By Nick Wojton / Billswire.usatoday.com
The Bills suffered their first loss of the 2019 to the hands of the New England Patriots on Sunday in Week 4, 16-10.
Buffalo’s defense led the charge but the offense just couldn’t do enough, despite scoring the first touchdown of the year on the Patriots defense. That’s reflected in this week’s stock report on the Bills.
With that, here’s Week 4’s stock up, stock down following the Bills’ loss to the Patriots:
Stock up
TE Dawson Knox
So far through his young career, tight end Dawson Knox is impressing. Coming from a high-flying offense in college, Knox was low on their depth chart, failing to even score a touchdown in his college career. He has a professional one to his name already, and he’s made some strong plays with his hands and as a blocker with the Bills.
Against the Patriots, Knox had three catches on three targets for 58 yards, a team-high 19.3 yards per catch. He didn’t score, but Knox’s 21-yard reception with Patrick Chung in coverage was a hell of a grab. It helped get the Bills into field goal range, a kick which was ultimately missed.
Moving forward, we’ll see if the Bills decide to give him some more opportunities or will Tyler Kroft cut into his playing time upon his debut.
RB Frank Gore
Frank Gore isn’t going to be the best or fastest at anything, maybe. But he’s going to be good enough at everything to beat defenses this season for the Bills. Some thought that rookie runner Devin Singletary could be the one that made LeSean McCoy expendable, but turns out it was Gore.
Gore surpassed 15,000 career rushing yards with the 41-yard scamper up the middle against the Patriots and he totaled 109 yards in the game, becoming the second-oldest player to hit 100 yards in a game. That is a 6.4 yards per carry average. He took all the carries in the game for the Bills.
Reminder, he’s 36. Gore continues to impress.
LB Tremaine Edmunds
In his second season with the Bills, Tremaine Edmunds continues to solidify himself as the quarterback of Buffalo’s defense. The Bills kept a Super Bowl caliber offense at bay the entire day and Edmunds is the leader of that group and deserves credit for the unit’s success.
Individually, Edmunds looked good as well. The Bills didn’t have a sack on Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, but when rushing the passer, Edmunds’ pressure was felt on several occasions throughout the game. His 11 total tackles nearly doubled the next-closest teammate (6) and he had two tackles for loss. Edmunds is turning into a highly-touted open-field tackler and capable in pass defender (1 pass defended) as well.
RB TJ Yeldon
While Frank Gore played a big role, under the surface, TJ Yeldon’s stock went up, too. Statistically, he didn’t have a carry, but he factored into the passing game quite a bit. Yeldon had four catches on four targets for 68 total yards, only a few shy of Cole Beasley’s team-high 75 yards on seven catches, but Beasley also had 13 total targets by comparison.
Another indication of Yeldon’s stock going up comes from snap counts. He actually played in 54 percent of offensive snaps for the Bills. Gore was in for 46 percent.
Yeldon isn’t a bad depth option for the Bills to have at all. He’s a former second-round pick and has flashed in his career, but he needs to hang onto the ball when he gets looks. He did in Week 4, to his credit.
S Micah Hyde
The play of the game for the Bills goes to Micah Hyde in this one. Buffalo’s offense barely showed signs of life in the second half. In the first half, it didn’t even have a pulse. It wasn’t until Hyde’s interception of Tom Brady late in the second half put life into his teammates that the offense showed anything at all.
Of course, there’s the obvious, too. Hyde kept the Patriots off the board and within striking distance for his team. Hyde disguised his coverage on his pick as well, surprising Brady for the interception.
CB Levi Wallace
Another under-the-radar type guy, Levi Wallace thrived. Tre’Davious White is the Bills’ No. 1 corner. So vets like Brady know to stay away from him, leaving Wallace suspect. He was not suspect at all on the day, successfully defending multiple passes thrown his way.
According to ESPN’s Next Gen Stats, the Pats completed 4-of-12 passes when Wallace was the nearest defender in Week 4, for only 51 yards. That’s a 33.3 percent completion rate when targeting Wallace. That’s near shutdown.
Stock down
Sean McDermott
Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier created a great game plan defensively. But when it comes down to it, McDermott needs to figure out what’s going on with his challenges and his time outs. The Bills had two challenges not go their way, a spot challenge and pass interference review. Then with 14:54 left in the final quarter, Buffalo had zero time outs left. That’s awful use of those.
Quarterback Josh Allen used one to prevent a delay of game after an incompletion and the defense used one as well. McDermott’s team has to be prepared for future times when those timeouts are needed. Having at least one in their back-pocket when Matt Barkley was attempting a game-winning drive would’ve helped as well.
WR Zay Jones
So far this season Zay Jones just isn’t getting things together in his third season. The Bills don’t have to move on from him, but they are starting to get the pen out to mark down that he’s not going to be a No. 1 target like they had hoped. Jones had eight targets against the Patriots and had two catches for four yards. That’s not good at all, and with that many targets, they all can’t be on the QB. And even when they were, Jones didn’t play his part.
Allen had some ugly interceptions and he has to stop it. But Jones, could you play a little defense on those, maybe? Try to prevent the pick.
QB Josh Allen
We already just scratched the surface on Josh Allen, but it was a brutal, ugly outing for him. His stock also goes down because, well… the best ability is availability. Allen could miss some time with a concussion which really stinks. But even on that play, maybe Allen finally learned he can’t be taking hits like that.
Overall, Allen finished with three interceptions, a few ugly ones, with a rushing score and fumble which wasn’t lost. His final stat line was 13-for-28 passing for only 153 yards. Can’t be making this rookie mistakes anymore, even against a good defense, but here’s one thing to think about.
Could that fourth-quarter comeback attempt have looked different with Allen? He was not impressive at all in Week 4, but in the past, that’s his bread and butter.
Pass protection
As mentioned, Frank Gore looked good on the ground, surpassing 100 yards rushing (109). The offensive line did their part there. They did not for Allen or Barkley when he replaced QB1. In total, those two were sacked five times, both had fumbles, and the Patriots recorded eight QB hits in this one.
The big difference in this one and why it likely looked worse in pass protection than usual is that Bill Belichick’s gang kept Allen from escaping the pocket, as he usually can. He was spied and pass rushed very well, especially early when Allen was 1-for-7 passing with two interceptions in the first quarter.
Special teams
The Bills could’ve done a lot better on special teams. The two glaring problems were a blocked punt and missed kick. Corey Bojorquez had an early punt blocked but he couldn’t do much on it. The Patriots overloaded one side of the Bills’ line on the play and it was two-against-one. The one was Patrick DiMarco and he didn’t do much on the play.
At the end of the first half, kicker Stephen Hauschka also missed a kick to the left. It was 49 yards and by no means a chip shot, but he’s a top-10 paid kicker in the league and you want him to be making those, especially in a close game. That would have made all the difference later on.