5 things that stood out in Bills' horrendous Week 6 loss to Falcons

ATLANTA - The Buffalo Bills have never lost the first game after their bye week in the Sean McDermott coaching era, a perfect 8-0.

This would be a pretty good year to keep that streak alive because for the first time since McDermott arrived in 2017, the Bills have lost two straight games going into their bye, the latest being Monday night’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium meltdown, an eye-opening 24-14 loss to the Atlanta Falcons that was an embarrassing performance in every way.

“Not the result we were looking for,” a weary-looking McDermott said after watching his get outgained 443-291, indicative of how much the Falcons bullied the Bills in a way the Bills usually bully their opposition.

“I thought the guys played hard, in particular the second half, fought through some injuries, guys stepping up. Injuries are not an excuse, there is no such thing as moral victories, but I did think that they battled down to the end right there, which I appreciate. We’ll work hard at it, we’ve got to figure it out. It’s not going to be easy, but we’ve got to figure it out, and we’ll work our tails off to get it done.”

Life in the NFL comes at you fast, and wow, have the tables turned on this once-glorious looking 2025 season, one that saw the Bills jump out to a 4-0 start which stirred fans into making sure their schedules were clear for Super Bowl week outside San Francisco in early February.

Yeah, let’s pump the brakes on that because in the blink of an eye, the Bills are 4-2 and not even in first place in the AFC East, having ceded that position to the New England Patriots, their conquerors from a week ago.

It was rather stunning to see the Bills get overwhelmed by a Falcons team that, while individually talented, certainly won’t have any reason to keep its schedule open for early February.

And now, as the Bills limp into their mini-vacation, one that could not come at a better time given their recent play and their mounting injury situation, they are a team that suddenly has more questions than the SAT exam.

Offense, defense, special teams, coaching, roster construction, it’s all in play for what will be a long, miserable week off before they get back into action Oct. 26 at Carolina.

“It’s going to eat at me the next two weeks,” Josh Allen said. “A lot of stuff to clean up. We’ll put our focus to our next opponent and go from there.”

Here are a few observations I had:

The first play of the game was an omen

If you didn’t start getting a feeling that this wasn’t going to be the Bills’ night when minutes before the kickoff it was announced that DaQuan Jones hurt his calf in pregame warmup and could not play, then that realization had to hit you on the first snap from scrimmage.

Atlanta superstar running back Bijan Robinson had the ball punched out by Dorian Williams and Christian Benford recovered at the Falcons 46. Screech. Greg Rousseau was offside, so the Falcons retained possession. Four plays later they were in the end zone, and it didn’t even feel like the Bills’ defense was on the field as Tyler Allgeier broke a 21-yard touchdown run.

It was a mind-numbing mistake and McDermott was clearly aggravated post-game.

“Just lining up onsides. Lining up onsides,” McDermott said. “We police it during practice and then it turns up in the game. So, we have to take responsibility for that and making sure we’re not beating ourselves. That’s step No. 1. Let’s get lined up onsides.”

That was just the beginning of a brutal night first half for the defense. By halftime, the Bills had allowed 9.1 yards per play for a total of 335 yards, and they were a foot away from being down 28-7 when Atlanta receiver Drake London nearly scored a 40-yard touchdown on the final play, a mistake so unbelievable that you had to laugh.

On the play, which began with six seconds to go and the Falcons out of timeouts, they were just trying to get the ball a little closer for a field goal attempt. Instead, the Bills had Ja’Marcus Ingram - filling in for Christian Benford who had gotten hurt - one-on-one with London. It was a gift from the Bills’ defensive coordinator, Bobby Babich, and Michael Penix knew right where to go with the ball.

Ingram fell down and London was off to the races, but thanks to Taylor Rapp’s hustling, he was able to force London out at the one which replay confirmed after the initial call of a touchdown.

The defense was much better in the second half and kept the Bills in it, but it did not matter because Allen and the offense couldn’t do a thing.

Incredibly, with Robinson rushing for 170 yards and London catching 158 yards worth of passes, it’s the first time in Bills history where they have allowed a 150-yard rusher and 150-yard receiver in the same game.

Tackling remains a nightmare

The Bills are one of the worst tackling teams in the league and it’s a big reason why they give up so many explosive plays. In the first half alone, they yielded six Atlanta gains of at least 20 yards including an 81-yard scamper by Robinson on which Cole Bishop committed a flat out whiff.

“The first half wasn’t good enough,” nickel corner Taron Johnson said. “It just wasn’t good enough. We’ve got to do better. I feel like in the second half, we did do better, but we got to be more consistent. At the end of the day, I feel like we had opportunities to win this game, and we didn’t make those plays.”

McDermott is clearly frustrated by the malfunction in fundamentals.

“Keep working it,” he said when asked how it can improve. “Making sure we’re executing the right technique. There’s techniques that are involved in that, at the end of the day, run through a man, right? It’s not easy. That’s a good back. It’s a really good back. At the end of the day, we’ve got to be better tackling.”

Injuries decimated the Bills

It was already worrisome when the inactives were announced and tight end Dalton Kincaid was ruled out with his oblique injury. And then in a game where the Bills knew their run defense would be severely challenged by Robinson, Jones somehow hurt his calf in warmup and was ruled out.

Then during the game, the Bills began dropping like bowling pins. They lost wide receiver Joshua Palmer to an ankle injury in the second quarter, linebacker Terrel Bernard went down with an ankle injury late in the first half, and neither returned.

Bishop missed some time due to cramps which forced Jordan Poyer into the game, and Benford hurt his Achilles, though he was able to return.

Injuries to the defense have been a problem since the start of training camp and it has continued into the season. Thankfully, the suspensions of defensive linemen Michael Hoecht and Larry Ogunjobi are finished so they can get back to the team for the Panthers game.

The offensive line was dominated

Rarely does the Bills’ stellar offensive line get worked over the way it did by the Falcons young, aggressive and vicious pass rush, but it was a jailbreak almost every time Allen dropped back to pass.

The Falcons were getting there with four, and then when they dialed up blitzes, the Bills had no idea how to stop it and Allen was running for his life and was either sacked (four times for 23 yards), or had to throw the ball to receivers who, as usual, were not open, essentially dooming the plays.

“They were doing a great job bringing multiple guys,” center Connor McGovern said. “We were five-man pro, they were bringing six, seven guys. Load one way, bringing things the other way. It looked like they spent all week just studying themselves, and they had a good number for us. A lot of times when we were sliding, we thought pressure was coming, they were doing a good job showing safeties down and rolling it the other way and slanting guys this way.”

Big sack for the @AtlantaFalcons defense

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According to @NextGenStats, the Falcons blitzed Allen on 56% of his dropbacks, the highest blitz rate he has seen in a game since 2021. Allen completed just 15 of 26 for 180 yards with two interceptions, both coming on balls that were initially deflected at the line of scrimmage because of pressure.

“It was too hard tonight on our quarterback,” McDermott said. “You have to evaluate everything to make sure we’re looking in the right spots in terms of the coverages we’re getting and the quarterback’s progression overall. It doesn’t need to be that hard all the time, where he’s having to run out of the pocket. Their pressure, I thought at times we picked up the pressure and then other times the pocket was getting affected early, so the rush and coverage, we talk about that, it was disrupting our offense too early in the down.”

Joe Brady needs to recalibrate his play-calling

As bad as it was in pass protection, the line was fine in the run game as the Bills averaged 5.6 yards per attempt with James Cook gaining 87 yards.

The Bills have the reigning league MVP at quarterback, but it is now quite obvious that their passing game is sluggish at best, and they need to be a running team in order to succeed. Unfortunately, offensive coordinator Joe Brady didn’t realize that soon enough in this game.

Cook carried just seven times in the first half, but then on the first possession of the third quarter he carried five times for 37 yards and he teed it up for Allen to throw a 16-yard TD pass to Ray Davis that cut the Bills’ deficit to 21-14.

And what happened after that? On the Bills’ next possession, after the drive was kept alive twice by Falcons’ penalties on third down, the Bills were in a fourth-and-2 at the Atlanta 46 and Cook came off the field in favor of Ty Johnson. Brady called for a pass, Allen got pressured, and he wound up flicking a pass toward Johnson that fell incomplete. Turnover on downs.

Even worse, on the next series, right after Rousseau had blocked a field goal which seemed to give the Bills a new life, the Bills had third-and-1 at their 48, Cook was off the field again, and the play call was a reverse to Elijah Moore who fumbled the exchange and while he recovered, he also lost four yards and the Bills punted.

The Bills had three possessions with a chance to tie the game with a touchdown, and came away with no points. They never scored again after the Davis TD.

Against New England, Brady’s tight end reverse to Dawson Knox ended in a fumble which handed three points to the Patriots. After that game, McDermott said he thought Brady “got too cute.” Monday, all he said was, “We can be better.”

It was coaching malfeasance of the highest order, and it might have very well cost the Bills a chance to win.

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, he has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at [email protected], and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills vs. Falcons game result had these 5 surprise takeaways