Hey, Bills Mafia: Take a deep breath.
Now take another one. And another. Does that feel a little better?
The Buffalo Bills aren’t doomed. The sky isn’t falling. The world hasn’t fallen apart.
Yes, a Week 5 loss to the Patriots on Sunday night, followed by a Week 6 loss to the Falcons on Monday night — those really, really sting.
But there’s plenty of reason to not panic. The Bills are heading into a bye week, and they’ll likely come out of it with the sun shining a whole lot brighter than it seems to be in Western New York after a second defeat in a row.
In fact, with that in mind, here are three reasons that it’s not even close to time to panic:
Josh Allen
Did the reigning NFL MVP play his best games the past two weeks? Not at all.
But there’s a reason Allen was the MVP, and could’ve won the award the year prior, too. He’s evolved in his NFL career into a quarterback who puts his team in the best position to win almost every time he takes the field.
These mistakes for Allen aren’t indicative of worrisome trends. They’re blips on the radar.
As long as Allen is wearing the Bills’ No. 17 and bringing that Superman cape along with him, Buffalo can beat anyone, on any night, at any time. Even in the direst of straits, Allen is reason for hope.
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A perfectly timed bye week
NFL teams don’t control when they get their bye week.
The league randomly assigns them when it makes each season’s schedule, and it’s never obvious beforehand whether it’ll come at a good or bad time.
This bye week for Buffalo comes at the perfect time.
The Bills aren’t healthy, and they aren’t playing well. Extended time off will allow players to heal up, and it’ll allow the Bills to focus on what they’re doing wrong without the immediate time crunch of prepping for the next opponent.
When the Bills return to action on Sunday, Oct. 26, they’ll take on the Carolina Panthers at 1 p.m. On paper, that’s a nice game to ease back into things.
And given this organization’s recent pedigree for winning, some extra time to recover and revitalize should be just what is needed.
Motivation
The Bills were given a weirdly easy schedule by the NFL for the 2025 season. If they were just coasting through every game, it’d be easy to get complacent.
There won’t be any complacency now.
Instead, these star players will have immense motivation to rebound and prove their status as one of the best teams in the NFL.
Football players are always seeking something intense to motivate themselves. Two losses to teams the Bills felt they should’ve beat? Those certainly qualify.
This will be a hungry, amped-up Bills team by the time they return to the field in Week 8. The rest of the NFL should be wary of that.
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