4 Buffalo Bills to blame for completely wasting Josh Allen masterclass

Josh Allen did everything to further cement himself as the NFL MVP favorite on Sunday in Los Angeles against the Rams. Unfortunately, the Buffalo Bills as a whole didn't make good on a historically great performance from their franchise quarterback in Week 14.

Despite Allen throwing for 342 yards and three touchdowns while also rushing for 82 yards and three more touchdowns, the Bills fell in a shootout, 44-42, in Los Angeles. It's a loss that puts the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoff race a little further out of reach for Buffalo and a loss that's frankly just brutal for Buffalo to swallow. How often is your quarterback going to account for six touchdowns and you lose a game?

But that's what happened and Allen certainly isn't to blame. These four of his Bills teammates, on the other hand, are going to be on the wrong end of some finger-pointing for their part in wasting their quarterback's heroics.

4. Reid Ferguson put the Bills behind the 8-ball early

It's not often that you get to blame a long snapper for contributing to a loss but, in this case, it's absolutely warranted. While the snaps from Reid Ferguson on special teams aren't anything you can really pick apart, a look early in the second quarter shows where things started to get messy for the Bills and put the game in a bad spot for Buffalo.

After a short drive trailing 10-7, the Bills elected to punt. Ferguson made a clean snap but then got absolutely roasted to a crisp by Jacob Hummel on the line. Hummel got into the backfield, blocked the punt cleanly, and then allowed Rams tight end Hunter Long to scoop it up for the touchdown, giving LA a 17-7 lead.

This isn't to say that the Bills are incapable of coming back from a 17-7 deficit. However, as we start to unpack more of what we saw from the defense, Ferguson getting blown off the line to allow the blocked punt put his team in an unadvantageous position in terms of the game-script and they were never able to fully recover.

3. Greg Rousseau was basically a complete zero on defense

All things considered, it's been a good year for the Rams offensive line. It has not, however, been a great year. So one of the ways in which Buffalo could've potentially climbed back into this game after going down early by two possessions would've been putting Matthew Stafford and LA in third-and-long situations or behind the sticks at any point. Greg Rousseau, unfortunately, made sure that didn't happen all that much.

While we could single out the Bills pass rush as a whole, Rousseau was by far the worst offender in the front seven. Despite playing the most snaps of any defensive lineman in this game (58), he was a complete non-factor, registering no hurries, no pressures, only one tackle, and giving up a notable missed tackle that helped the Rams break off a big gain.

Stafford walked out of this game not being sacked once the entire day. When it was such a back-and-forth shootout of a game that one big defensive splash could've swung the momentum, seeing a player like Rousseau give next to nothing in terms of his performance is wholly disheartening.

2. Sean McDermott and Joe Brady's gameplan was head-scratching

I don't want to be too harsh on the offense in this game because, well, Josh Allen was able to do what he did in this game. At the same time, it's hard not to look at how this game transpired and think that something even more could've been done to help out the Bills. Specifically, the way that Sean McDermott and Joe Brady used running back James Cook in this game was baffling.

Cook logged only 27 snaps for the entire game and got just eight touches on the day, six carries and two receptions. While he, admittedly, wasn't all too productive with the opportunities he got, it still seems misguided that Buffalo got away from the run game quickly as they did. Even in the early stages, the offense was far too pass happy. For example, on the drive that ended in the blocked punt touchdown, it was four pass plays and then the punt with no touches for Cook.

Had McDermott and Brady been more willing to deploy Cook early, it could've done something to change the game-script and maybe not have put the defense in as many compromising positions. That's something to consider when the Bills coaching staff goes back to the drawing board coming off of this loss.

1. Taron Johnson couldn't buy a stop for the Bills defense

Much like with Rousseau and the defensive front, it wouldn't be out-of-bounds to say that the entirety of the Bills secondary is to blame for how they were torched on Sunday against the Rams. But also like with Rousseau, it's pretty easy to key in on veteran Taron Johnson and wonder how he could get beaten so thoroughly in this game.

While Rasul Douglas and Ja'Marcus Ingram were burned plenty of times in this game, Johnson from the safety spot put up some horrendous numbers. When in coverage in this game, he was targeted 10 times — full evidence that Stafford and LA were picking on him — and gave up eight catches for 77 yards in this game. Considering that Puka Nacua ended with 12 catches for 162 yards while Cooper Kupp added five grabs for 92 yards, that's not all that surprising.

Because he was targeted so heavily by the Rams, we have to single out Johnson. Again, though, the Bills secondary as a whole was just getting peppered by Sean McVay's offense and the Rams cast of weapons with no answers. That's the biggest reason that Allen's effort was wasted with Buffalo's offense. Even when he threw a haymaker, the secondary couldn't stop the Rams from throwing one right back.