On the surface, one can clearly argue that the Buffalo Bills won’t go under in 2020. The Bills look to be on the uptick with the recent news of signing head coach Sean McDermott to a contract extension. On top of that, the Bills have hitched their wagon to third-year quarterback Josh Allen. The natural line of thought is that Allen will continue to improve the offense, as he is still young and developing. Combine this with a stellar defensive unit, and on the surface, the Bills have the look of a contender for years to come. Many have anointed the Bills as the heir to the AFC East throne with the departure of Tom Brady this off-season. The Bills win total currently sits at 9, suggesting that they are an above-average team. Let’s take a look at some reasons the Buffalo Bills will go under this 2020 season and fall back below .500.
Why The 2020 Buffalo Bills Will go Under Their Win Total
Last Year’s Schedule
It would be very easy to take the Bills 10-win season last year at face value. However, when trying to forecast the future sometimes it’s necessary to take a deeper dive into things. The Bills strength is their defense, which finished an impressive fourth in total yardage allowed last season. The problem is these numbers were padded by a schedule filled with incompetent quarterbacks. Let’s list the quarterbacks this vaunted stop unit defeated last year:
- Sam Darnold
- Eli Manning (benched for poor performance)
- Andy Dalton (benched for poor performance)
- Marcus Mariota (benched for poor performance)
- Ryan Fitzpatrick, twice
- Brandon Allen (benched for poor performance)
- Dwayne Haskins (first career start)
- Dak Prescott
- Devlin Hodges (rookie, benched for poor performance)
This isn’t exactly a murderer’s row of quarterbacks. The Bills 2019 schedule contained a nearly unprecedented combination of quarterbacks who were too young, too old, or just flat out bad. The Bills have the 12th hardest schedule this upcoming season based on the opponent’s projected wins. This also includes dates against Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson, arguably the two best quarterbacks in the game.
Offensive Offense
Despite the defensive success last season, the Bills offense was only able to average 19.6 points per game. This average was good for only 23rd in the NFL. There is little margin for error when a team struggles to put up points like the Bills. One blown coverage on defense and your offense may never be able to catch up. Noting that low scoring inherently leads to tight games. If you think the Bills go over nine wins, then you are essentially betting on them coming out on the winning side of close games. Scoring margin matters when betting and an inability to score means an inability to create margin.
The majority of the Bills offensive woes stem from Josh Allen’s accuracy issues. Allen completed only 58.2 percent of his passes last season (32nd in the NFL). Accuracy issues have plagued Allen since college despite the fact that he played against inferior competition in the Mountain West Conference. In college, Allen completed only 56 percent of his attempts will at the University of Wyoming. Bills fans are hoping that the addition of Stefon Diggs will propel the offense into a higher tier. The problem is that wide receiver is one of the most dependent positions in all of sports. That is to say that the performance of a wide receiver is directly correlated to the performance of his quarterback. If Allen doesn’t improve his documented imprecision, Diggs could be left watching passes sail over his head all season.
Team’s Psyche
Aside from scheduling and offensive concerns, one has to wonder about the Bills psyche as a team headed into the season. Heartbreaking playoff losses have proven to be incredibly difficult to recover from throughout the history of the NFL. The Bills led the Texans 16-0 in the late third quarter of a Wild Card Round game, yet managed to lose in overtime. This is in spite of the fact that the Bills had a 96.7 percent chance to win the game late in the third. Anybody who watched the game saw Josh Allen implode by taking inexplicable sacks and turning the ball over. The “Super Bowl Hangover” is well-documented, but any kind of close postseason loss has a tendency to linger in a team’s psyche. The Bills will have to show some mental fortitude to recover from last season’s ending.
2020 Buffalo Bills Verdict
The Bills have major offensive concerns heading into the 2020 season. It would also be a tall task for the defense to repeat last year’s performance against what will inevitably be a much better slate of signal-callers. Couple this with the Bills having to overcome a “hangover” after an excruciating playoff loss and the only way to go here is under 9 wins.
