ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (WKBW) — Center Mitch Morse said it best. The Bills' worst enemy, at many times, is themselves.
"It's the familiar topic of shooting ourselves in the foot. We tend to do it at the absolute worst time," Morse said. "The only finger pointing you can do is inwards. If you ask everyone on the team, there's plenty they could've done to come out with a win, which we didn't do."
It's become too much of a familiarity this season. The Bills offense looks great one week, and then sluggish the next. The latter showed up on Monday night as they failed to capitalize in a 14-10 loss to the New England Patriots.
"I didn't think we took advantage of opportunities tonight. I really didn't," head coach Sean McDermott said when asked about Brian Daboll and the offensive performance. "When you're down in the red zone four times, and you're 1-for-4 in the red zone? And your average starting field position was at the 40? That's an issue."
Massive issues that continue to hurt this team week after week. On one possession in the 4th quarter, the Bills had a 1st & goal at the six-yard line and wound up going backward. It ended with a missed 33-yard field goal and points left off the board. Another possession had a bad handoff between Josh Allen and Matt Breida inside the New England 30 resulting in a turnover.
"We needed to execute whatever play was called by Daboll," Allen said. "We understand that we need to play better and execute."
"Score more points," McDermott added. "That's the name of the game. Scoring points."
"Being successful in the red zone is a key factor in winning games along with turnovers. When you lose either two of those, it becomes a very hard game to win," center Mitch Morse said. "There's plenty of times for all us to see what we could have done better, and that's the frustrating thing."
While the Patriots focused solely on running the ball, the Bills allowed Allen to use his arm a lot more than people probably expected them to given the weather conditions. He wound up completing 15-of-30 passes for 145 yards and a touchdown, and once again led the team in rushing with 39 yards on six carries.
Frustration was evident among the players after the game, because it's another one they could have and should have won. The loss now puts them 1.5 games behind the Patriots in the AFC East standings and more importantly, puts them 7th in the AFC overall standings.
"It's not a feeling of oh wow our season's over," tight end Dawson Knox said. "But yea, definitely disappointment."
"We're pissed off because we want to be great. We're pissed off for greatness. We expect so much out of ourselves and when we don't play the way we know we can play, it could be angry-ing at times," Allen added. "But with the makeup of the guys that we got, I got no doubt in our ability to turn this around, and start winning games here toward the end of the season."
