Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) - After that stunning loss to the New England Patriots just two weeks ago, we were all worried about what was wrong with the Buffalo Bills offense.
With Sunday night's 24-18 setback in Cincinnati against the Bengals, we should be worried about whether or not this Bills team will miss out on the playoffs entirely.
The Bills are now 5-4 overall, an ugly 2-4 in the conference, third place in the AFC East and ninth in the AFC (pending the outcome of the New York Jets' game on Monday with the Los Angeles Chargers).
Buffalo is running out of room for error, and the offense is still broken.
The story continues to read the same way for the Bills, as it has for the last month. The offense doesn't look right, and it has to be great, because the undermanned defense can't be counted on to win games on its own, or even close out a game the Bills are leading.
As far as the Bills' offense is concerned, the night started out great in Cincinnati. Buffalo's opening possession featured some up-tempo, no-huddle looks, and they went right down the field and scored.
Josh Allen was 5-of-6 for 83 yards as part of a seven-play, 85-yard touchdown drive. The Bills recorded a first down on five-straight plays, and averaged 12 yards a play on the drive.
Then the offense disappeared for the rest of the first half.
The tempo was gone, the crispness in the passing game was nowhere to be found, they stopped targeting Stefon Diggs for some strange reason, and the offense looked as bad as it did against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the New York Giants and New England.
The final four drives of the first half saw the Bills get just 37 yards on 14 plays and manage only three first downs. Diggs, who had two catches on two targets for 43 yards on the opening touchdown drive, didn't get a single target on any of those four drives.
That should never happen.
The offense was better in the second half, as they moved the ball more effectively, but the bottom line was they still didn't score enough points. The only other touchdown came on their final possession when they were trailing 24-10.
Over the last five games, the Bills have scored just 101 points, or an average of 20 points a game.
Blame can be spread all around.
Offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey backed off the up-tempo offense after that first drive for some inexplicable reason, and didn't go back to it until the Bills' final possession. It was a case of too little, too late.
Josh Allen made some bad decisions, leaving positive yardage on a check down on the field to attempt a tougher throw. His second quarter interception was a bad decision since James Cook was open on a check down for a big gain, and it was a bad throw as he underthrew Gabe Davis.
Speaking of Davis, he had zero receiving yards, although he was only targeted two times.
The running game produced nothing, but they didn't really run it much anyway. James Cook and Latavius Murray combined for 24 yards on eight carriesm while Allen was the leading rusher with 44 yards on eight runs and a touchdown.
The best player on offense was rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid, who had 10 catches for 81 yards. However, he also had a critical lost fumble inside the Bengals' 20-yard line early in the fourth quarter that kept the Bills from chipping away at Cincinnati's lead.
This performance will make Dorsey's seat even hotter.
I don't know if the Bills would make an in-season change, but Allen had some interesting comments after the game. When asked about Davis only getting two targets, the Bills quarterback said, "I just tried to try to run the play that's called, and try to execute to the best of our ability."
When they pull out the "I just run the play that's called" line, it usually doesn't bode well for the play-caller.
Allen was asked about the lack of up-tempo usage until their final drive.
"It's just the game plan we had going into it," Allen said.
If up-tempo wasn't in the game plan but it was so effective on that opening touchdown drive, why not adjust the game plan?
By the way, the officiating sucked on Sunday night.
They missed a trip by the Bengals against Kincaid, called Tim Settle for a very questionable roughing the passer penalty, missed a facemask on the Bengals against Davis that would have given the Bills a 1st-and-goal, and called Allen for intentional grounding when it wasn't.
That last flag cost the Bills a field goal attempt just before halftime.
The Bills now prepare for, basically, a must-win game when they host the Denver Broncos on "Monday Night Football" next week.
The schedule then gets nasty after that with games against the Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys and Chargers.
