The Buffalo Bills keep piling up wins, but one nagging problem is staring them in the face: two-point conversions.
Through the opening stretch of the season, the Bills flashed the kind of offense that can beat teams in a hurry. They opened with three straight wins, stumbled in a close divisional loss to the New England Patriots in Week 4, then answered with a big under-the-lights win in Week 5. But along the way, a few warning signs kept surfacing - including in Week 1 against the Houston Texans, in Week 3 against the Los Angeles Chargers, and again against New England last Sunday.
The most obvious issue is what happens when Buffalo decides to go for two.
Josh Allen and the Bills have not been nearly as sharp on two-point tries as they need to be, even though the modern NFL keeps pushing more teams in that direction. Allen has made a living on the one-yard Tush push, but the same success hasn’t carried over once the offense is trying to turn a touchdown into two points.
The numbers are rough. Of Allen’s seven rushing touchdowns, four came from the one-yard line, while only two came from 2 yards out.
As a team, the Bills are just 2-for-11 on two-point conversions, a painfully low 18% success rate. For an offense that can be so efficient in close, physical situations, the disconnect is hard to ignore.
That struggle showed up again against the Patriots.
With a chance to potentially make it 28-21 late in the fourth quarter, Allen tried to thread a two-point pass to Joshua Palmer in the back of the end zone. Dalton Kincaid was open on the other side, but Allen locked in on Palmer and never found Kincaid for the score.
That miss loomed large. Instead of Buffalo holding the advantage, New England answered with a touchdown to go ahead 27-26, then converted its own two-point attempt on the way to a 29-26 win.
The Bills’ issues on these plays are not new. Last season, they ranked as the fifth-worst team in the league in two-point conversion success rate.
This year, the league-wide mark sits at 46%, but Buffalo is still far below that at 22.2%. And after the latest miss against the Patriots, the Bills’ 2-for-11 start has become the kind of ugly stat that sticks out immediately.
Their last successful two-point attempt came when former reserve quarterback Mitchell Trubisky converted against the New York Jets in Week 18 last season.
If Buffalo wants to clean this up, the answer is going to involve more variety near the goal line. The Bills need more red-zone options, with Keon Coleman and Kincaid among the names that could help. They also need to keep leaning on Allen, whose arm and legs give them their best chance to create something in tight spaces.
The Bills know the problem now. At this point, the fix has to follow. In a league where every point matters, missing a two-point conversion can cost you a game - and Buffalo has already been reminded of that the hard way.
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Raiders Face A Bigger Test Than Their Record Has Answered
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The intrigue is whether the Raiders can keep Buffalo from turning the afternoon into a familiar Allen-led grind, because the Bills have been living with a few self-inflicted issues even while the results keep coming. Las Vegas has enough on paper to make the game interesting on both sides of the ball, but the bigger question for Buffalo is whether its offense can keep separating when the margins tighten and the game starts asking for answers rather than projections. [Read more 🡒]