Bills Third-Down Problems: How to Fix on Offense and Defense vs. Dolphins?

While the Bills beat the Jets on Sunday, they struggled mightily on third down on both offense and defense.

While a win is a win, and the Buffalo Bills are happy with their 20-12 win over the New York Jets, there still remains areas of potential concern moving forward. 

Namely, Buffalo's struggles on third down against the Jets, which offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey acknowledged on Monday.

“I think a lot of it is, one, obviously, our execution, and just making sure that we're on top of the details of protection assignment of routes depth, route location, and decision by the quarterback and getting guys the ball,” Dorsey said. "We need to make sure we're doing a good job of giving ourselves a good opportunity on first and second down to convert on third down by staying out of third-and-longer type situations.”

It was not an offensive performance to write home about in general for the Bills, only recording 232 yards of total offense. However, those woes were emphasized on third down as they went just 2-for-13 on third-down attempts, with seven of them needing nine or more yards to get a first down. 

Conversely, while the Bills struggled heavily on third down, the Jets had no trouble converting on their third downs to the tune of an 8-for-17 conversion rate. 

Five of those eight conversions were eight yards or more, which isn't good enough to defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier. 

“We weren't so good on third and 7-plus, man,” Frazier said. “We got them into a lot of third-and-longs, and we didn't win enough of them.''

The stat that matters most for the Bills will be the win column, but there is reason to be concerned ... especially knowing what this week's foe, the Dolphins, are capable of on both sides of the ball.

If they can't figure out their third down woes in a hurry, well, they might be in trouble once the playoffs come around.

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You can find Connor Zimmerlee on Twitter @Connorjz98

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