Bills' Defense Needs Greater Margin for Error

They've allowed just 23 points total in two of their last three losses.

Even the Buffalo Bills' harshest critic, coach Sean McDermott, has come off the initial sour review he gave his defense following Monday night's 14-10 loss to the New England Patriots.

After looking at the videotape, clearing his head and getting realistic, he understood that his defense can't be presented with zero margin for error and expect to produce a winning performance. No defense in today's NFL can, even in the extreme weather conditions under which the Bills played their last game.

The rules just aren't set up that way anymore. To win, you need points to come from your offense. When the defense and special teams also score TDs, those are just unexpected bonuses.

To that end, the Bills' only touchdown drive in the last game came as the result of a Patriots' special-teams misplay — a muffed punt by N'Keal Harry that gave them possession at the Patriots' 14-yard line.

The Bills capitalized immediately when Josh Allen hit Gabriel Davis with a touchdown pass on the first play.

Their defense has played two poor games — at Tennessee in a 34-31 loss and at home vs. Indianapolis in a 41-15 loss. Their other three losses came as the result of their offense being stifled, a dynamic the Bills annoyingly keep referring to as "shooting ourselves in the foot."

Fact is, a blueprint has been circulating around the league for some time about how to stall out their offense more often than not. It's been out all season, ever since the Steelers victimized their defense for just 16 points (scoring the other seven points off a blocked punt) on the way to a 23-16 win on opening day.

And it's this: Dose them with their own medicine. Play your safeties deep, keep the ball from going over your head. The Bills will take care of the rest with any number of penalties, protection breakdowns, drops and alarmingly poor decisions under duress by Allen and/or the coaching staff. The longer their offense is on the field, the more prone it is to breakdowns that will turn touchdowns into field goals and field goals into punts or turnovers on downs.

Simply put, when you win the field-position battle and force the Bills to put together long touchdown drives, you're going to be successful just about every time.

Their offense has produced 38 TD drives, with just 15 of them going 75 yards or longer. Seven started in opponents' territory.

The Bills also have been poor in the red zone, scoring TDs on just 58.8% of their trips. That ranks 18th in the league. At home, where they are 3-3, they're tied for 27th at 51.9%.

As McDermott says all the time (without enjoying it), that's not good enough.

So can they get this thing fixed in time for their next game (at Tampa Bay on Sunday) or at least before they fall out of the playoff picture entirely?

"A lot of it comes down to execution," McDermott said, "and those are things that are within our control every week. That's where our focus really needs to be. And so that's what I expect going forward as well. As I said after the game, and I still believe, a lot of that execution is on us in terms of what we didn't do.

"So that's what offensive football is. It's execution, so remain confident in the coaches, confident in the players and we go back to work."

Flipping that switch won't be so easy because of the quality of the opponent. Tampa Bay is coming off a Super Bowl championship and is 9-3. The Bills are 1-4 against teams with winning records and are facing a quarterback in Tom Brady who's 6-0 against McDermott.

At 44 and widely considered the greatest quarterback of all time, Brady is just three years younger than McDermott but according to McDermott is playing at "as good as I've seen him play."

And that's not just lip service. Brady leads the NFL in passing yards (3,771) and touchdown passes (34). His completion percentage of 68.3 is higher than every one of his 22 seasons but 2007, when he earned the first of his three MVP awards on the way to a 16-0 regular-season record with the New England Patriots.

Suffice to say the Bills are going to need to score points. Lots of points.

Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.