The refs have reached an all time low in the NFL. It has become absolutely ridiculous how much control the zebras have over a game and how often they abuse that control on a weekly basis. Games have been decided countless times this season over an extremely poor call by any given ref in any given week. Although the NFL never seems to care much about it, something must be done about how games are officiated in this league. The officials are putting too many games at risk of going one way or another with many of the calls they make, especially the ones in crunchtime. With that said, the poor officiating was just one of the themes of the game in a 20-13 Buffalo Bills loss against the New England Patriots in Foxborough. The Bills fall to 5-5, but still remain 2nd in the AFC East. Let's break down the game.Offensively, this game was a mess for the Buffalo Bills. They were only able to get 319 yards of total offense, and could only muster up 13 points on the board. You won't win many games on the road, against the Patriots, by just scoring 13 points. The playcalling was rather poor at times, and the execution just wasn't there as Tyrod Taylor had often missed passes, especially the ones he usually makes.
Speaking of the Bills QB, his day was uncharacteristic for Tyrod Taylor. He kept his consistency by not turning the ball over, but he was unable to find a receiver in the endzone, and overall he managed to only complete 55% of his passes. He went 20/36 for 233 yards, and he should've played a lot better. He missed a lot of deep throws down the field, and despite Sammy Watkins being open on multiple occasions, Tyrod could not find his #1 receiver. He was injured toward the end of the game, and that also showed in his play, as he often had little to no power on many of the late balls he threw. Tyrod had a bad game, which is common for a relatively new quarterback. He'll need to play better to keep giving the Bills a chance to win, along with staying healthy from here on out.
As far as the receiving core goes, Chris Hogan was the player of the day. He had 6 passes caught for 95 yards as he was often left open. Lesean McCoy also had a relatively busy day through the air picking up 41 yards on his 6 receptions. Watkins and Clay were both rather quiet, contributing only 4 receptions for 53 yards combined. Tyrod's poor day showed as buffalo's receivers could really never get hot during this game.
Lesean McCoy on the other hand, has had his 3rd monster game in a row. With his 82 rushing yards and his 41 receiving yards, he has now eclipsed his 3rd game in a row where he has had over 100+ yards from scrimmage. He is now fully healthy, and that really is showing in his game. Buffalo fans are really seeing how elusive, shifty, and explosive he can be. He was the heart of the running game on Monday night, as Karlos Williams could only gain 11 yards on his 6 carries. Karlos was unable to break the rookie scoring record, but he will still continue to be productive in the Bills offense as long as he is used in the rushing and passing game.
The defense on the other hand, had a rather dominant day against the New England Patriots. They were putting pressure on Tom Brady all day, and although the front 4 was only able to achieve 1 sack, they made Brady's day miserable, hitting him over a dozen times. They held the Patriots to just 356 total yards and held Brady to a 20/39 for 277 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT performance, and in terms of Brady, that's getting shut down. In addition, the Bills were stingy in the ground game, giving up a total of only 85 yards. Rex's defense has finally shown up over the past few games, and that will be big going forward.I'm going to jump into one final topic before I wrap this up, and that will be about the referees. Like mentioned in the first part of this post, the refs have been a joke. This game could've been completely different had calls not gone one way or another. There were a few calls in particular that really caught my attention.
One of these calls robbed the New England Patriots a seemingly easy touchdown, but still, the refs managed to compromise (rather unfairly), and it wound up costing the Buffalo Bills. The ref blew an inadvertent whistle on a completion to WR Danny Amendola, which Amendola had room to run after the fact. The refs discussed after the whistle, and gave Rex Ryan a seemingly random 15 yard call, and stated that the ball would be spotted after the reception, because it was a completed pass before the whistle, which was not true. The whistle blew while the ball was in mid air, and that means the down should have been replayed. Then, they gave Rex a ridiculous call for "interfering," because he had a foot on the white chalk. Even when the ref messed up, they still molded their messed up call to go toward the way of the Patriots, instead of calling it fairly down the middle.
Another call cost the Bills 42 seconds on their final drive. Robert Woods caught a 9 yard pass from Tyrod Taylor. at 1:51 left in the 4th quarter. The refs decided to review the first down ruling, and they never stopped the clock, or put the lost time back up on the clock. The next snap from Buffalo's offense came with 1:09 left. That 42 seconds could have been several more plays for the Buffalo Bills, and that could've ultimately been the game changer.
The last call, which is a smaller referee blunder than the last 2, cost the Bills one final Hail Mary opportunity. Sammy Watkins caught a 16 yard pass from Tyrod Taylor with 2 seconds left, and rolled out of bounds. He was untouched and nobody was near him. Still though, the referee mistook Sammy's actions as "surrendering himself," which led to the ref calling the clock to still run. That rule is an NCAA rule, though. Sammy had every right to roll out of bounds and stop that clock with 2 seconds left. It was just another one of many awful calls by the refs that night.
I'm not one to complain about the refs every single week, but when a game is as poorly officiated as this one, it has to be brought up. I'm not saying that the poor calls were Buffalo's excuses for losing the game, because they also blew many chances that they did have. The zebras did not do the Bills any favors, though. Buffalo now rests as the 8th seed in the AFC, in a 4 way tie between 3 other teams. Buffalo's game against the Chiefs on Sunday is a must win if they want to stay in the driver seat for the wild card race, which is now starting to heat up. Bills will be without Kyle Williams and Mario Williams against the Chiefs, which are 2 huge blows. Buffalo will have to overcome the odds and pull out a win. Happy Holidays, thanks for reading, and as always, let's go Buffalo!
Sources:
Stats: http://espn.go.com/nfl/playbyplay?gameId=400791717
Image #1: (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Image #2: http://images.ischoolguide.com/data/images/full/36137/new-england-patriots-vs-buffalo-bills.jpg?w=600
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