Can the Buffalo Bills get separation from better cornerback tandems than they faced the first few weeks of 2025?
After every single loss from their favorite NFL team, the blame game starts for fans. The
first hurdle to clear is “offense or defense.” Finding the right side of the ball to focus attention on is the primary goal, but the secondary is “WHO on the offense or defense.” If it’s more than one or two clear answers, then the flow chart leads to “coaching.”
And while there are, as usual, many different parties at fault for the Bills’ 23-20 loss to the New England Patriots this past Sunday evening, this particular piece is designed to isolate one: the play of Buffalo’s outside receivers against New England’s cornerbacks. This is not to imply that there are no other contributing factors for the L the Bills took to their divisional opponent, but there are some interesting nuggets to discuss about this specific item.
The “WR Train” has been a thing in Buffalo for the last few years, with specific fans, media, and content creators consistently gravitating towards the wide receiver position as being one that needs a greater talent injection for the team to have their best chance of success. The drafting of Keon Coleman high in the second round in 2024 did little to dampen those thoughts, and the team trading out of the pick that playoff thorn Kansas City used to make speedster Xavier Worthy a Chief didn’t help. The rookie season that Ladd McConkey (drafted shortly after Coleman) had for the Los Angeles Chargers poured further fuel on the flames.
While the Bills’ offense had arguably the best year in franchise history in 2024, the WR train didn’t stop. The loss to the Patriots and the underwhelming performance of the passing offense apart from the continued strong play of third-year tight end Dalton Kincaid has reignited the wide receiver discussion yet again.
First things first: the New England Patriots have a fantastic cornerback tandem and they absolutely did a number on Buffalo’s outside receivers. The Bills’ receivers, when positioned outside, combined for nine catches on 14 targets for 89 yards and a touchdown. The overwhelming majority of the passing success experienced against the Pats came from the inside pass catchers (including the aforementioned Kincaid contributing his first 100-yard receiving game).
This success that New England had against Buffalo wasn’t due to some massive swing in man coverage either. The Patriots ran man coverage on 35% of the Bills’ drop backs. Buffalo’s offense has faced, on average in 2025, 33% man coverage weekly. The difference is that their other opponents didn’t have Christian Gonzalez and Carlton Davis III.
But how good does an outside cornerback tandem have to be to impact the way the Bills can perform on the perimeter in the passing game? If they have to be Patriots-level, then what offensive coordinator Joe Brady said in his press conference rings more confidently: that the team isn’t likely to face cornerbacks of that stature again this year. If the cornerback group doesn’t have to be New England-level, how good do they have to be? If the Patriots’ tandem is an 8/10 for example, does that mean that a 7/10 tandem results in what we saw against New England this past Sunday? 6/10? Where is the line?
Josh Allen’s scramble rate is the highest it’s been in the last four years (over 11%). His average time to throw is the highest it’s been in the last four years (2.75 seconds). All of these data points tell us that the concerns about the Bills receivers being able to consistently separate aren’t going away anytime soon.
The Bills still have one of the most productive offenses in the entire league through five weeks of the 2025 regular season. Whether the Patriots game will be looked at as an outlier or an omen when the year comes to an end is a question that can only be answered in time.
…and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive and look for new episodes of “The Bruce Exclusive” every Thursday on the Rumblings Cast Network — see more in my LinkTree!
