The result of Sunday's game was not up to the standard of Buffalo Bills football and the players and coaches in the locker room know that. After the game, the players stated that they need to execute better to give themselves a chance to win.
After a 41-15 loss to the Colts, the Bills will have to flush this game from their system and move on quickly. With their next game on Thanksgiving approaching fast, this team will have to regroup and come ready to fix their mistakes Monday morning.
The Bills play the New Orleans Saints on Thursday night at 8:20 pm and according to Sean McDermott, there's a positive and a negative to that quick turnaround.
"There's some bad to short turnarounds because you can't really get back on the practice field for all that much time," McDermott said. "Then there is some good to it so you can move on and move forward. I'm not really sure which one I like more, to be honest with you."
Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins agreed with Coach McDermott that there are both upsides and downsides to playing on a short week after a loss like this. The team will not only have to recover mentally in a short amount of time but physically as well.
"Well, it's both ends," Dawkins said. "It's a disadvantage and it's an advantage because we don't have to have to let this one sit on us for a full week. We can flush it fast and keep it going naturally. But the best thing that we have to do is just recover as fast as possible and get our minds and our bodies ready for this Thursday night game."
After trailing early in the game against the Colts, the team couldn't find their footing, and the offense couldn't get in a rhythm. Turnovers have been the Achilles heel for the offense in their losses this season. After the game, Josh Allen put the blame on himself and stated that he needs to do a better job of protecting the football. With the short week, Allen explained how they can put an emphasis on fixing these issues while shifting focus to the Saints.
"We got to rely on each other, rely on our coaching staff, and rely on what they're telling us," Allen said. "Try to put together a game plan again. We've played in a few Thursday nights since I've been here. These are the ones that that come up on you quick and you got to find the game plan as quickly as possible, and it really just comes down to execution."
Dawson Knox took on some of the blame for the loss and noted that it wasn't all on Allen. Knox had a few drops today and said that those were unacceptable. He knows how hard Allen's job is and he knows when the ball comes his way, he has to catch it.
This team has battled through adversity before and come back from tough losses. Knox thinks that playing again on Thursday night will help with that.
"We've seen how resilient we are," Knox said. "We know that offense, defense, special teams, we got the parts that we need to succeed. You learn a lot from games like this. We're gonna get right back in the film room and get ready for Thursday, but I think it's good to have a game coming up quick so we can get that bad taste out of our mouth."
Sean McDermott thinks the game against the Saints is important because it's up next on their schedule
The Bills have been 2-2 since their bye week and after the loss to the Colts have their sights set on New Orleans. Even with the recent struggles, Sean McDermott isn't putting any extra emphasis or importance on the Thanksgiving game. It's only important because it's the next one.
"It's a journey every season," McDermott said. "It's going to ebb and flow. Again, that to me, is part of the challenge, and I love that challenge, to be honest with you. Not that you want to lose but making those adjustments to get our team exactly where it needs to be and learning who you are as a team, and we continue to grow and move forward. We'll see where we are. We'll see where we are after Thursday night, and just looking at it one week at a time right now."
Josh Allen knows that this is a quality football team and will learn from this loss
The Bills as a whole didn't play their best football game. On all three phases of the ball, there were mistakes that need to be fixed. Josh Allen believes that despite this performance, they can fix those mistakes and get back on track.
"We're a really good football team when we don't bite ourselves in the butt," Allen said. "Again, what we put on that field today is not who we are. I got a lot of trust and a lot of faith in our team. And there's no secret that we need to do a better job on all fronts. There's no way around it but at the same time, it's not panic mode. We got to learn from this one and move on as quickly as possible because again, we're playing on Thursday night."
