The Buffalo Bills spent all offseason telling anyone who would listen about the maturation of wide receiver Keon Coleman.
It took one offensive series Sunday night against the New England Patriots for that conversation to ring a bit hollow.
The Bills benched the second-year receiver for the first offensive series of their 23-20 loss at Highmark Stadium.
That amounted to six plays, so as punishments go, this one is far from extreme. What is telling is that the Bills chose to disclose it at all. Head coach Sean McDermott did that Monday when asked why Coleman wasn’t on the field for the first offensive series.
“We expect more,” McDermott said. “He has shown growth this year. He has. We’re looking for more consistency.”
McDermott easily could have avoided the question of why Coleman wasn’t on the field. He could have said it was a part of the game plan, and nobody would have thought much of it.
By choosing to say that the reason was disciplinary in nature, he made public a situation that could have been handled in private. Every word that McDermott speaks to the media is measured, so you can bet the coach felt like going public was necessary. The goal here, it would seem, is to motivate Coleman.
Remember: This is not the first time the receiver has been disciplined by the team. He missed the first quarter of a Week 3 win over Jacksonville last year, with McDermott revealing afterward that it was a coaching decision after Coleman was late.
While the Bills haven’t definitively stated what led to Sunday’s brief benching, offensive coordinator Joe Brady’s answer Monday might have provided a clue.
“Just being where he’s supposed to be,” Brady said. “When he’s there, doing his job, doing his 1/11th and just being accountable to the 10 other guys in the huddle with him at any given moment.”
“The Buffalo Bills no longer can rely on Matt Milano,” Jay Skurski writes. “That’s a harsh reality, but it’s one the team’s coaching staff has to accept after the linebacker suffered yet another injury during Sunday’s loss to the New England Patriots at Highmark Stadium.”
The reason for the disciplinary action is of secondary importance. What matters most is that the Bills had to make such a move in the first place, especially since they’ve been down this road before with him.
“Growth, maturation, that leads to consistency, more than anything,” McDermott said. “Like anything else, you have winning habits, it leads to winning on the field. So that’s really what we’re trying to create and that’s what we’re here to do, is help young men, in this case, grow and mature and develop and become professionals. That’s part of the process.”
It has to be disappointing for the franchise that this conversation has bled into a second season. At times, Coleman has carried himself like a player who has accomplished a lot more in the NFL than he actually has.
Leaving the locker room after a game before it is open to reporters shouldn’t be mistaken for some cardinal sin, but it also doesn’t show a great deal of accountability. That has been fairly routine for Coleman this year.
Ultimately, Coleman has to be accountable to his teammates, more than he does the media.
White has allowed 12 catches on 15 targets for 119 yards, 9.9 yards per reception, and one touchdown. He doesn’t have the speed to keep up with the league’s best, Lysowski says.
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“I think he understands. I think he knows,” quarterback Josh Allen said. “This locker room, this team, you don’t ever want to let your teammates down, and I think he understands that and he doesn’t want to let us down. We move forward.”
To his credit, Coleman spoke after practice Wednesday about the situation. He said that he believes he is on the same page with McDermott, and that the decision was communicated to him ahead of the game against New England and was thus understandable.
“Just got to be more accountable,” he said. “Doing what I’m supposed to do and showing that level of maturity. Things happen. You just got to do your best to try to eliminate them.”
Coleman called the moment a “growing pain.”
“It is frustrating, because you know you’re better than (that) as a person and an individual and you don’t like the things that it shows,” he said. “Sometimes it might show that you don’t care, and things like that, and that’s not the case. You want to eliminate those things.”
When Coleman got into the game, he fumbled the first pass he caught deep in his own territory, leading to a turnover that the Patriots turned into a 30-yard field goal to open the scoring. Coleman didn’t see the ball into his tuck. Mistakes like that are going to happen during the course of the season, but they were compounded against the Patriots. The Bills lost the turnover battle for the first time in 26 games, a big reason why they are no longer undefeated.
Later in the game, Allen found Coleman in the back of the end zone for a 2-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter that got the Bills back to within three points. The Bills desperately needed points in that moment, so in that sense, it was a big play.
“I want to be a guy this offense can go to when we need those plays to be made,” Coleman said. “So I guess it showed a pretty good bit. But I know a lot of that won’t matter if you’re not doing the things you’re supposed to do on the flip side of that.”
Through five games, Coleman has 21 catches for 226 yards and two touchdowns. He’s on pace for 71 catches for 768 yards and seven touchdowns. Coleman was diplomatic, at first, Wednesday when asked to assess his own performance through the Bills’ first five games. He said he had a good Week 1. Nobody would question that after he finished with eight catches for 112 yards and a touchdown. He said the Bills’ running game has been going well.
Asked a follow-up question about whether he has met his own standards, though, and Coleman’s tone quickly changed.
“I mean, hell no. The standard for me is, it’s up here,” he said, holding his arm over his shoulder. “So no matter, how good you’re going to play, you’re still going to feel like you got room for more things.”
That needs to be the case. Coleman has to be more than just along for the ride. He needs to develop into the kind of receiver opposing defensive coordinators worry about devising a game plan to stop.
“You see the growth, you see the plays, that he has out there, that just needs to be the consistent level,” Brady said. “We had some opportunities on one-on-one coverages (against New England). … Keon will be the first to say he’s got to make (those plays). It starts throughout the week in practice and carries over to the game.”
I do believe the Buffalo Bills will be a better team for having suffered this embarrassing 23-20 loss to the New England Patriots. Not even an MVP-caliber player like Josh Allen can make up for the mistakes they made in this game. Going forward, coach Sean McDermott needs to continue to improve this team’s readiness. This was the second consecutive week the Bills underperformed. There isn’t any excuse for it in professional football. The good news is, the Bills do have players that care deeply about their mission and the formula that will be necessary to take them there, Jim Kubiak writes.
For his part, Allen said he still trusts Coleman. He admitted the two are still developing a rapport, but pointed to the touchdown and a key third-down reception Coleman made against the Patriots as the type of plays the Bills will need more of as the season progresses.
The Bills’ offense is constructed in such a way that Coleman isn’t going to consistently get 12 catches and 150 yards per week. He is right that the running game sometimes will take center stage. Khalil Shakir and Dalton Kincaid have earned their targets, too.
The season isn’t to the halfway point yet, so it is unfair to say the offense’s identity is fully formed. When Coleman does get his opportunities, he needs to maximize them.
“If he’s where he needs to be, and Josh trusts him to be where he’s going to be, good things are going to happen,” Brady said.
The past few days have shown that is as true off the field as it is on the field for Coleman.
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Jay Skurski
News Sports Reporter
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