Back when the National Football League schedule was released in April, few would have seen the Buffalo Bills’ Week 8 visit to the Carolina Panthers as a high-tension affair.
Heck, even three weeks ago that would have seemed highly improbable.
Yet, here is the NFL’s last undefeated team of 2025 heading to Charlotte, N.C. off their bye with a 4-2 record, in second place in the AFC East, and with enough issues on both sides of the ball to call into question just what this team’s ceiling really is.
The Bills as Super Bowl favourites through the first month of this season was easy to understand. After a 13-4 season in 2024 where they scored more points than any Bills team in history, Buffalo’s front office spent the off-season using both draft and free agent capital on defence.
The dramatic opening-week come-from-behind win over Baltimore only served to grow the idea that, with Josh Allen at quarterback, anything is possible.
So how did the way the Bills are viewed – both at home and around the league – shift so dramatically since the calendar flipped to October?
Perceptions of NFL teams can be heavily influenced by schedules, and the Bills were a good example of this during the first month of the season.
After their dramatic win over the Ravens in Week 1, the Bills faced the Jets, the Miami Dolphins and the New Orleans Saints to round out September, four teams with a current combined record of 3-24.
And it wasn’t like the Bills romped over them, with Buffalo’s 30-10 victory over the winless Jets being their only convincing victory of the season.
There were flaws visible on both sides of the ball, but the offence was putting up 30 points every week and the defensive struggles could be explained to a degree by who wasn’t on the field due to injuries.
After back-to-back losses to the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons, teams that each entered their matchups with Buffalo at 2-2, that remains true about the Bills’ underperforming defence, which is why there is at least reason for hope that things can improve.
First-round pick Maxwell Hairston, who was expected to see significant time at corner this season, practised for the first time since July this past week but is unlikely to play against Carolina. Second-round pick defensive tackle T.J. Sanders is currently on injured reserve after mixed results to the start of his NFL career. And two of their significant additions on defence during the off-season, defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi and defensive end Michael Hoecht, are each returning from six-game suspensions this week.
Three players who were expected to make an impact on defence being still yet to hit the field has an obvious impact.
Then there is the way the Bills offensive struggles have made the defence more vulnerable, especially to the run.
Buffalo’s defence under Sean McDermott has traditionally been built to prioritize stopping the pass, especially big plays, since they expect to be leading by the early stages of most games with Allen at quarterback.
But the Bills failure to seize leads early in games this season has allowed opposing offences to remain two-dimensional throughout, playing into the Bills’ weakness both in terms of scheme and personnel.
A defence not built to stop the run has been made worse in that regard due to injuries to two of their best players – defensive tackle Ed Oliver and linebacker Matt Milano – both of whom have missed significant time.
The arrival and Ogunjobi and Hoecht, whose variety of skills allow him to be used in various areas of the defence as needed, plus the anticipated arrival of Hairston give reason to believe the Bills defence can be significantly better by November.
But strangely, it’s the offence, with largely the same personnel a year ago, that is the greater concern.
Despite having a superstar quarterback, the Bills’ offence is built off the run. And when it’s been rolling this season, Allen has been able to complement that with enough passing to keep things on schedule.
But when the Bills failed to establish running back James Cook and the ground game during first halves against New England and Atlanta, Allen and the pass game had no answers.
Even Allen buying time with his legs to allow his receivers and tight ends time to separate – a staple for the Bills whenever their offence stalls – wasn’t working.
Put simply, Allen has been unable to find targets down the field when he scrambles, and even his own running ability hasn’t been able to make up for that.
The Bills were without tight end Dalton Kincaid for the Atlanta game and lost receiver Josh Palmer in the first half. But beyond that, the same offence that lit the league on fire a year ago has been mostly healthy.
Throwing to their running backs more (17 total catches on the season) would help, but there’s enough concern from what they’ve shown the past two weeks that GM Brandon Beane may be forced to go hunting before the Nov. 4 trade deadline.
That brings us to Carolina and the 4-3 Panthers, who run the ball almost as well as any team in the NFL, and suddenly present a real challenge to the flailing Bills.
A convincing Buffalo win will calm the waters, as it always does.
But a loss would put this team on the first three-game losing streak of the Allen era heading into hosting the resurgent Kansas City Chiefs on Nov. 2.
It would also throw wide open the question about what this Bills team really is.
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