NFL offseason power rankings: No. 6 Buffalo Bills try to avoid a step back after another playoff loss

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Josh Allen will try again to get the Bills to a Super Bowl. (Yahoo Sports/Henry Russell)
Josh Allen will try again to get the Bills to a Super Bowl. (Yahoo Sports/Henry Russell)

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Josh Allen sat in full uniform as he met with the media after the Buffalo Bills were eliminated from the playoffs, again, by the Kansas City Chiefs. Allen's eyes mostly looked down. His answers were short, which was understandable given the situation.

For all of the excitement over forcing the Chiefs to travel to Buffalo for a playoff game, after the Bills rallied late in the season to win the AFC East, it was just another brutal loss that led to a long offseason. Allen had no answers.

"Losing sucks," Allen said. "I don't know what else to say."

It's tough to win a Super Bowl, especially as Patrick Mahomes hoards them. The Bills have been one of the best teams in the NFL over the past five seasons, posting double-digit wins each year. With an electrifying quarterback like Allen it seemed inevitable that Buffalo would find itself in a Super Bowl. It could still happen, but the pressure is mounting with each missed opportunity. That's why Allen seemed so forlorn after that loss to the Chiefs.

The vibes didn't get better when the Bills traded Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans. Logically it made sense. Diggs' contract was large, his production was slipping, he's in his 30s and was becoming increasingly difficult for the Bills to deal with. Still, trading a player who made four Pro Bowls in four seasons for Buffalo doesn't seem to get the Bills closer to that elusive Super Bowl. It also didn't help that the Bills said goodbye to multiple veterans who were a big part of their success over the past few seasons but became too expensive to retain. The moves led to more proclamations of doom and discussions about Super Bowl windows in Buffalo.

Maybe the negativity has been overdone. Realistically the Bills are still a top team even without Diggs, who wasn't a huge factor after a midseason offensive coordinator change. Buffalo has a strong defense and Allen will make the offense dangerous no matter who he's throwing to. Buffalo won five games in a row to save its season, then soundly beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in a wild-card playoff game. Had Tyler Bass' potential game-tying kick against the Chiefs not gone wide right, perhaps the Bills would have gone on to win and everything would feel different this offseason.

At some point a deeper playoff run needs to happen, or these Bills will go in the same category as the Air Coryell San Diego Chargers of the 1980s, the Randy Moss-led Minnesota Vikings, the mid 2000s Chargers or the Cleveland Browns of the 1980s. We remember those teams but mostly for lost opportunities. That story isn't written for these Bills yet but they have to fear that possibility.

As long as Allen is the Bills' quarterback, it will be Super Bowl or else every season for Buffalo. Even in what seems like a transition year following the Diggs trade.

Stefon Diggs wasn't a huge factor for the Bills most of last season. Diggs had just 636 yards and three touchdowns in Buffalo's last 13 games, counting playoffs. Maybe trading him to the Texans won't hurt as much as it would appear. Still, it's hard to replace him. The Bills will try with second-round draft pick Keon Coleman. They traded back a couple times before taking Coleman and will be second-guessed if someone they passed on, perhaps Xavier Worthy, becomes a star and Coleman doesn't. Buffalo also signed Curtis Samuel to help at receiver. There wasn't a ton of salary-cap space for big moves and some veterans like center Mike Morse, receiver Gabe Davis, safety Jordan Poyer, cornerback Tre'Davious White, pass rusher Leonard Floyd and linebacker Tyrel Dodson were either cut or not re-signed as free agents. Many of the veterans who won't return were aging and expensive, and it made sense to move on, but it still affects depth and contributed to the feeling that the Bills might be taking a step back this season. The Bills did well to extend key players like offensive tackle Dion Dawkins, defensive tackle DaQuan Jones and defensive end A.J. Epenesa, but it's hard to say the roster is better than last season.

Grade: D

The concern with the Bills and Josh Allen has been that the team hasn't done enough to get him help. It's arguable no QB has more of the offense on his shoulders than Allen and that has led to some high turnover numbers. Allen had 18 interceptions last season. That issue might get worse with the Bills trading Stefon Diggs, who made four Pro Bowls in four seasons with Buffalo.

The Bills will try to replace Diggs' production with second-round rookie Keon Coleman, free-agent addition Curtis Samuel, holdover Khalil Shakir, second-year tight end Dalton Kincaid and running back James Cook, who is coming off a strong season. Coleman is a big contested-catch receiver, Samuel can do a bit of everything and has never played with a quarterback nearly as good as Allen, and Shakir was efficient in a limited role last season. The key could be Kincaid, who was a first-round draft pick last year and had 673 yards. It doesn't seem like there will be a true No. 1 option for Allen, but perhaps the entire group can be productive, take some pressure off him and make sure he's not pressing and turning it over too often.

The Bills are tied for seventh in BetMGM's Super Bowl odds at +1500, which is a bit of a drop from the past few seasons. The Chiefs, Bengals and Ravens have shorter Super Bowl odds among AFC teams, and Buffalo is tied with the Texans. That dip doesn't align with the fact that Josh Allen is tied for second in the MVP odds at +900, just behind Patrick Mahomes. The Bills are still the AFC East favorites at +165 odds and their win total is a healthy 10.5. So oddsmakers don't believe the Bills will fall too far, but the odds say they're a little further from a Super Bowl than in past seasons with Allen.

From Yahoo's Scott Pianowski: "With Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis out of town, fantasy managers are scrambling to decipher which Buffalo receivers will benefit from all the vacated targets. But maybe the right answer is tight end Dalton Kincaid. His rookie season was partially screened by what Sam LaPorta did in Detroit, but let's acknowledge the historical significance of Kincaid's debut. His 73 receptions were fourth-most from a first-year tight end, and his 673 yards slot him ninth among all-time rookies at the position.

"Kincaid didn't get a boost from touchdowns, scoring just three in all (one in the playoffs). But note those scores all came from distance — 22, 22 and 29 yards. Give Kincaid better luck around the goal line and a bump in target share and you might be looking at a breakout season. He's certainly no giveaway at the current market price — his Yahoo ADP is settling around 60 — but Kincaid's upside still might be worth chasing."

The Bills' offense wasn't really that much more effective or efficient after it fired Ken Dorsey as offensive coordinator and hired Joe Brady. For the first 10 games they averaged 26.2 points and 370.1 total yards. After firing Dorsey, from Week 11 to the end of the postseason, the Bills averaged 27.1 points and 377.9 total yards. What did change was the rushing game. The Bills went from 116.5 rushing yards per game under Dorsey to 156.4 with Brady. Rushing attempts spiked from 25.4 to 36.8. Part of that was the Bills were winning more, and teams that win tend to run more at the end of games. But it seems there was a bit of a philosophical shift.

The offense was still heavily reliant on Josh Allen (part of the improvement in the run game was more running from Allen), but there was balance. James Cook had a productive season with 1,122 rushing yards and 445 receiving yards. He ranked eighth among running backs in Next Gen Stats' RYOE (rush yards over expected), which uses tracking data to determine how many yards a running back gets relative to an average back. The offense will revolve around Allen, but Brady showed a way to take some pressure off the quarterback.

Miller played 12 games last season and had three tackles and no sacks. That seems impossible for a Hall of Fame talent. Miller got a six-year, $120 million deal in the 2022 offseason to help get the Bills to a Super Bowl. Miller tore his ACL on Thanksgiving of that first season in Buffalo and the injury seemed to linger for all of 2023. Miller told SI.com this offseason he's "a little bit angry" people are judging him based off last season, when he rushed back.

"It's crazy how you get injured, and you come back, and you really shouldn't have even been playing, and people judge you by a product on the field," Miller told SI.com. "I could have easily sat out all of last season, but I couldn't do my teammates like that. I felt like being later in my career, I didn't want to sacrifice any of my years. But at the same time, I shouldn't have been out there."

The issue is that Miller is no sure thing to rebound in 2024. He's 35 years old, and not many pass rushers are still effective at that age. In a perfect world Miller would be the dominant player the Bills are paying him to be because that would have a huge impact on a defense that doesn't have a lot of big stars. But it's a big question mark heading into this season.

The Bills have been a popular Super Bowl pick the past few seasons, and their failure to live up to that might be a reason the buzz is gone this year. But the Bills still have the ability to win a championship. Trading Stefon Diggs changes the offense, but it was already changing last season after offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey was fired and replaced with Joe Brady. There was a lot to like about the Bills despite their up-and-down season. They still have an effective offense due to Josh Allen and the defense survived and played pretty well through key injuries. The Bills lost a lot of recognizable names this offseason but none of them were irreplaceable. Allen has been in the MVP conversation for years and hasn't won, but he could win it this season with multiple weapons replacing Diggs and Buffalo winning a tough AFC East. And if the Bills can win the division, maybe they can finish the job and make a Super Bowl.

It's hard to imagine the Bills not making the playoffs. But with the AFC East having a couple of strong contenders in the Jets and Dolphins, a division title isn't guaranteed and competition for wild-card spots will be fierce. The Bills at one point last season were less than 15% to make the playoffs in some models, so maybe missing the playoffs isn't too outlandish. The Bills could struggle if the offense doesn't have enough star power around Josh Allen. Any offense whose top skill-position player might be Dalton Kincaid, James Cook or Keon Coleman could be inconsistent no matter who the quarterback is. The Bills lost a lot this offseason, and it's also possible the hangover from another crushing playoff loss affects them. Maybe the Bills miss the playoffs, and at that point head coach Sean McDermott's job security would be a big issue.

Like mostly everyone else, I was down on the Bills early in the offseason. The Stefon Diggs trade seemed like a concession that this would be a transition season, especially coupled with the salary cap-related moves to dump some veterans. But when you dig into the Bills, here's what is revealed: This was a very good team that took on some strange and unlucky losses early, and then played to its talent level late in the season to win the AFC East. The Bills lost to the Chiefs in the playoffs and while that was a major disappointment, they won't be the first or last team to lose to Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City in the postseason. This is still a very good team with a superstar quarterback in Josh Allen. Diggs and his constant drama might have been doing more harm than good. I'm not sure the Bills win the AFC East, but that's because of the competition in the division rather than Buffalo taking a big step back. I don't think the Bills win a Super Bowl this season, but they won't slip far and will be among the contenders again in 2025.

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