ORCHARD PARK — Equipment managers exchanged helmets and pads for cardboard boxes. Some players had more to pack than others and some were more tedious than others about how to fill them.
The Buffalo Bills cleaned out their lockers Monday, a day that feels like the last day of school. Players are saying goodbye, swapping jerseys and making plans for when they step out of the building for the final time.
It was a different scene than the day after last year’s blowout loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC divisional round. Last year the locker room was a ghost town and the players who meandered through were still struggling to rationalize the previous night’s result
But after a night to digest the 27-24 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, the mood shifted. Disappointment still cut through the moldy smell of a locker room, and while no one could pinpoint why the Bills continue to fall short, players just continued to say they were one play or two plays away from winning the game.
“Every year when you lose, you wake up the next day and you’re filled with so much frustration because you weren’t able to get it done,” Bills safety Micah Hyde said. “I feel like I could have done more, but this morning I woke up and I’m just like, ‘Wow, like that was a run.’ That was an amazing run we went on and I’m forever grateful for this team, their hard work, the resilience that they showed.”
Perhaps the mood was different because it was clear last year that a good chunk of the team would return the following year. This time around, there is no such certainty. In fact, the only certainty is that the Bills are going to have a lot of new faces in the locker room next year.
With 29 pending free agents and a few veterans who may become salary cap casualties for a team strapped for cash, changes are coming for a team that hasn’t needed to change very much over the last four seasons.
Hyde, who has been an anchor since arriving in 2017, is one of the players with an expiring contract. The 33-year-old said he will contemplate whether he wants to play another season or retire and it’s a decision he’s not in a hurry to make, although re-injuring his neck isn’t a grave concern.
Center Mitch Morse has one more year left on his contract, but he turns 32 in April and holds an $11.47 million cap hit next season. He said he would return if they want him back, but that may take some contract restructuring since the Bills are currently projected to be $43.601 million over the cap next year.
“You understand that this is a business and you understand that business decisions just have to be made,” Morse said. “That’s why after this game last night was so crushing because there’s so many decisions looming that this was the last time that this team is going to be together. And that’s really only where my mind’s at. Anything else is out of my control, thank God.”
There’s also those who tried to look at the situation positively. The Bills were a missed field goal away from taking the game to overtime, even with a defense that was banged up and missing a few key pieces.
Even though it’s often needed because of their own doing, the Bills take pride in being resilient. Rallying from 6-6 to AFC East champions is an accomplishment they are proud of even though their Super Bowl aspirations once again fell short.
“It’s not like a tear-the-shit-down (moment), because if we beat the Chiefs, the Chiefs wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, let’s tear it down, we lost,’” Bills defensive Greg Rousseau said. “I feel like last year was different, we got got beat pretty bad. This year it’s a toss-up, shit happens, come back next year. It’s life, can’t hang your head. Just have to learn from it, grow and come back next year.”
Then again, the Bills are the first team to reach the divisional round of the playoffs three consecutive seasons without winning since the NFL expanded to 32 teams in 2002. And now they’ve been eliminated by the Chiefs for the third time in four seasons even though they constructed a roster heavy on pass rushers and defensive linemen to stop Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Buffalo has also led by at least seven points in four of their last five playoff losses, including three of them in the fourth quarter. A team that has lost one game by more than one score in the last two seasons also held a second-half lead in eight of 10 losses, including five losses this season after holding a lead in the fourth quarter.
“This isn’t something that we’re going to run from. It’s not something we’re going to hide from,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said. “We got to take it on the chin and continue to learn and get better and I know that’s not what people want to hear. They want to see results. We want to see results.”