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Alaina Getzenberg, ESPN
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Buffalo Bills cornerback Rasul Douglas was left to watch the team’s Week 15 win over the Detroit Lions from his home.
Douglas, who was out with a knee injury suffered in a Week 14 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, said watching the game on TV left much to be desired.
“It’s trash. They be showing bad angles. I be just trying to watch [cornerbacks Christian Benford and Kaiir Elam],” Douglas said. “… I’m just trying to see the corners and the safeties.”
Douglas said Thursday that he feels ready to return to the field for Sunday’s game vs. the New England Patriots (4:25 p.m. ET, CBS), though he is listed as questionable. As for what he watched on TV, there is still work to be done.
“We won, but it wasn’t Bills defense,” Douglas said. “… We just got to do a lot better. We can’t be allowing people to score 40. That’s crazy, like, come on man. So, we just got to get back to what we do.”
The Bills have allowed 42-plus points in back-to-back games. For a team with the biggest of aspirations, the defense’s lingering issues need to be corrected. While quarterback Josh Allen is playing at an MVP level on the other side of the ball, the defense — with a number of players still occupying the injury report — is challenged to play its best football and learn from recent high-scoring miscues.
“We just don’t want to make the same mistake twice,” defensive end Von Miller said. “We are able to let [the Lions] come back by 21 points. … And we want to give Josh as many opportunities that he can to go out there, so he can go out there and be special, so he can go out there and make plays and the more shots that he has on goal, the odds are he’s going to do something crazy. He’s going to do something dope.”
The only team in the Super Bowl era (since 1966) to allow 40 points in multiple regular-season games and go on to win the Super Bowl was the 2007 New York Giants (2), per ESPN Research. Only one team made the Super Bowl allowing a completion percentage greater than what the Bills are currently giving up (68.5%, 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
Buffalo allowed the Lions to stay in the game while the Bills were without three starting defensive backs. The Bills also lost rookie safety Cole Bishop during the game, but he has not been on the injury report this week. And veteran linebacker Matt Milano missed the last quarter of the game due to injury.
Until deep into the third quarter, the Bills had held the Lions to an impressive 14 points. Detroit then put together four straight touchdown drives. After allowing Los Angeles to run the ball and thus remain two-dimensional throughout the game, the Bills let the Lions to rush for only 48 yards. The Lions’ rushing offense had not been held under 100 all season.
Third-and-long has been an issue for the Bills at times this year — allowing conversions on 78.8% of such plays (14th worst) — with the Lions’ consecutive scoring started by a 66-yard touchdown from Jared Goff to Amon-Ra St. Brown on third-and-17.
“Work in progress overall,” coach Sean McDermott said of the third-down defense. “I really liked what we did last week in the run game, and the messaging during the week, the players being together on that and being connected in the run game. And so, we’ve got work to do in that area, to your point, and we’re working on that as we go to practice.”
Turnovers have been a bright spot for this defensive unit, as Buffalo is third in takeaways per drive (16.3%). The team’s only games with one or fewer takeaways are five of the six one-score games the Bills have played and the loss to the Baltimore Ravens; the only game this season without one was against the Rams.
“The takeaways that the defense has gotten this year, I think have been a big factor for us, in some of those or a lot of those wins,” McDermott said. “So, we have to stay on that and then continue to improve the detail around the run and the pass game collectively.”
This defense has overcome injuries throughout the season, although the Bills have the fewest players on IR in the NFL (3). The team still has a number of injuries to sort through with Douglas, safeties Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin and linebackers Milano, Dorian Williams and Baylon Spector questionable against the Patriots this weekend.
The Bills will finish the regular season against two struggling AFC East opponents in the Patriots and New York Jets, matchups the team can use to get healthy and to improve the pass defense. This week, the defense has spent extra time meeting after practice and preparing to overcommunicate ahead of the loud home environment.
“We just have to find ways to just get off the field,” defensive back Cam Lewis said. “So, first we just got to take care of the run, and I feel like we did that last week. … But we just got to make sure when we do get a third down, third-and-longs, just getting off the field, just giving the ball back to 17. See what he been doing the last couple weeks, we’re trying to give him the ball back as much as possible.”
Source: www.espn.com