Where would the Buffalo Bills be without Greg Rousseau?
Twice it seemed the Bills were cooked and Rousseau produced a game-changing play. Adding to his game-sealing strip-sack against the Houston Texans in Week 1, Rousseau's blocked field goal saved the Bills, leading to a 37-34 overtime win over the Los Angeles Rams.
Without those two plays, it's possible the Bills are 2-3 instead of 4-1. But it still won't simmer conversations about how poorly the defense has played through the first five games of the season.
And if the Bills didn't have an offense on pace to be the most efficient in NFL history, the game likely wouldn't have gone to overtime.
How lucky were the Bills to escape? The Rams became the first team in NFL history to lose despite having 400 total yards, 30 first downs, five touchdowns, a 50% third-down conversion rate and no turnovers.
The Bills are allowing 28.2 points per game, which ranks 28th in the NFL. More importantly, the defense hasn't met a Super Bowl standard — which is supposedly the franchise's goal — because the most points allowed in a season by a Super Bowl winner is 25 by the 2011 New York Giants.
Their 141 points allowed is the eighth-most in team history through five games, one point behind the 2020 team that went 13-3 and one point ahead of the 1989 team that went 9-7. None of the other six teams ahead of them finished above .500 and three of them had the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft after the season.
"It's time to be good at something," Bills defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard said. "It's too inconsistent to pretend that we're building and working and making improvements. Everything's being evaluated right now, starting with every decision I'm making and we have to put them in better positions to have success."
Had it been a standalone performance, the Bills defense might have gotten a pass. The Rams carve up a lot of teams. Matthew Stafford did it to them in 2024. The problem is how easily the Rams moved the ball in critical moments.
After the Bills took a 34-27 lead, the Rams got the ball on their own 37-yard line with 1:32 remaining and crossed midfield in two plays. They moved 64 yards and tied the game with five seconds to spare and didn't even need their remaining timeout.
Including Week 4's eight-play, 73-yard go-ahead touchdown drive by the New England Patriots, the Bills are allowing 184 yards on 7.1 yards per play on three possessions with the lead in the final two minutes this season.
In overtime, the Rams moved the ball 50 yards in six plays before they strangely ran the ball on third and 5 and settled for a 48-yard field goal.
"It's our job to close it out," Leonhard said. "It doesn't really matter what happens up to that (point) in the game — whether you play great, whether you play poorly — in the biggest moments, you have to rise up. And that's the defense we want to create here and it's not happening right now. Everything's being evaluated right now as far as what we're doing, how we're doing it, the emphasis we're placing on it, practice structure, meeting times — all that."
The surprising run call was because the Bills held the Rams run game to 77 yards on 3.3 yards per carry. The Bills have allowed 3.5 per carry in their base 3-4 defense this season, but the Rams threw the ball more than normal against base through a combination of factors.
Down their top-three nickelbacks due to injury, the Bills trotted out Anthony Wallace — who was signed to the active roster in place of Mike Danna before the game and promptly waived Monday — for his first NFL game since 2023..
And the Rams use the most three-tight end sets in the league, which led to the Bills matching with heavier personnel.
Stafford finished 40 of 54 for 383 yards and three touchdowns, with 17 to Puka Nacua for 138 yards and a touchdown. And the Rams threw 21 times against Buffalo's base 3-4, picking up 176 yards.
Using heavier personnel helped the Rams neutralize the Bills' pass rush — which recorded just one sack — and forced the Bills to blitz more than usual. It all put extra stress on the secondary, as Stafford went 11 of 15 for 153 yards and two touchdowns against the blitz, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
And because the Bills can't hold up in the secondary, they aren't able to make splash plays. The Bills only have two interceptions this season and only generated two negative plays in 78 opportunities against the Rams.
"We have to get more production on the ball," Leonhard said. "There's no question about it. We got to find ways to get more production on the football and I have to help them get closer to routes — understanding how we're trying to get attacked, get these guys a little closer to receivers."
