The Buffalo Bills coaching staff met with the media Monday to discuss their Week 4 loss to the Patriots, the team's first loss of 2026.
Cornerback Maxwell Hairston also had an impromptu press conference.
'I have to be better' | Maxwell Hairston apologizes for an emotional Sunday afternoon
Bills CB Maxwell Hairston apologized to the media for not conducting interviews in the locker room after Sunday's 29-26 loss to the New England Patriots.
In between scheduled press conferences on Monday afternoon from head coach Joe Brady, defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, Hairston asked to stand in front of the media and express regret for his actions 24 hours prior.
"I wanted to start this off by apologizing for walking out yesterday," Hairston said. "Feeling very emotional, I let my emotions get the best of me and I didn't want to say something I might have regretted. You live, and you learn."
The 23-year-old was upset with his performance in Buffalo's first loss of the season. As a player who wears his emotions on his sleeve, Hairston acknowledged that he let them get the best of him on Sunday.
"Regardless of expectations being high or not, I have to be in control of my emotions within the game," Hairston added. "It comes with learning, experiencing certain stuff. I have to be better in that aspect."
Having time to reflect, the 2025 first-round pick claimed his effort wasn't up to both his own personal standard, along with the team's expectations.
Hairston is now focused on how to improve moving forward, learning from Sunday's struggles and using it as motivation.
"I wasn't at my best yesterday," Hairston said. "The biggest thing is just finding the mistake of why I wasn't, and not allowing that to continue to be a mistake. Just going back and looking in the mirror and holding myself accountable. Like I said, we have a standard, and it's my job to maintain that standard, and I have to do better with doing that."
Brady was also asked about Hairston during his press conference, confirming that the team is still confident that he's capable of being a consistent playmaker for the defense.
"There's a reason he stayed out there, because I believed there was an opportunity that he was going to go make a play," Brady said. "He's going to be out there this Monday, and he's going to make a play. That's the confidence that we have in him, and I need him to have that confidence in himself."
Leonhard shared a similar sentiment, with his focus on bottling up the passion that Hairston plays with, and using it to his advantage moving forward.
"The thing that I love about Max is the pride," Leonhard said. "You know, he cares, he wants it, he will address it… We're going to continue to push Max and get him to grow. And he's got a lot of pride, so I think he'll get it done."
'The volume is a little bit higher' | Tracking Cole Bishop's alignment
Through four weeks, Bills safety Cole Bishop has lined up closer to the line of scrimmage (LOS) at the snap at a much higher rate than he was last season. Oftentimes, Buffalo has used the third-year player as an extra defender in the box instead of a deep safety.
"He's a young guy that's trying to learn a new system and figure out how he can be dynamic in it," Leonhard said.
According to TruMedia, Bishop has been aligned 10 yards or closer to the line of scrimmage on 189 of his 266 (71%) defensive snaps through four weeks. 103 of them have come within five yards of the line of scrimmage (39%).
Last season, Bishop was used as a defender within five yards of the LOS on 186 out of 868 total snaps (21.4%) and within 10 yards on 397 plays (45.7%). Granted, it's a larger sample size over the course of a full season, but even in Weeks 14-17 in 2025, lining up within five yards of the LOS accounted for 20.9% of Bishop's alignments.
"We're not necessarily asking him to do a million things that he hasn't done before, but the volume is a little bit higher on some of it and he's going to figure it out," Leonhard said.
Ideally, Bishop's role puts him in position to be a high-impact player around the line of scrimmage, giving the Bills the flexibility to use him in blitz situations, as a run defender and in coverage. Right now, Leonhard believes Bishop is experiencing some growing pains in adjusting to that higher volume.
"The biggest thing with Cole, there's times he just plays fast and you want him to learn how to slow it down and control it because I think then he will finish a little bit better. I think he tries to do a little bit too much sometimes from a communication standpoint and that puts him in some situations where he feels like he's playing catch up," Leonhard explained.
In order to achieve that "slow it down" feeling, Leonhard believes it starts with Bishop's eyes and feet once the offense gets into formation.
"The closer you are to the ball, and this goes to any position, you have to be more dialed. Your eyes have to be right, your feet have to be right. You run out of options the closer you get to the football."
Like Hairston, Leonhard said he is looking for ways that he can help calm down Bishop and put him in positions to succeed.
Brady reiterates the need to keep Kincaid involved and improve two-point plays
Bills star tight end Dalton Kincaid ran a route on just 17 of Buffalo's 34 dropbacks against the Patriots, his fewest routes run in a game this season. Even when Kincaid was on the field, the ball was not thrown his way as he finished the game with two targets and a season-low seven receiving yards.
Head coach Joe Brady said he "didn't do a good enough job" of making sure Kincaid was involved as much as he should have been. Kincaid led all tight ends in receiving yards through the first two weeks of the season, but he had 45 in Weeks 3 and 4.
"I got to do a better job of getting that to him when the opportunities are there — to just trust it and put it on him and play within the system," Brady said.
Still, Kincaid had a chance to impact the game in a big way Sunday on a two-point conversion attempt. The tight end chipped before releasing into the end zone and was left wide open on what would have given the Bills a 28-21 lead late in the fourth quarter.
However, QB Josh Allen unsuccessfully tried to squeeze a tight-window throw to Joshua Palmer in the back of the end zone.
"I think if you ask [Allen], he'll probably wish he can progress back or keep that play alive with a three man rush or just be able to extend the play right there in a two-point play," Brady said.
The Bills are now 2 for 11 (18%) on two-point conversions dating back to the start of 2025.
"We're not where it needs to be," Brady said in regards to their success rate. "And so we've studied it, we've looked at it and some of that is obviously the play call. Some of that is us just keeping plays alive."
Offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael shared insight as to how the Bills are formulating two-point plays.
"You study what you expect to get from the defense, kind of what their two-point situations they presented defensively. You hope to put together a play that you feel is going to be successful against that," he said. "As a coaching staff, you're studying the two-point plays that are being run around the league and see if they fit with your personnel. But obviously we've got to do a better job there."
