It wasn’t pretty. There does need to be some concern within the building and Shawn McDermott said after practice they want to get or after the game they want to get back to Buffalo look at the film here and see what truly happened see what the Bills have and what they might need and you know you start to read read between the lines the Bills go out and maybe bring in a safety uh to compete at the bottom of the depth chart. Jordan Hancock looked really good again tonight but he’s a rookie. He he’s never played a regular season game. There’s definitely some concerns with the safety situation right now as it stands. Yeah, that is the one area where I would have a little bit of a panic level if I were a Bills fan. It’s a preseason game. You don’t want to put too much stock into it. Taylor Rap wasn’t out there. But two guys that are competing for one starting spot, both no-showed tonight. Cole Bishop, he was on a pitch count, limited reps, uh missed tackle, out of position, didn’t have a very good night at the office, and Demar Hamlin didn’t do much better. So, that’s a concern. You mentioned Cam Lewis. Uh the Bills made a move in free agency this year, bringing in Derek Forest, and he has not made any noise this offseason in terms of competing for a spot. So, when you really look at those roster options, there’s not a lot there, and that is concerning. And you know, as for Jordan Hancock, Shawn McDermott splashed cold water all over the idea of him playing a significant role as a rookie because of how much he still has to learn and the growing pains that rookies go through, how much is on his plate. All valid points. So, I almost think that he’s not even going to be in the equation until either they’re forced to do that or until maybe the 2026 season. So when you look at the options at the top, if I’m a Bills fan, I’m a little concerned because this is not anywhere close to the, you know, the good old days of Micah Hyde and Jordan Puyer. Yeah, I was just joking in the in the press box. It’s like, you know, Jordan Puyer comes out recently and says that, you know, the one place he’d probably want to, you know, continue playing uh for is to rejoin the Bills. And I never thought it was an option. I still kind of don’t think it’s a great option, right? like he had a really bad season a year ago and I don’t necessarily know if they want to dip their toes back in that water. You know, there’s some options in the free agent market. Justin Simmons is somebody that Bills fans have been tweeting about, not just this summer, Ryan, but like in in previous summers as a as a but but kind of in the same bucket. Obviously played pretty well last season uh in his one year. I can’t remember he left Denver. Where did he end up? Did he end up in Carolina? Atlanta. He was in Atlanta last year. I thought he played pretty well, but that’s something that the Bills are going to have to figure out is like, do you have enough in that room? Can you trust Cole Beasley in this spot or uh Cole Bishop in this spot? Because Ryan, there’s no like slow ramp up period once the regular season gets here. It is week one, Sunday Night Football against Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry. And I I I don’t know necessarily if you bring somebody off the street right now, get them ready to go for week one and you’d feel better about that than Cole Bishop, but you also have to get Cole Bishop to the season healthy, ready to go. And you mentioned maybe the Bills not being all the way there on trusting a rookie and Jordan Hancock in that situation, but I think I tweeted this. It feels in a lot of ways like there’s some parallels. It’s not perfect, but there’s some parallels to the Kyrie Elum Christian Benford situation. If you remember that year, they drafted Kaire Elum. Everybody thought it was going to be all about getting him on the field and Christian Benford just impressed all throughout the summer, all the way up into the start of the season. Then they split time. Hancock’s a rookie. Cole Bishop’s a second year player. It’s not a perfect fit, but he’s been available. He’s been on the field and I thought he looked really good tonight. Is there going to be plays where he gets beat? Of course there was in the in the practice on Friday. But I also think that if you have a guy that’s got a a level of toughness, he already, you know, sustained a shoulder injury and and kind of is painting that in a pretty good uh picture in the postgame locker room, as opposed to Bishop who consistently misses not not just like a couple days here or there, but like a significant amount of time. Yeah, it it’s an interesting comparison. And Hancock had two really good run stops tonight. He was washed away on a fourth down uh run play where Luther Burden the third came in and blocked him and took him out of the play altogether. So, there’s good and bad there, but he’s been on the field. He’s been available. Uh that’s something we can’t say about Cole Bishop right now who’s missed weeks at a time this summer, last summer. It’s put him behind the eightball. And as much as the Bills loved his athleticism and why they draft him as high as they did last year, we still haven’t seen enough consistent play from him. Now, he needs the reps. He needs the experience, but the Bills really do need a good, you know, I was going to say a safety plan, but a backup plan in the safety room. And of the options you mentioned, maybe Puyer is it because at least he knows the system. The learning curve isn’t as much. Uh the Bills have very very limited cap space. I I still think Simmons is out there hoping to get a decent deal when it when there’s an injury somewhere. Uh whereas Puyer at least seems, you know, more open to coming back to Buffalo. There’s a lot to it. You don’t want to necessarily just turn to the old guard and hope for the best, but Bishop does not have a lot of time to really show the Bills that he is their best option. Uh, I’m off camera here because my uh computer’s all the way down at the crowd here, so excuse me. I want to bring up this uh the one stat that I was tracking during the game. Pro Football Focus now, Ryan, is tracking um pressures and and they’re giving out grades in game. Uh, and I thought it was interesting. And I wanted to kind of tally. I thought TJ Sanders, uh, the Young Bills defensive tackle, struggled against the run in the first half. I thought he got kind of better as the game went along. He ends up finishing with two pressures in the game. Uh, Deion Walker also credited with two pressures in the game. Those two guys got a ton of playing time. And it’s crazy to say, but he wasn’t the the rookie defensive player that I was most impressed with. We already talked about Jordan Hancock, but on the defensive line, I was really impressed with Landon Jackson. There were a few edge pass rush reps where I thought he won one-on-one against the offensive lineman, got into the offensive backfield, affected the quarterback enough to either move him off his spot or get really close to sack. PF had him with three pressures. Uh, NextGen had him with four. So, it’ll be interesting to see where he lands tomorrow. But if we’re talking about now Landon Jackson developing some confidence and and maybe starting to garner some confidence from the coaching staff, now you know, Michael Hoy, who I thought played pretty well tonight, he’s not going to be available for the first six weeks. So, I think Landon Jackson, there’s going to be a situation probably where he’s going to be needed on the field. And he he showed well tonight. This is the best I’ve seen him play consistently over the course of an entire practice or game all summer long. Yeah, I felt early in the game he was getting wiped out pretty well by Chicago’s O line, getting pushed back, not getting a lot of pressure. But as the game went on and as the reps were coming to him, you did see him getting to the back field and winning uh with his power, getting around the outside. Um certainly some things he’d like to to have back in this game, but it’s all about growth for these young players. And there was certainly some growth there. And uh as you mentioned, Hoy, who I was very impressed with tonight. I had him as one of my stock up players. Uh having a sack, uh diagnosing a screen play and blowing that up early in the game. As good as he’s been through two preseason games, you said it. He’s not in for the first six weeks. So, the Bills are going to have to come up with some kind of rotation and plan uh to have in place. And Jackson might be a part of that. Now, mind you, on on the back end of it, they have a lot of guys that are going to get more reps than him, but the rookie is going to play most likely, and having him build some confidence this week and hopefully next week can go a long way for him. I know we handed out our Amtrak hype train player of the week award, but I’m going to give our Amtrak hype train player of the game award in an absolute dud of a game to punter Brad Robbins. I remember back at the beginning of training camp with the Bills cut ties with Jake Kamarda. Both of us were pretty surprised about that. There there was a lot of, you know, excitement from Brandon Bean about being able to land Kamarda as on a futures deal after kind of things didn’t go his way in Tampa. You know, Robins when the Bills brought him in, not as much fanfare, not as much expectation. And you go back to 2023, it was really good for Cincinnati. And I felt like Cincinnati fans when I tweeted about Brad Robbins in this game today were pretty bummed out about the f about their own punter situation currently in Cincinnati. And the fact that Brad Robbins got away after missing almost all of last season with an injury. Punted six times today. Uh or that’s at least the last time I checked. He was averaging almost 50 yards per punt. Ryan, I mean, it was it was great hang time, great distance. Uh, I felt like the punt coverage teams really struggled to get down the field and and reward him for some of the really good punts that he had in this game. But if you want to talk about the punting situation for the Bills going into the season, I think Brad Robbins has checked every single box. And he’s my Amtrak hype train player of the game today. Yeah, like you said, you don’t necessarily want to ever give that award to a punter. Usually doesn’t mean good things, but he did earn it. 52 yard, a good hang time, pinned the uh the Bears at the 24 yardd line on that first punt. He had another big booming kick. I think they went 62 yards that was returned for a short gain. Um really has has shown well this summer because after uh they they moved on from the you know the punter competition. Uh the Bills were adamant that hey he hasn’t won the job just yet. Someone can be brought in if need be. But he had a very steady summer uh and he’s had a very steady preeason. So he has shown up and shown well through two preseason games. It’s so hard to evaluate the offense. Like even the offensive line, there were some interesting things that I think the Bills did in this game. I think Palmer playing surprised me. Uh at the beginning, I’m not reading too much into that in terms of what that could mean for him. I think it was just about all right, as many reps as you can get Josh Palmer before the start of the season and Joe Brady’s offense, do it. They started off Will uh or not Will, uh Chase Lunt, I keep calling him Will Lunt. Get it together, Karino. I don’t I I don’t understand where that’s coming from. But Chase Lunt, the Bills rookie swing tackle, started the game at left guard. And this is something that Aaron Chromemer is known for now, especially here in Buffalo. Tylen Greyel did it last season, working a little bit at guard. He’s done it a little bit this summer. He’s obviously out with a concussion. They’re testing Will uh Chase Lunt a little bit like what can you do on the interior? They played him for the first half at left guard, then they moved him out to right tackle in the second half. They’re throwing a lot on his plate. to kind of see how he can handle it. So then if you need to make a a decision between a couple of different players, maybe there’s an option to make a trade for somebody. You have veterans like Ryan Vandermark and Alec Anderson and and Kendrick Green and maybe there’s somebody in the mix there if Brandon Bean says, “Hey, we can’t keep all these guys. Let’s maybe trade one of them.” Can Chase Lunt handle all of these things on his plate? And I think that he did a pretty solid job tonight. I’m going to go back and watch him a little bit more clearly. But the quarterback play, Ryan, I think Mike White played himself completely out of the quarterback two battle tonight, it was bad. There was just they couldn’t get anything going on offense. Even when the backups came in, it just still looked as hard. It didn’t help that a couple of the moments, we’re going to talk about Elijah Moore in a minute with his two drops, but just from the the quarterback perspective, where do you think things stand? I was almost to the point at the end of the first half where was like, don’t even play Mitch Trabiscy in the second half. Put in Shane Buchelle. Uh, Trabiscy is the backup quarterback. No use in in risking getting him hurt. Uh, they did end up playing Trabiscy for a little bit and he he barely played and he still finished with more yards than Mike White. Yeah. Real quick on L. I think he was responsible for the first the second sack on Mike White, but the fact that they’re moving for I I cannot remember which one it was now, but he was beaten pretty badly on one of them. I didn’t give him as many. I I if it’s the one that you’re talking about, he kind of just got pushed back into the in the offensive backfield. Mike White did him I’m not gonna take any of the blame off of Lunt to your to your point, but Mike White get did him no favors on that play. He basically moved out the pocket and ran right into the sack. It was just it was just a collection of just bad for the Bills offense. But anyway, sorry to cut you off. No, no, it’s fine. Yeah, it I’m I’m glad that they’re moving him around. Yeah, quarterback play. Mike White, I thought at training camp had done a good job of really pushing Mitch Trabiscy. I thought it was pretty neck andneck. I even would have said Mike White might have been slightly ahead in terms of what we saw at St. John Fischer University. But through two preseason games and especially after tonight, I I think you’re looking at the the practice squad quarterback and Mike White, as long as no other team wants to sign him, he did not look good tonight. He was off the mark. He looked uncomfortable. He ran himself into a few of the sacks in terms of trying to get out of the pocket. Uh it was not a good night whatsoever in his audition to be that quarterback, too. Trabiscy comes in and he didn’t have to do much to outplay Mike White, but he did in his limited reps and some of the throws that he made drawing a pass interference, you know, penalty. Although that a lot of that goes to Shavers and getting credit for it, but uh White kind of played himself out of a job tonight. It’s unfortunate because he was having a good summer. Is it freaking you out every single time I kind of drop down to the computer and I just completely come out of the go out of the shot? No. Um I I feel like Shia fans understand that we’re just We’ve got a oneman production team here. I should I should actually take a picture of this. I can’t even because I’m using my phone as the camera right now. Uh but we got a whole new setup here for the for these live uh hits uh in the stadium. Uh you were right. Lunt gave up both sacks to Mike White. Uh so Demerits to him. I I guess it’s more about like, you know, seeing what he can do in a new role. Like I’ve not seen him play at guard most of this year. And it’ll be interesting to see if he did it at all in college. I’m pretty sure he played all of his snaps at tackle um at Yukon over the course of his four-year career, if I remember correctly. I think he said that on his draft call. So they’re they’re basically throwing him into a completely different pool that he’s never swam in before. and and telling them to, you know, be able to tread water and and maybe it didn’t go as well as they would have liked. I’ll be interested to hear what Brady this week and Shawn McDermott say about uh Chase Lunt. Yeah. And, you know, new position, new experience, not a shock that he would struggle in that role, but he did have a really good first preseason game. And I think you’re I think you were spot on where the Bills say we have a lot of good linemen, a good depth issue where we could probably trade one of them to an O line needy team. Lunt being a rookie you want to keep on this roster if you like him enough. So uh the more you can do the better off you are and that’s probably why they tried that tonight playing him at guard. with Khalil Shakir out, you know, you’re looking at this slot uh wide receiver job and, you know, I know Elijah Moore hasn’t done a ton this summer, but I was surprised at how much he was playing and I also was surprised at how poorly he was playing because this is a guy that I think that the expectations when the Bills signed him were pretty high. And over the course of the spring, you know, before the pads went on, I thought that he was kind of gaining ground and it’s just been kind of a hoham summer with not a lot of action. Um, kind of just thinking, okay, maybe uh the big breakout is going to happen when the season starts. You have Curtis Samuel who’s still unavailable. He can’t play in this game. And I think that’s the only thing that’s taking some of the emphasis or some of the attention off of how lackluster it’s been for Elijah Moore. You you you talk about two drops in this game. You could you could talk about Mike White being bad and he was and and and and Mitchell Trabiscy uh to a degree was was kind of just average. You need you need your receivers to make a play when he has an opportunity to make a play. And both times that Elijah Moore had that opportunity. He wasn’t able to haul it in. And on that one pass over the middle, that is just a drop that there it’s inexcusable. And and now you start to question if you’re the Bills. You have Tyrell Shavers who’s had this really impressive summer and Elijah Moore who’s just been kind of unimpressive. What do you weigh more what you know about Shavers, the summer that he’s had versus Elijah Moore’s production in Cleveland, uh obviously being a former second round pick, I I feel like the the closer we get to the the roster cutdowns, the more intriguing questions are starting to pop up, not with most of the roster, but in terms of some of these depth uh roster bubble players. Yeah, I I moved Shavers ahead of Moore tonight. I said in my art my article about stock up, stock down in terms of the depth chart and where I have uh the receivers. Now, mind you, different roles, different players, and how the Bills view them could be the final determination, but Shavers has shown up this summer. He’s shown up in the preeason. Elijah Moore has not. In addition to the two bad drops, Matt, they throw the I I call it the Khil Shakir special, the quick pass out to the receiver. They gave him an opportunity to do that. And what does he do? He makes the mistake of trying to go to the outside rather than, you know, cut up the field like you’re supposed to do on that play. They were they noted it on the Fox broadcast where he was probably trying to get out of bounds because it was late in the first half trying to save time. But the whole design of that play is you cut right up field uh in in the middle of the field. And by him going to the outside, Davidson had to try to create a block in that moment that he wasn’t expecting to have to do. He he grabbed the face mask of the defender and that led to a big penalty on the Bills where Davidson was the guilty party, but it’s because of Elijah Moore making a a mental mistake of where he took that pass. So, even when he caught the ball, he made mistakes tonight. Not a good night whatsoever for Elijah Moore. Some little flying bugs all over my head. Last point I want to get to before we get out of here. You know, we talking about the safety situation with some of the starters in play. And I’m I’m also left I leave this game thinking about the trouble the Bills will be in if they suffer an injury at linebacker, specifically middle linebacker, because Joe Andre tonight, as great of a story as he’s been, and maybe it was an off night. He had that electric performance against Pittsburgh in week two, last year’s preseason, tonight it was the the polar opposite. I mean, I thought he struggled in the run game. wasn’t as much of a presence in the backfield as he’s kind of made his mark to be in these preseason games and in coverage he was a borderline liability at times. I think some of the big time plays that they made offensively, Caleb Williams to Tyson Begent, I felt like a lot of the problems were in the middle of the field and they started with Joe Andre and you know the Bills have a you know Shaq uh Thompson uh who’s working his way back from an injury. He’s a veteran player, but again, at his age, can he stay healthy if he’s asked to play any significant amount of role or amount of time with Joe Andre, I think you still have a little bit of a question mark with that backup middle linebacker spot uh with the performance tonight. And and I will say the one thing you do have out there, you do have Balen Spectre who’s nursing that calf injury, hanging out there in a pinch if you were need to bring him back into the mix. They’re comfortable with him. He knows the defense. But in terms of Andre, it just wasn’t a good night. Yeah, bad night at the office. Two or three steps behind in coverage. You know, he he’s played the run very well in his limited short career. Uh coverage has always been a little bit of a weakness for him. And tonight it was on full display behind guys in plays where he was supposed to maybe drop back or be a little bit deeper downfield. It felt like he was he was uh drawn up by the quarterback at times. There was one where it they dropped it off because Andre tried to come up at the quarterback when he should have stayed back on the unguarded defender and there was a pass that went over his head because he was too shallow and not deep enough. Little things like that. And then when you are out in coverage and you’re two or three steps behind, it’s not going to be a good time for Andrea when they go back and watch this film as a team most likely tomorrow because uh this was arguably his worst performance that we’ve seen in quite some time. We will uh take another look at this game tomorrow. We’ll get a chance to uh likely catch up with Shawn McDermott and the coordinators. Now, it’s not a a regular season week, so sometimes they don’t do that on a Monday. Maybe they push it to a Tuesday. That ends up happening. Our next reaction podcast, if you will, part two will come on Tuesday when once we get a chance to talk to them, they’ll review the film. They’ll talk a little bit more maybe about Cole Bishop and we’ll get into that as well. Uh we’re brought to you by Amtrak as always. Make sure you book your next trip through New York State. Uh amrak.com. It is an unbelievable uh way to travel. Take the stress out of it. Uh, get yourself a ticket on an Amtrak uh, ride. Put your feet up. There’s extra leg room. Uh, no baggage fees and kids uh, ride for 50% off. Shout brought to you by Amtrak for Ryan Tal. But I’m Matt Parino from Soldier Field. See you soon everybody. Have a great night.

The Buffalo Bills sat most of their starters against the Chicago Bears and it showed in a lopsided blowout loss. Some starters and rotation players were in the lineup, headlined by second-year safety Cole Bishop — and it didn’t go well. Matt Parrino and Ryan Talbot discuss the game and whether Buffalo has a problem at safety.

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