In last week’s home-opener against the Miami Dolphins in which they won 29-10, E.J. Manuel and Sammy Watkins were in perfect harmony. Today, however, they were anything but.
In the Bills’ 22-10 loss to the Chargers on Sunday, Watkins had only two receptions for 19 yards, one of which was a 16 yard grab in the final minute of the game when the outcome was already decided. The performance for the star rookie was in stark contrast to last week’s 8 catch, 117 yard and a touchdown game on 11 targets in week 2.
Misconnects included a pair of deep balls where Manuel overthrew Watkins, and a 4th down and 3 inside Charger territory where Manuel and Watkins could not connect on an underneath crosser with just over 8 minutes remaining down 20-10, stifling Buffalo’s best chance to cut into the lead.
Watkins felt that he got open “for the most part” despite some double-teams, but the team “didn’t finish”.
“I feel like we beat ourselves on both sides of the ball,” said Watkins.
A windy day in Buffalo made some balls hang up in the air when throwing against, and push balls further when teams threw into the wind. Watkins said that it was tough expect how the ball “was going to come out”, but that the Bills “have to make the plays that are presented”.
One area where they didn’t was on third down (6/14, including three converted on a non-scoring drive) and fourth down (0/2).
“We sucked on 3rd down,” said Watkins. “We just have get better and play smarter.”
Manuel said that he didn’t believe the Charger defense was “keying on” Watkins, but their pressure that forced three sacks, a safety, and several hurries forced him out of the pocket and out of his progression. The second-year quarterback said he saw more three buzz type coverages today,
“As a unit, we definitely know that we left some plays out on the field,” said Manuel. “Whether it was a miscommunication or me throwing the ball a step too soon, I don’t think we had anything where I was necessarily late.”
Manuel, who finished 23 of 39 for 238 yards and a touchdown (75 yards on the game’s final possession), said he thought his accuracy was “fine”, but that the team has go go out and “make plays”.
“That’s the biggest thing, making plays when they’re there and just trying to hit home runs, you can’t miss those,” said Manuel.
Head coach Doug Marrone said he thought Manuel did make plays, but the team needs “everyone” on the offense to do so.
“We’ve got to protect, we’ve got to make the catches, we’ve got to sit in zone, instead of keeping running,” said Marrone. “There are a lot of things that we can learn from this game. We have a lot of young guys out there and they’ll continue to get better.”
Other game notes:
-Penalties were a killer for the Bills, as 11 were called for 101 yards. Procedure and holding penalties of offense, along with a 31 yard pass interference penalty from Leodis McKelvin on Malcom Floyd and a defensive holding on Duke Williams against Antonio Gates, who only registered one grab for 8 yards, kept scoring drives alive.
-The only corner who could match up with Floyd was Corey Graham, as he defensed a deep ball thrown to the towering 6 foot 5 receiver, as Nickell Robey and McKelvin were both beat by Floyd for 49 yard passes, along with a 31 yard pass interference penalty. They were the only two grabs for the receiver, but the threat of him going downfield was enough to open underneath passes for running backs and tight ends.
-After depending on the run game immensely in the 2-0 start, Manuel dropped back 42 times to pass, and Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller only had a combined 16 rushes for 59 yards. That is not a recipe for success, and although a lot of it was falling behind 20-3 in the third quarter, it would not be a surprise if that limited amount of rushes doesn’t occur very often throughout the season.
-Philip Rivers was 18 of 25 for 256 yards and two touchdowns, and was only sacked once. While the Chargers only converted 5 of 13 third downs, it was when they converted that was important, as a Rivers scramble for 9 yards to convert a 3rd down and 8 on the Chargers’ first possession of the second half was huge and led to the touchdown that made it to 20-10. Rivers’ underrated ability to scramble and make plays was evident all game today, as he actually avoided a pair of sacks, although they were more likely to be coverage sacks than pure pressure ones.
-On a positive note, after Donald Brown began the game with 9 carries for 37 yards, the Buffalo defense limited him to only 25 yards on his final 22 carries. Overall defensively, after allowing 314 total yards in the first 37:31 of the game, the Bills only gave up 22 the rest of the way. Brown came in for Danny Woodhead, who suffered a season-ending injury to his right ankle, according to Fox Sports’ Alex Marvez.
