Buffalo Bills news, notes: Singletary clearly top RB, defensive line finally gets to QB

ORCHARD PARK - There are plenty of times during his interactions with the media where Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott isn’t exactly forthcoming with information.

And that’s fine; that puts him in the same category as every other NFL coach, and for that matter, every football coach known to mankind. Coaches and the truth have an on again, off again relationship.

But last week, when McDermott was asked whether he and the team needed more from the Bills’ defensive line down the stretch, he provided a surprisingly succinct and straightforward answer.

“One hundred percent,” McDermott said. “Yes. My answer is yes.”

Defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier doubled down on that topic. 

“We’re not hurrying or hitting the quarterback often with our four as we would like,” Frazier said. “There have been some games on occasion where we’re really good at disrupting a quarterback with our four rushers, our four primary rushers, but not on a consistent basis, not as consistent as we would like. We’re still trying to get it to where it’s more consistent. We like being able to rush four. It helps our coverage, it helps everything we’re trying to do on defense. We just need to get a little bit more on a consistent basis than what we’ve been getting.”

In the spirit of the holiday season, ask and ye shall receive.

In Sunday’s 31-14 victory over Carolina, the Bills were able to generate notable and effective heat on Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, sacking him four times for 32 yards in losses. 

“Confidence is one hell of a drug in the NFL, so those boys up front get confidence and get after the quarterback, we’ll be excited on the back end,” said safety Micah Hyde. 

Edge rusher Efe Obada had two on back-to-back fourth-quarter plays; DT Star Lotueleli had one when edge pressure collapsed the pocket and fed Newton right to him for the cleanup; and nickel cornerback Taron Johnson recorded one on a blitz. 

Pro Football Focus has a certain system it uses to track pressures which include sacks, QB hits and hurries. Their numbers are typically vastly different than other sites including the stats you see on NFL.com and the Bills’ website, and my assumption is because there are some plays where they award multiple players with pressures.

Deciding what is and isn’t a pressure is subjective, but I’ll throw these numbers out: Sunday, PFF had the Bills with 35 pressures, about 77.7% of Newton’s dropbacks. It was their second-highest total of the season, and one of only four games where they had more than 15. They had 46 in the first game against Miami, and 25 each against the Chiefs, Jets and Dolphins in the second game.

The front four definitely had a nice day, but before we anoint it as fixed, it had help against the Panthers as the Bills blitzed on nearly half of Newton’s 45 dropbacks. And what was interesting is that from the linebacker level, it was Tremaine Edmunds getting the opportunities as opposed to Matt Milano. Edmunds had a team-high five pressures, Milano none, and usually those numbers are flipped.

“I think (Leslie Frazier) did a good job of putting guys in position to make plays,” Edmunds said. “Even some of the ones that we didn’t get sacks, I think just the pressure helped us out defensively. It made the ball come out quick. The credit goes out to him because coach is the one that calls the plays, the guys just took advantage of it.”

So yes, blitzing was prominent, but it was clear that, just as McDermott asked, the line played well, particularly Jerry Hughes who had been invisible in recent weeks. He had three pressures and a deflected pass; Greg Rousseau had four pressures and a deflected pass; and Obada, Ed Oliver, and Mario Addison had three pressures. In total, the nine defensive linemen who played totaled 22 pressures.

“Getting that four-man rush going, it’s important for us,” McDermott said.

Here are some other observations I had:

Devin Singletary is clearly RB1

The oft-maligned running back set a new career high with 22 attempts, and his 86 yards were tied for his fifth-best total in the 42 NFL games he has played.

“It felt good today,” Singletary said. “They called our number in the run game, feel like we had a decent day. It wasn’t so much of proving the doubters wrong because there’s always going to be doubters. It was just doing what we needed to do to go 1-0. That’s what I got to say to that.”

The running game succeeded on a day when the offensive line was all jumbled up due to COVID-19, and that’s what made the 119-yard total impressive. Now, it wasn’t an awesome display, but the main takeaway is that Brian Daboll was more balanced in his play-calling, particularly in the second half when the Bills were protecting a lead.

“We’ve known he can,” Josh Allen said of Singletary. “But it was good to see him go out there and run hard. He ran really well today. But again, it starts with the guys up front and doing their job. And Motor did a good job of finding the holes and getting extra yards for us.”

Zack Moss has now been inactive in three of the last four games with Matt Breida getting the call along with Singletary, and it doesn’t seem like that will be changing. One thing to consider though: The Patriots have an outstanding run defense, and Moss could be a better option than Breida in a game where the Bills may need to grind out tough runs. Then again, when has Moss done that this year?

No surprise that Gabriel Davis excelled 

The second-year wide receiver is a playmaker, plain and simple. He caught the 12th and 13th TD passes of his Bills career, and that ranks him behind only Lee Evans and Sammy Watkins (15) for the most receiving TDs by a Bill in his first 30 games. And what’s crazy is he has done that on just 64 receptions.

This season Stefon Diggs has played 558 passing snaps and Dawson Knox 452 and they are tied for the team lead with eight TDs; Davis has played 278 snaps and has six TDs. Again, not finding ways to get Davis on the field before Emmanuel Sanders got hurt last week is a misfire for the Bills’ offensive staff.

“Tremendous. Another game where he showed up and was productive for us,” McDermott said. “I love his mindset. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s tough. And, again, mentally he was working while he was waiting and today I think you saw it again where he produced for us and made some big plays.”

Allen has said it time and time again that he has full trust in Davis, and he said what has been so striking is the way he has just continued to work hard despite the limited role.

“I mean, if he was frustrated, you couldn’t tell,” Allen said. “He just put his head down. He worked hard. He’s a great teammate. Not once did he complain to anybody. And when he was asked to make plays throughout the season, he’s been able to make them. You see an increased role, especially with ‘E’ out, and he’s going to have to continue to make plays for us going forward. I’ve got a lot of trust in him.”

Extra points

► The Bills cornerback depth remains a problematic situation. Dane Jackson is starting in place of injured Tre’Davious White, but when Jackson had to miss a few plays Sunday with a stinger, Siran Neal had to play boundary corner and that’s not ideal. Cam Lewis was also active, but he’s more a backup to slot corner Taron Johnson.

► Rookie offensive tackle Spencer Brown had a brutal day switching from right tackle to left as he was called for five penalties (one was offset) which included three holds, a false start, and a taunting foul. He owned up to that one, after which a furious McDermott benched him for a couple plays. “That was me being an idiot and hurting my team, quite honestly,” Brown said. “It can’t happen, but that doesn’t matter. We can’t sit here and use the excuse of, ‘Oh, he’s at left tackle and he’s probably new to it.’ ... It hurts the team.”

► Cole Beasley played only 32 snaps, but there was a reason: The Bills took him off the field on run downs and many of his snaps went to TE Tommy Sweeney who had 22 total. Davis and TE Dawson Knox played 63 of 70 snaps and Diggs was on for 58.

► Phillips continues his strong play of late and he and Oliver led the defensive linemen with 44 snaps each. Lotulelei, returning after missing four of the previous five games, played only 22. Obada recorded his two sacks in just 18 snaps.

► All eight of the Bills’ victories have been by at least 15 points which is nuts, but just as nuts is that five of their six losses were one-score games. Buffalo’s point differential is now a leagues-best plus-151. Guess who’s second: The Patriots at plus-140.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.