HOUSTON – Eleven games into this regular season, the Buffalo Bills seem like a team still searching for what it’s supposed to be.

It’s a group that has been wildly inconsistent on defence and hard to watch on offence at times this season, including Thursday night in Houston where the Bills fell to 7-4 on the season with a 23-19 loss to the Houston Texans.

The final score wasn’t the story, and the fact the Bills had a chance to win a game in which they lost the turnover margin 3-0 and surrendered eight sacks is hard to make sense of.

But the things that have led the Bills to five straight division titles and made them annual Super Bowl contenders simply weren’t on display Thursday night.

Where to begin?

We’ll start with the pass protection, which had Josh Allen running for his life all night. The Bills offensive line doesn’t get a lot of attention on team with a star QB, but it’s been the bedrock on which the offence has been built, consistently protecting Allen and opening holes for star running back James Cook.

But there have been times this season when they’ve looked overwhelmed, and Thursday in Houston was the most extreme example to date.

Most of the Bills’ positive offensive plays were those where Allen got rid of the ball instantly to his first read, or in circumstances where the scheme was designed to get one player free in the opposite direction of where the play appeared to be heading.

Standard plays where Allen dropped back, surveyed the field, and delivered downfield from the pocket to an open receiver were almost non-existent. That isn’t supposed to happen when your quarterback is a 29-year-old reigning NFL MVP.

The Bills’ targets, minus injured tight end Dalton Kincaid and 2024 draft pick Keon Coleman, who was a healthy scratch for a second consecutive game, struggled to create separation. When Allen tried to buy time to allow them to do so, he was brought down behind the line of scrimmage more often than not.

And the “Everyone Eats” mantra from last season? On Thursday, Khalil Shakir had 10 targets and eight catches, more than twice as many of each than any other Bills player. Shakir is a good receiver, with exceptional hands and yards-after-catch ability. But sending 10 of 24 targets his way says more about what the rest of Allen’s weapons weren’t able to do than it does about Shakir having a great night.

Similar to the Bills road loss at Atlanta several weeks back, the Buffalo defence stiffened in the second half against the Texans and provided a path for the offence to deliver a win.

But three fourth-quarter trips into Texans territory produced three points.

The most telling moments of the night came on Buffalo’s first drive of the fourth quarter, facing first-and-10 at the Houston 32-yard line.

The Bills handed the ball four consecutive times to Cook, including a fourth-down carry on which he was stuffed, resulting in a turnover on downs.

You’d have to search pretty deep to find an offensive series inside the opposition 35-yard line where Allen didn’t attempt a single play with the ball. The only explanation being that in that instance, offensive co-ordinator Joe Brady didn’t have the confidence to put the ball in the air, perhaps fearing a sack might push the Bills into iffy field-goal range.

Given the way the night went, it was a legitimate fear. But when you’re afraid to put the ball in the hands of the best player in the league something’s not right.

There wasn’t much to salvage from this one, save for the strong defensive performance in the second half.

But that tendency of the Bills defence to improve as the game rolls on represents a failed element of important complementary football on a team that struggles to stop the run and has had trouble handling pressure at the line of scrimmage.

More and more it’s clear that the Bills need a game script that involves getting an early lead to minimize the team’s weaknesses. But that all goes out the window when the Texans score points on four of their six first-half drives.

So, where do the Bills go from here?

Well, it starts with the Pittsburgh Steelers, their next opponent – a team that comes with upper-tier pressure and sack rates, so the Bills will get tested immediately on their ability to fix what was clearly broken against Houston.

On offence, the Bills could get tight end Dalton Kincaid back, having missed two games in a row with a hamstring injury. Presumably their struggles against the Texans will be enough to put Coleman back in the gameday roster but he’s not been the answer to anything so far this season.

Defensively, the Bills are what they are, which means the offence better figure out how to score more than the 16 points they put up against the Texans.

All of the criticism the Bills are sure to receive from this game has to be measured against it occurring against a team with the NFL’s best defence.

But any way you slice it, the Bills lost a game to a 5-5 team that was playing with its backup quarterback.

And right now, the Buffalo looks like an absolutely average football team with an extraordinary quarterback who is running out of miracles.

Related Stories