The Buffalo Bills, who started almost all backups yesterday, were shut out by the Chicago Bears by a final score of 38-0, causing Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott to express how “concerned” he is about the team’s performance.
“Certainly not up to our standard, what we expect,” he told reporters after the game. “Got a lot of work to do, that’s very clear. Doesn’t matter who’s out there – ones, twos, threes, fours – whoever it is, we expect them to perform, and we expect our level of performance to be much better than that.”
The Bills experienced failures across the board. They didn’t convert a single third- or fourth-down attempt while committing ten penalties for 96 yards. Also, the offense was held to 180 yards, while the defense surrendered 528 yards to a Bears team that had many starters in, including quarterback Caleb Williams.
“We didn’t win the line of scrimmage,” McDermott explained. “Fundamentally, we weren’t good enough. Too many penalties. We get out there and – playing against their ones – we expect to compete with them, and that wasn’t the case early. Then our twos who were out there competing against their twos, and our threes against their threes, it didn’t get much better. We got to look at it, figure some things out, and evaluate some of the guys as well, and see where we stand there. A lot of work to get done this week as we move forward here.”
McDermott said that the team had a good week of training camp leading up to the contest, especially with the joint practice against the Bears. However, those efforts were not reflected in yesterday’s game.
“So, I thought we made some momentum, had some momentum coming off that practice, which I thought was a good practice for us,” he said. “Tonight, however, not even close… I felt like we had moved in the right direction, holistically, coming out of that practice… Tonight was a chance for us to also evaluate some of the other players on our roster, and, in doing so, also hope to keep some of our starters healthy as well. So, was looking forward to seeing some guys with the opportunity tonight step up, and I didn’t sense that as much as I’d hoped.”
McDermott added that he is worried “about a lot of things” following the blowout loss.
“I’m concerned about a lot of things coming off of tonight, really,” he said. “We gotta look at the film and really just see who we have, who can help us, what we may need, and then also things that we can just do better execution-wise, fundamentally, those things. There’s a lot that needs to get cleaned up.”
McDermott also highlighted the defensive line’s deficiencies as one of the main causes for the lopsided loss.
“It starts up front, like everything does,” he explained. “You want to win a game, you got to win the trenches. And, we had a hard time stopping the run. We had a hard time stopping the pass. Those two work together, the rush and the coverage, as you’ve heard me say over and over again.”
All McDermott and the Bills can do is watch the tape and see who stood out in last night’s game.
“We’re trying to see who can who can play up with the varsity, if you will, and who can help us,” he concluded. “So, that’s part of the evaluation from tonight.”
The Bills’ final preseason game is scheduled for Saturday, August 23rd. Kickoff in that one is set for 7:30 p.m. EDT.
