Orchard Park, N.Y. — It didn’t matter what the Buffalo Bills defense was facing on Sunday night in their playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. They couldn’t get a stop -- until it was too late.
The Chiefs scored on five of their first six possessions and the Buffalo offense lost its mojo down the stretch in another disappointing postseason defeat.
Bills coach Sean McDermott, who took over as the defensive coordinator this season following the departure of longtime DC Leslie Frazier, took the blame.
“It starts with me as the head coach,” he said. “(Even) if the offense (struggled), it starts with me and I take full responsibility. That’s how I feel about it. ... We didn’t do enough to win the game.”
The Bills earned the no. 2 seed with five straight wins to end their season, guaranteeing they’d play their first two games at home. They’d never played against Patrick Mahomes in a full Highmark Stadium. They were 0-2 against Mahomes in the playoffs, and dropped to 0-3 after Sunday’s game. But the idea pre-game was that Mahomes’ first road playoff game would be the key ingredient for the Bills to finally beat their nemesis when it mattered most.
“I’m extremely disappointed,” McDermott said. “To come out and to not perform the way I’d hoped we would have, it’s extremely disappointing and frustrating. And it’s the type of situation in our business where you got to spend the whole offseason thinking about it.”
McDermott blamed the defense and special teams units specifically for the loss. Kicker Tyler Bass missed a potential game-tying field goal with under two minutes to play in the game. The defense couldn’t figure out how to stop the Chiefs on first and second down throughout the game. Kansas City was just 1-for-5 on third down, but the Bills struggled to get them into those situations.
“We didn’t play the way we needed to, I thought, in two of the three phases,” McDermott said. “Defensively first and then special teams. I thought offense, we did some really good things ... Moved the football, possessed the football, which we knew we had to do against Mahomes and the offense. But overall, we didn’t do enough defensively to impact the game more than we could’ve.”
The Bills were missing two key starters: middle linebacker Terrel Bernard and cornerback Christian Benford, who suffered injuries six days earlier against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Starting linebackers Tyrel Dodson and A.J. Klein both suffered injuries during the Chiefs game and managed to return to the lineup.
McDermott said it’s been a year full of injuries for the Bills. They lost Tre’Davious White and Matt Milano, two All-Pro defenders in consecutive weeks, early in the season. Then the injuries just added up as the calendar flipped to January. Rasul Douglas, Taron Johnson, and Dodson were all likely playing at less than 100%.
Despite their struggles against the Chiefs, McDermott said he never lost faith in his defense.
“Never,” he said. “They’ve been battling all season long, through injuries, through adversity, whatever it’s been and they’ve stepped up. I’m extremely proud of them for that. Tonight we didn’t do enough, starting with me. And so, I wouldn’t trade any one of those guys or tell you that I’m not confident in those guys.”
What’s next for the Bills? An offseason filled with more questions than answers. McDermott vowed to put his energy into finding the answers and coming back better in 2024.
“(Losing) drives you harder, if that’s even possible to drive someone harder,” he said. “Drives you harder to come back next season and continue to work at it. There’s only one team at the end of all this that’s happy. I can tell you that. I’ve been to two Super Bowls. It’s that type of business and you keep working at it.”
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