Why, Bills? Why?

This is All Fields. If you’re new here, we do this every Friday, bringing you a short essay with some musings on the wide world of sports. We cover a lot of ground, hence the name, and we try not to be total prisoners to the news cycle either. We’re just interested in what’s interesting.

So if you are too, please consider supporting All Fields by subscribing below. It won’t cost you anything but your email, and let’s be real: it’s a lot easier to justify spending time on this every week if someone’s reading it. And that could be you! For free! Imagine that.

Is there anything left to say about Josh Allen and the Bills? Let’s find out.

On Sunday, I would’ve said no. The A blocks wrote themselves. (That’s a little broadcast lingo, for the blessedly uninitiated, meaning what led all the ESPN talk shows that day.)

In case you missed it, the Bills lost a winnable playoff game in Denver that would’ve set them up with a date with the Patriots to go to the big one. Could Buffalo have made the Super Bowl? Yeah. Totally. Not guaranteed, of course, but entirely possible.

And sure, the defense kinda sucks. You can definitely run it on them. But you’ve got Josh Allen, generally understood to be the best QB in the league, and that means you always have a shot.

And it still does! But Josh Allen didn’t play well enough to win the winnable game in Denver. Four turnovers is too many. The fumble before halftime was unconscionable, as bad a play as I’ve ever seen him make, and that’s counting his wayward first few years in the league.

On top of a few more costly mistakes and bad breaks — the James Cook fumble was a backbreaker, the whistle wasn’t terribly consistent as the game wore on, and the Cooks INT was plenty painful too — it just wasn’t their year. Again.

Now, quickly: I’ve seen enough explanations on the Cooks INT to accept what happened and why. And to those doing the whole “It’s clear and obvious, you idiots!” bit, I would maintain that it’s definitely better to actually explain that on the broadcast rather than just breezing past it. Because if nothing else, it was pretty close in real time. I haven’t seen many plays like that personally.

There’s a certain degree of #rigged paranoia in the NFL fanbase that probably isn’t that avoidable at this point, but we can still take the easy off-ramps to explain the rationale when they’re there to be taken. I, and apparently a lot of other people, were pretty surprised to see that review process take so little time, given how much time we routinely spend reviewing way less important calls at way less pivotal moments. Maybe we’re conditioned to a bad viewing experience. Fair enough. Just don’t try and tell me it wasn’t unusual.

Sean McDermott seemed surprised too. But he can’t have been surprised that his time ran out this week. What might’ve surprised him is that Brandon Beane, the Bills GM, not only survived this latest defeat but came out of it with a promotion.

Then Beane sat down with Bills owner Terry Pegula on Wednesday for a rather strange press conference. We don’t have normal press conferences in this country anymore, but I still found it more than a little childish as a literal oil tycoon butted in to personally ensure that the whole Keon Coleman disaster could, in fact, be made a little bit worse.

Pegula felt the need to clarify (for some reason) that their since-fired coach, McDermott, was the one who insisted on drafting Keon Coleman at the top of the 2nd round in 2024. (And it’s not like Xavier Worthy has been a world-beater either, but never forget, they traded down with the Chiefs to do it.)

He was defending Beane, who — last I checked — gets to make the draft picks. Pretty sure that’s what the GM does. But it wasn’t his fault, because McDermott wanted him instead.

I find this defense embarrassing, not least of all because it reflects that Pegula thinks Beane needs defending. And not for nothing, Hard Knocks tells a different story. So either he was lying then, or he’s lying now.

But it doesn’t really matter, because that’s his job. To pick the players. That’s pretty much the entire job. The GM is responsible for the roster. It is then on the coach to maximize said roster. That’s the separation of powers, baby! Another thing we’ve gotten away from as a country of late, but I digress.

And Keon Coleman’s still on the roster, by the way. Gotta love that trade leverage. Well done all around.

This number’s getting passed around a lot lately, and it does strike me as relevant.

Just two Bills draft picks since 2018 have made Pro Bowls. I don’t think the team is pure garbage around Allen — you don’t win 10+ games every year for a half-decade-plus if you suck, no matter how good Allen is — but there’s a real talent gap when you start looking at the truly loaded rosters around the league that are competing for Super Bowls.

Like the Eagles, though they’re emo and out. Like the Niners, though they’re hurt and out. Like the Ravens, who are kinda both and out. Or like the Broncos or Seahawks, who sent six players apiece to this year.

The Bills are not a bad team. They’re just not good enough. The defense really did wilt. They really did give up that absurd busted coverage to Courtland Sutton to effectively seal the game. And I think a lot of Buffalo fans would’ve warned you themselves that that might happen this year. They could score 30, but they’d still lose.

And yes, it’s harder (by design, I might note) to keep nailing drafts when you keep making playoff runs and you’re always at the back of the first round.

Beane has made some excuses to this effect, which I find annoying. I’ve said enough, so here’s Ben Solak on that one:

The argument that it's difficult to build around a veteran quarterback contract and draft picks in the late-20s was thin at the time and has grown even more brittle with age. Pick a random Super Bowl champion since the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, and you'll find a team that hit huge on a middle-round flier or nailed a free agency class. Think about what Puka Nacua is to the Rams or Nik Bonitto to the Broncos. Think about the DeMarcus Lawrence signing in Seattle and the Carlton Davis III deal in New England. Teams need moves like these to make it, and the Bills haven't made them for eight years now, plain and simple.

How much of that is luck? Quite a lot, I’d argue. That’s fair to point out. But it’s not a great pitch for a promotion. Guess it worked out anyways. And I’d call that pretty lucky too.

To close with one last point on luck, whoever gets the Bills’ head coaching job next is pretty fortunate in their own right. Opportunities to coach Hall of Fame quarterbacks in their prime don’t grow on trees. Allen’s should last another year or two, barring disaster.

Might be the return of Brian Daboll. Might just be elevating Joe Brady from within. Might be Mike Tomlin, though I suspect he’s taking a year off. Wish it could’ve been Mike Vrabel, had this all happened a year ago instead. I don’t know if any of the available options will actually improve matters. It’s hard to be much better than McDermott’s been these last nine years.

The question is never just: how good is the coach? The real question is always: can you get someone better? Right now, I’m not sure. But the Buffalo faithful will have to hope so, as they enter a new stadium with a new(ish) regime.

Such is luck.

⚾ It’s still the Dodgers and everybody else, but the Mets are playing a decent second at throwing money around lately. In about the space of a week, they signed a dynamite infielder in Bo Bichette, they traded for an ace in Freddy Peralta, and they shored up the outfield with a sensible bet on raw talent in Luis Robert, Jr. Meanwhile, the Cardinals sent out Nolan Arenado for basically nothing while continuing to pay most of his salary. Great! I love it here.

🏈 Fernando Mendoza’s 4th quarter TD run was legend stuff. That was Elway-level shit. Tom Brady was on the sidelines for that one, and if he didn’t know it before, he must’ve known after that that the Raiders would be lucky to get him. The Hoosiers finished the storybook. Congrats to everyone involved, but especially my favorite player on the team, 5’9” corner D’Angelo Ponds.

🏀 Where are my NBA takes lately?! I apologize. My takes are:

• The Thunder should still be the favorite, and I’d still have the Nuggets over the Spurs, who I’d have over the Rockets, all before we get to anyone in the East. Then it’s the Knicks. They’re a mess right now, but they have time to get right. Then it’s the Pistons. Objections?

• The Eastern All-Star team will probably have four Jalens or Jaylens on the team. Four! Brunson and Brown are already starters. Duran and Johnson should both be reserves, and both are among my favorite stories in the league this year. One’s anchoring a commendably tough young Pistons team on the rise, the other’s been so good that he got the Hawks to finally work up the nerve to deal Trae Young.

• It’s going to be crazy when the Pacers get Darryn Peterson the year after making the Finals. That is a sick backcourt.

📚 I misspoke last week. I regret my characterization of An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine as, essentially, a work of historical fiction set in Beirut. It is that, but it’s really so much more about the narrator, Aaliya, and her love of books, finding meaning in words on paper. (On paper, I would pointedly emphasize. I’ll read my Kindle when the baby comes, for the one-hander benefits, but apart from that I intend to remain an analog book guy. We can do one thing without screens.) I took a bunch of book recommendations away from that book, in addition to the beautiful reflection on man’s search for meaning. You know, literature stuff. We love it. I love it. Read that book. On paper, if you please.