TAMPA, Fla. – The bad news for the Buffalo Bills started 90 minutes before kickoff Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium.
Defensive end Boogie Basham, guard Cody Ford and running back Zack Moss were included on the list of inactives. That’s three players taken in the top three rounds of the last three drafts who were determined by the team’s coaching staff as being not good enough to contribute to the game-day roster against the defending Super Bowl champions.
To borrow a "Mad Men" meme, that’s “not great, Bob.”
Or should we say Brandon, as in Bills General Manager Brandon Beane, the man largely responsible for bringing all three players to Buffalo. Players drafted that high are supposed to turn into quality starters, or at least meaningful contributors. That’s even more important when considering what the Bills paid quarterback Josh Allen. In order to have a competitive roster around a quarterback with a salary cap hit that will rise to $39.78 million in 2023 and a whopping $51.28 million by 2025, it’s imperative that the team’s young players, who are on cost-controlled rookie contracts, produce.
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With all three, that hasn’t happened. Moss, a third-round pick in 2020, was a healthy inactive for the second time in three games and third time overall. He hasn’t rushed for more than 4.0 yards per carry in a game since Week 4 against Houston and hasn’t topped 37 yards in a game since then.
Basham, the Bills’ second-round pick in April, hasn’t been able to carve out a consistent role as a rookie – he was inactive for the eighth time in 13 games.
Ford, meanwhile, has completely fallen out of favor. A 2019 second-round draft pick Beane traded up to acquire, his only meaningful playing time this season since being benched in Week 4 has come when injuries forced him into the lineup.
The coaching staff deserves credit for not forcing Moss, Ford and Basham into the lineup based on their draft status. Of course, they also need to share in the blame for those three players not developing into meaningful contributors.
Instead of playing Moss, the Bills went with Devin Singletary and Matt Breida at running back. The rotation at defensive end included Jerry Hughes, Mario Addison, A.J. Epenesa and Greg Rousseau ahead of Basham. Along the offensive line, Ike Boettger and Daryl Williams started at guard, while Jon Feliciano, who returned after spending five games on injured reserve, was the top interior backup.
Of those three picks, the miss on Ford is most egregious right now. He’s the most experienced of the three, and the offensive line was absolutely putrid in the first half against the Bucs. Beane elected to run it back with basically the same offensive line as 2020, and it is a decision that has not worked.
Across the board, the offensive line has underachieved in 2021. Left tackle Dion Dawkins went through a scary bout with Covid-19 that left him hospitalized during training camp. He returned in time for the regular season, but his performance has been uneven at best. Dawkins, who is signed through 2024 and counts $11.38 million against the salary cap, ranks 11th among left tackles in average annual value, according to contracts website spotrac.com. Analytics website Pro Football Focus ranks Dawkins 36th out of 59 offensive tackles who have played at least 468 snaps this season.
Feliciano, who re-signed a three-year contract in the offseason, has missed six of 13 games because of injuries.
Williams, who re-signed on a three-year contract worth up to $24 million, lost his job as the team’s starting right tackle. He counts $6.135 million against the cap this season and that figure increases to $8.925 million next year, although the Bills can – and might think very hard about – getting out of that deal by taking a $3.6 million dead-cap hit.
Williams was replaced at right tackle by rookie Spencer Brown, a third-round pick out of Northern Iowa. That can be looked at a couple of ways. Brown’s potential has excited the Bills, although he had a miserable time against the Buccaneers. Still, the fact he was forced into the lineup feels more like an indictment of Williams’ play at right tackle than anything else.
Center Mitch Morse, who took a pay cut in the offseason, has been a constant on the line, although he has had his fair share of struggles in recent weeks, too. At the time the Bills signed Morse away from the Chiefs as an unrestricted free agent, he was briefly the highest-paid center in the NFL. He’s now No. 6 on that list, according to Spotrac, in total value. PFF ranks Morse as its No. 20 center out of 29 who have played at least 488 offensive snaps.
Even if you disagree with PFF’s grading system, which can be viewed as subjective, the Bills have received poor return on investment across the board along their offensive line. That’s on Beane.
Protecting Allen, who was an absolute baller Sunday despite the loss, has to be priority No. 1 for this franchise. He is their star, their best player, and their hope to one day win a world championship. Through 13 games, the offensive line constructed by Beane and coached by Bobby Johnson and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll has failed Allen.
The Bills didn’t even attempt a rushing play with a running back in the first half against Tampa Bay. Yes, that says something about the faith the team has in its running backs, but it also reflects poorly on the offensive line.
“Well, I think if you just look at the first 10 plays of today, it was just one player off on one thing, and it was something we can completely control, whether it's echoing the calls, understanding the changes that Josh might make to a play, and really just keeping no secrets,” Morse said. “I think the thing that we got ourselves into was pretending like it was something secret, what we're doing. Everyone on the same page, even if it's wrong, is better than four people doing the right thing and one person doing something off topic. Ultimately, that comes down to me making sure that the O-linemen get everything together. So that was definitely one of the factors that played in that first-half slump.”
Morse is a stand-up guy. It’s great that he took ownership of the line’s issues. Unfortunately, 13 games into the season, there doesn’t seem to be any obvious solutions.
