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'It's adversity, and we're going to use it' | The Bills reflect on their first loss of the season

Oct 04, 2026 at 07:00 PM

Seasonal Writing Associate

After losing their first game of the season to the New England Patriots, 29-26, on Sunday, the Buffalo Bills are focused on improving moving forward.

Buffalo reflected on the loss in the locker room after the game, emphasizing the need to learn from the struggles and improve moving forward.

"I think everybody in that locker room right now needs to just sit there and say, 'Hey, you know what? I have to be better. If I'm better, and I worry about making myself better right now, then we'll continue to improve as a football team,'" head coach Joe Brady said.

"It's adversity, and we're going to use it," OLB Greg Rousseau said. "We should use it to get better. It's an opportunity to get better. I mean, it's not supposed to be perfect… 17-0 has never happened. It is what it is. You've got to find ways to just get better and go back to the drawing board."

Losing to a rival opponent is hard to stomach, with Sunday's game giving the Bills even more of a reason to be upset. The team held a lead late in the fourth quarter, losing the contest in heartbreaking fashion.

Buffalo again struggled to consistently execute on both sides of the ball after opening the season with two convincing victories.

"The wins and losses are never what it's about. It's about, 'Are we playing clean, winning football and giving ourselves a chance to win?'" Brady said. "… We're not going to let others make excuses for us. Let's just start with ourselves, and then we'll continue to clean it up; And obviously, I start with myself."

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For veteran safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, the struggles on Sunday aren't indicative of how the rest of the season will pan out. There are still 14 more weeks left in the regular season, with plenty of time to improve.

"A lot of guys are like, 'Oh, the Bills, there's a lot of red flags,' but it's just one game," Gardner-Johnson said. "… We have more than just this game… The ball just fell their way today. We've got to just play better as a team."

Rookie CB Davison Igbinosun is learning how to stay even-keeled through the course of an NFL season. He's taking advice from the veterans in the locker room and using the experience as motivation moving forward.

"It's a humbling experience, but I'm a rookie, in my first career start," Igbinosun said. "I'm just going to take this and learn from it. I'm just going to use this to fuel me and motivate me. It's only week four. It's a long season. I'm just going to use this moment and just keep it in the back of my mind and learn from it and grow."

OLB Bradley Chubb has nine years of NFL experience in his career, understanding what it takes to bounce back after a loss. As one of the captains of the Bills, he's keeping morale high and focusing as much as he can on the positives.

"Failure is going to happen, and that's when you build the steadfastness," Chubb said. "I say it every time we take the field, after a bad play or whatever it is, consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds because those trials produce the steadfastness."

On top of using the positives to their advantage, the Bills want to flush some of the negatives from Sunday's performance. There were plenty of aspects that they don't want to see again, keeping it in the past as they move to Week 5.

"We've got to learn from it, wipe it, have a good week of practice and just try to go 1-0," QB Josh Allen said.

"It's a whole new week," DeWayne Carter said. "It's that same win-every-down mentality. Every week is a new week. So we've just got to show up, get back to the drawing board, go to practice and continue our work.

"You can talk about the division, you can talk about whatever else; At the end of the day, you've got to win every week, and you've got a chance to win every single day."

Buffalo will attempt to take their shared mentality with them for the rest of the season, with the current focus on winning the next game on the schedule. The Bills are set to hit the road to take on the Los Angeles Rams on Monday, Oct. 12 at 8:15 p.m. EST.

"I mean, it should hurt; We've put a lot of time in," Brady said. "Don't get me wrong, losing is never fun. There's never like, 'Hey, it's okay that we lost.' Hell no. But what are we going to do about it?"