The main culprits for the Buffalo Bills’ season-opening loss to the New York Jets:

1. Josh Allen. Gotta take care of the football, you can’t win games if you keep losing the turnover battle and playing sloppy.

2 The offensive line was terrible. Especially Mitch Morse, I thought he had one of his worst games as a pro (that botched snap that led to Allen’s fumble was on Morse – Allen was surprised by the snap because Morse didn’t know what the snap count was). Granted it was against a pretty good defensive line, but still.

3. I know the 83-yard run by Breece Hall skews things, but I wasn’t a fan of the defense’s inability to stop the run. Gap assignments and tackling were issues all night long, plus they allowed Zach Wilson to escape a couple of sacks.

4. The punt coverage on the game-winning return was awful. Hardly anyone on the outside to cover the sidelines, and Sam Martin’s tackle attempt was embarrassingly pathetic. I get that he’s a punter (and punters and kickers aren’t asked to tackle people), but you don’t slap at a guy to bring him down. The NFL is tackle football, not a game of patty cake.

The Las Vegas Raiders next week, for all intents and purposes, should be a “get right” game for Buffalo. But if they don’t clean up these areas of their team quickly, it’ll be a long season.

Tony Fiorello

Tony’s work has appeared in multiple publications, including The Buffalo News, Bee Group Newspapers, From the 300 Level, WNYAthletics, Sports and Leisure Magazine, Community Papers of WNY, the Tonawanda News, the Niagara Gazette, WNY Hockey Report and Buffalo Hockey Central. He graduated from Buffalo State College in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in print journalism. Follow him on Twitter @anthonyfiorello.

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