Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN/WGR 550) - It was an ending to the 2021 season that no body on the Buffalo Bills had expected, or wanted when the team gathered for training camp this past July.
Despite a valiant effort on Sunday in the AFC Divisional Round against the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo came up just short in a heartbreaking 42-36 overtime loss at Arrowhead Stadium.
"Last night f------ sucked," said Bills defensive tackle Harrison Phillips said on Monday after the loss. "[It's been] 24 hours, so it's still in that first wave of pain, I guess, but got to have a growth mindset about the whole thing, and hope that we can get ourselves in the same position again or even better playing at home in the seasons to come. But I think everyone eventually will kind of look at themselves and see what they could have done better, how we could've played as a group better. So just a lot of reflection and sorrow today. Today's a hard day."
Sunday's loss to the Chiefs ends a 2021 season that saw the Bills finish with an 11-6 record and win the AFC East title for a second-consecutive year. However, the players commonly referenced this past season as a rollercoaster year, one with plenty of ups-and-downs as the weeks went on.
"It was definitely a tough year. I think each year is gonna be a little bit different," said Bills linebacker Tremaine Edmunds on Monday. "We went through a point of the season when... a lot of people were ruling us out, counting us out, but it just took the effort and the resilience from the guys in the room to just keep fighting. Each week, we just kept coming in, believing in the process, trusting one another and we just kept fighting. Obviously, it didn't turn out the way we wanted it to, but got to take the hat off to the guys for continuing to put our head down and grind."
The 2021 season got started for Buffalo with a disappointing home loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in front of a sell out crowd at Highmark Stadium for the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic. While Buffalo got off to a hot start in that game, things fell about for the Bills, and the Steelers took full advantage and stole a victory from Buffalo.
However, Buffalo responded loudly with four-straight wins that saw the Bills outscore their opponents, 156-41. This included a Week 5, 38-20 win over the Chiefs at Arrowhead after the Bills had lost in the AFC Championship Game the season before.
The Bills' winning streak came to a sudden and abrupt end in Week 6 on "Monday Night Football" against the Tennessee Titans. This was the game that saw quarterback Josh Allen slip on a quarterback sneak attempt deep in Tennessee territory with time dwindling down on the clock.
Following the Bills' bye week, the team rose to the occasion to grab a seventh-straight win over their AFC East rival Miami Dolphins.
After that point is when the Bills' season started to see its ebbs and flows, starting with a stunning Week 9 loss to Urban Meyer and the Jacksonville Jaguars. From there, Buffalo would go on to beat the New York Jets, lose to the Indianapolis Colts, beat the New Orleans Saints on Thanksgiving, and then lose two-straight games to the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
After sitting pretty in the division standings and looking to be in control of their own destiny, the Bills had fallen out of first place in the AFC East, and even sat in the "In the Hunt" category for a brief moment of the AFC playoff picture.
But during the game in Week 14 against the Buccaneers, something clicked with the team play overall.
In the first half, the team looked sloppy on both sides of the ball with the offense failing to put up any posing threat, while the defense could not make a tackle or get a big play to swing the game back in their favor.
"What really started clicking for us was that second half of the Tampa Bay game. Just kind of lit a fire under us, started feeling some momentum, having fun again on the sidelines," said Bills tight end Dawson Knox during his end-of-season press conference on Monday. "That's something that's huge in football that people don't really talk about. It's having fun, it's trusting in the brother that's next to you, playing for each other. Just for the love of the game and for the love of everybody in your huddle. Just getting back to the basics, getting back to that love of the game and just having fun on the field was huge for us. That kind of showed itself over the last five or six games."
From there, Buffalo managed to win-out in the regular season, beating the Carolina Panthers, Patriots in Foxboro, Atlanta Falcons and the Jets in Orchard Park to re-take the AFC East lead and eventually capture another division title.
After finishing the regular season as the three-seed in the AFC, it set the stage for a third meeting of the year between the Bills and Patriots, this time back in Orchard Park in bitter cold temperatures.
That Saturday night in the AFC Wild Card Round saw Buffalo put up a nearly perfect performance offensively, scoring seven-straight times on seven drives before kneeling out the game on the eighth offensive drive. Allen was as close to as perfect as one could get, going 21-of-25 in the air for 308 yards and five touchdowns.
That, then, set the table for Sunday night's Divisional Round showdown with the Chiefs, back at Arrowhead Stadium with a trip back to the AFC Championship Game on the line.
"I think everybody knows that's the team they need to beat," said Allen, who spoke of the Chiefs on Monday afternoon. "Again, you look at the track record over the last few years of who's been playing in what games, they've been there. They've been in the AFC Championship, they've been in the Super Bowl twice. So every year you go into that knowing that you're probably going to see them at one point or another in the playoffs."
Sunday's game ended up a high-scoring affair, especially in the final two minutes of the game when the Bills and Chiefs combined for 25 points scored and a total of three lead changes. However, when it came to overtime, Buffalo's defense was gassed and had no solutions for stopping Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City offense.
The Chiefs ended up taking the ball 75 yards down the field in eight plays, capping the game off with an eight-yard strike from Mahomes to tight end Travis Kelce to eliminate the Bills and end their season.
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"We're an extremely close team, and we're close as a team, we're close as a defense, and we're close as a defensive line room," Phillips said. "We built a solid unity, even through the OTAish period, where we were here, where we weren't here, where virtual and then through training camp. All the stuff that happened this season, we stuck together. We didn't point fingers, because we had really high highs and really low lows. But yeah, the Brotherhood is incredible. That's what adds an extra layer of emotion when you come out of a season like this."
So now the offseason begins with plenty of questions to address going forward. Who stays? Who goes? What additions does the team need to make via the draft or free agency?
One of the major questions that's on the immediate horizon, likely in the coming days, is the future of both coordinators on head coach Sean McDermott's staff.
Both offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier have already interviewed for head coaching vacancies around the NFL, with Daboll reportedly being a finalist for the job with the New York Giants. Buffalo has already lost assistant general manager Joe Schoen to the Giants this offseason, who named him to be the team's next general manager.
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While the Bills have been lucky to keep their coaching staff relatively in tact for the past few seasons, they know that time's likely not on their side anymore. This certainly appears to be the case with Daboll, who's already interviewed with the Giants, Dolphins and Chicago Bears.
"Whatever happens in the coaching carousel in the NFL, I think teams would be foolish not to offer Brian Daboll a job," Allen said of his offensive coordinator. "I'm praying they don't, because I want him back here, but I love him and his family too much to really think that. I think he's one of the best coaches in the league, and I think whatever team gets him, he's gonna be lucky. But whatever is in this building, I know we're going to go out and compete for each other."
"If he does end up somewhere else, I wish him all the best. He deserves everything that he'll get and more," echoed Knox. "Obviously, selfishly, we want to keep them here. He's shown that he's an elite offensive coordinator, but if he does end up somewhere with a head coaching job, I think there wouldn't be a single person in this building that would wish something bad for him. You know, everyone loves [Daboll]. Everyone wishes the best for him, so we're excited for the future for him, whatever that might be."
If there was any question that should no longer be asked of anyone going forward is the play of Allen and his demeanor as the starting quarterback of the Bills.
While his 2021 season was not as prolific as his 2020 campaign, where he finished second in MVP voting for the year, the 25-year-old still put up one of the best seasons for any quarterback in franchise history. Allen went on to complete 63.3% of his pass attempts for 4,407 yards, and 36 touchdowns. He also added a career-high 763 yards on the ground this season and six touchdowns, while averaging 6.3 yards per-carry.
Over the past few seasons, Allen still has those around the football world that doubt his capabilities as a starting quarterback in the NFL. Whether it's his accuracy, the occasional off game, or his impact on the ground over his passing abilities, people have shared their criticisms of the former seventh overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
However, following a stellar two-game performance in the 2021 NFL Playoffs that saw him complete 77.4% of his pass attempts for 637 yards and nine touchdowns to no interceptions, Allen's teammates don't want any part of anyone's criticisms anymore.
"It's always funny to me when I hear people doubting Josh. If you're still doubting him at this point, I don't know if you know anything about football," Knox said of his quarterback. "He's an MVP caliber player, and he's shown that every game that we played. I mean, he's making incredible plays left-and-right, sometimes you just kind of sit back and watch the replay on the Jumbotron, like, 'did that really just happen?' There's a couple plays where I'm getting to watch him run around like, 'oh my god, this dude's my size jumping over safeties, and then stiff-arming [defensive] ends,' while making touchdown throws falling to the ground."
"He's worth every penny. He probably even took a discount, which sounds crazy, but he probably could be making more but he took a discount to be here, because he loves this place, he loves the team and he's a team first guy and he always will be. He's never going to be that cocky, me first superstar ego guy. He's our guy. He's our leader, he's our general, and we hope to be playing with him for a long time."
"Obviously full bias, because he's my best friend, but I believe he's the best football player in the world," Phillips said. "It's incredible to see what he does and how he can make plays. Fourth down, you know he's gonna convert, and what he did last night, again, no surprise to me. I know who he is, and I think that although we came up short and he doesn't care anything about all that, I think a lot of people respect him more for how well he played. He would have rather won the game, obviously, but starting to get the national attention that he deserves."
As the days will turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months this offseason, more questions surrounding the Bills for 2022 will be answered with time. In the meantime, it will be a period of rest and recovery for many Bills players, as the outlook for 2022 will begin in short order.
"Rome wasn't built in a day, and we want to continue to trust that process," Knox said. "Right now over the next couple of weeks, we're going to go find a beach somewhere, get football off our minds, rest, recover, and just mentally reset and then look back at the game and learn from it. And then just take it for what it is, and keep building on this incredible franchise everyone's been building."