The 5 Biggest Stories From Buffalo Bills Training Camp

Strong points

• The Buffalo Bills are facing uncertainty at receiver after trading Stefon Diggs.
• Josh Allen must establish himself as the team’s undisputed leader for the first time.
• Sean McDermott’s coaching tenure is under scrutiny due to his playoff failures.

The Buffalo Bills are in an era of consistent winning ways that most teams would kill for.

Year after year, they are one of the best teams in the NFL. That includes six playoff appearances in the last seven seasons, including five in a row before 2024.

The problem? They’ve never reached the Super Bowl. And they keep losing to the same team in the playoffs — four times to the Kansas City Chiefs in the last five years.

None of those losses were more humiliating than the one at the end of last season, when the Bills had their first opportunity to play the Chiefs in the playoffs at home and were dismantled by a team held together by Patrick Mahomes, duct tape, Travis Kelce’s bad knees and the prayers of a million Swifties.

It’s called into question everything the Bills have done in recent years. Here’s a look at the five biggest Bills stories heading into training camp on July 23.

1 Who will become the Bills’ new WR1?

Buffalo faces uncertain future at receiver after trading Stefon Diggs

The Bills kicked off the NFL offseason by trading All-Pro wide receiver Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans, ostensibly removing their biggest offensive weapon outside of quarterback Josh Allen … and also removing their biggest headache after years of cancerous locker room behavior.

What now? The Bills will need to get unprecedented production from free agent receiver Curtis Samuel (three years, $24 million) and second-round pick Keon Coleman, who was wildly inconsistent at Michigan State and Florida State but won over fans with his gregarious offseason tour.

2 Josh Allen puts the entire franchise on his shoulders

Allen must be an undisputed leader for the first time in his career

What happens when Batman no longer has Robin by his side? In the comics, Batman always dominates.

In real life, Allen lost his Robin (or did he lose his Batman?) when the Bills traded Diggs to the Texans. How he’ll fare from here is anyone’s guess.

For years, Allen has been criticized for turning over the ball too much, but you have to take the good with the bad…and the good is usually great. He’s as unique an athlete at quarterback as we’ve seen in a long time and is widely considered the best quarterback in the NFL behind his longtime nemesis, Mahomes.

The problem is the turnovers, which can be insane at times. He has thrown at least 10 interceptions in five of the last six seasons and has a career-high 18 interceptions in 2023. There are also the fumbles — 59 career fumbles over six seasons.

Stop. Spinning. The. Ball. Is. Over.

3 Elite young tight ends continue to develop

Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox are both former first-round picks

The Bills have two of the NFL’s best tight ends in 2023 first-round pick Dalton Kincaid and 2022 Pro Bowl selection Dawson Knox. How they integrate them into the offense could be the biggest conundrum the team faces. Or even if they incorporate both of them.

Knox took over for Kincaid in 2023 and saw his numbers drop to 22 receptions for 186 receiving yards and two touchdowns — all career lows — and missed five games with a wrist injury as Kincaid took over his role in the offense.

Kincaid, for his part, was pretty spectacular as a rookie, with 73 receptions for 673 yards but just two touchdowns. The Bills would be wise to try to integrate both players into their offense if possible. And if not, the move could be to get the most out of Knox by trading him.

4 Does Von Miller have anything left in the tank?

Buffalo signed Miller to a six-year, $120 million contract in March 2022.

The Bills spent a mountain of money on outside linebacker Von Miller after his dominant playoff performance and run to the Los Angeles Rams’ Super Bowl victory after the 2021 season.

Miller’s six-year, $120 million contract may be one of the worst free-agent deals in recent memory. The former Super Bowl MVP and seven-time NFL All-Pro is 35 and coming off the worst season of his career in 2023: 12 games with no starts and three tackles.

5 Should head coach Sean McDermott be on the hot seat?

Making the playoffs is one thing…continually losing and embarrassing your team is another.

Let’s start with the positive. Since Sean McDermott took over as head coach in 2017, he has transformed the Bills into consistent AFC contenders — a stretch that has included their first playoff victory since 1995.

The downside? Six playoff appearances in seven seasons, no Super Bowl appearances and four losses to the Chiefs, including a heartbreaking playoff loss last season when the Bills finally got a chance to play the Chiefs in Buffalo.

Even worse for McDermott? Journalist Tyler Dunne’s 2023 series on McDermott’s tenure revealed that he once implored his team to “work together like the terrorists on 9/11,” during a 2019 team meeting (via NBC Sports 🙂

McDermott told the entire team they needed to come together. But then, according to sources on the ground, he used a strange model: the terrorists of September 11, 2001. He cited the hijackers as a group of people who were all capable of coming together to orchestrate attacks to perfection. One by one, McDermott began asking questions of specific players in the room. “What tactics do you think they used to come together?”

McDermott was nearly fired after the home loss to the Chiefs. A subpar season in 2024 could be the final nail in the coffin, and that might not be a bad thing.

All stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference unless otherwise noted. All salary information is available via Spotrac.