Von Miller: Bills got ‘punch in the mouth’ vs. Patriots

The Buffalo Bills are looking for answers on both sides of the ball following a disappointing division matchup loss to the New England Patriots.

While the offense has struggled, putting up only ten first-half points in their last three games, the defense struggled on Sunday as well, giving up a game-winning drive inside the final two minutes.

OLB Von Miller, who recently returned to live gameplay from a year-long injury and surgery recovery, found a silver lining in the ugly defeat.

“A good punch in the chin, a punch in the mouth – they’re always good,” he said, suggesting it could inspire a spark, for the team and perhaps himself as well.

DT defensive tackle Jordan Phillips, meanwhile, touched on the teams’ pattern of playing to the level of their competition. A trend evident across the past several seasons.

“We have to stop playing down to different people,” the veteran noted. “We have to do our thing and play Buffalo Bills football and we haven’t done that the last few weeks even though we won last week.”

Behind the line, safety Micah Hyde recognized the Patriots’ offensive execution while pointing out the Bills’ defensive lack thereof.

“They worked their way down the field and worked the clock. It was just poor execution by us as a defense, we’ve got to do better,” he shared. “I felt like we gave them too much in the first two drives. I’ve got to look at the play-by-play to see rushing yards and all that stuff, but it’s just we didn’t play our brand of football today. We gave them a little too much and obviously, it came down to that last drive. This is the NFL and coming down to the last two minutes of the game, you’ve got to execute and get off the field. We just didn’t do it.”

Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott, a former defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles and Carolina Panthers, took over playcalling duties on that side of the ball following the departure of DC Leslie Frasier.

The Bills defense, however, struggled to stop a Patriots offense that hasn’t been good this season.

“Just not enough, we didn’t do enough,” McDermott said during his postgame press conference. “We didn’t put it in position enough. I didn’t put the defense in position enough, and then just overall didn’t play complementary football.”

Hyde’s fellow safety Jordan Poyer provided some perspective both on the season as well as the short time before they face their next opponent.

“This is a long season. This is a very long season – 4-3, maybe not where we wanted to be at the beginning of the year, but we’ve got a short week this week and the games are going to keep coming,” Poyer said. “No reason to sulk into this one and turn one loss into two. We’ll hit it on the plane, watch the tape on the plane and tomorrow we’re on to Tampa Bay.”

Story originally appeared on Bills Wire