The Bills are hanging out in the desert this week before they face the Cardinals and they’re doing a little bit of soul searching to figure out how to stop a slide that’s seen them outscored 97-31 in the last two games.
When they’re hanging out in a sweat lodge, General Manager Buddy Nix would like some members of his team to concentrate on finding a little more intensity in their games. Nix thinks the Buffalo defense isn’t showing enough urgency and he thinks that needs to change. Urgently.
“And that could be on any segment or as far as any part of our group. But to play defense you’ve gotta play fast and you’ve got to play reckless and you’ve got to play aggressive,” Nix said, via Mark Gaughan of the Buffalo News. “For some reason, especially in the second half of both games, we didn’t do that. We were a step slow reacting. We missed tackles. We didn’t get off blocks. When you miss tackles, usually it’s one of two things, it’s talent or lack of effort. We’ve seen these guys do it before so I think they can. We gotta get that urgency back somehow.”
One imagines that Nix wasn’t planning on making a plea for intensity from his defense five games into the season when he was shelling out Ralph Wilson’s money to sign Mario Williams and Mark Anderson this offseason. It’s hard to believe that all of Buffalo’s problems could be solved just by flipping a switch, but something’s got to change if the Bills are going to even remotely resemble the team that many thought they would be coming into the season.