There were plenty of reasons to be frustrated with the way Sunday's game was playing out offensively at Carolina. Facing the league's top defense, yards proved hard to come by, as well as staying on the field. The Bills defense, despite all their efforts, could've been discouraged by the fact that they were still trailing on the scoreboard.
None of those circumstances affected their play, or that of the men on offense.
It might seem insignificant, but to know that the team's psyche and intensity of play were not impacted by how the game was unfolding is something noteworthy.
"It didn't change the team," said Tyrod Taylor. "That's just our attitude. We were still in it. As many plays as we didn't make on offense we were still in it and had a chance to win it at the end. The defense did a great job of getting us the ball back and keeping it a low scoring game. Some games are going to be like that. We just weren't on the winning side of it."
Though the late Al Davis' famous line of 'Just win baby,' has merit in the NFL, when you're a team building something, you rely on a unified approach of playing at your level best all the time. It's the only realistic path to winning consistently down the line.
"One thing I know is there's a lot of guys in here that are tough and resilient," said Kyle Williams. "They'll go out and compete and I love being on a team with guys like that."
"These guys want to win. That's the part I love about this locker room," said head coach Sean McDermott. "They all want to win and we came up short (Sunday). There's no doubt about it. We've got to get better."
Heading into the Carolina game, McDermott said he would learn a lot about his football team since he knows exactly what the Panthers organization is about having been a part of it for the last six years. So, what did that 9-3 loss tell him about his Bills team?
"This is a tough group of guys," he said. "There's no locker room I'd rather be in than this locker room. I told the guys that after the game. These guys battled. It was hot out there. We had some injuries show up a little bit and we were shorthanded and some guys came back and battled. That's a resilient group. We have to continue to work and get better."
"We know we're a good football team," said Jordan Poyer. "We'll continue to work, continue to get better and move forward from it."
That's why McDermott is very interested to see how his players carry that approach into this work week coming off a loss.
"I'm looking forward to seeing them after the situation and how we hit the reset button, learn from it, grow from it, and develop," he said. "That's really what the vision is all about. We stay on the attack in terms of what we're doing off the field and on the field."
