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If there’s a silver lining from the Buffalo Bills’ loss to the Houston Texans Youth LeSean McCoy Jersey , it’s that the Bills decided to put on an absolute CLINIC with regard to penalties.ou’re a Texans fan). Short intro because there are many words ahead. Standard and Advanced MetricsPenalty CountGiving credit where credit is due, this is a pretty nice staircase. The Bills had 12 penalties that counted, which doubles the six for the Texans. The league average continues to trickle down despite the Bills’ efforts to single-handedly elevate it. With one penalty declined, Buffalo had 13 penalties called, which should remind us all to get prepared for the lousy Smarch weather ahead. Penalty YardsThis plays out about as you’d expect, based on counts. The Texans are a touch under the league average while the Bills are double the Texans. The Bills had 229 yards of total offense and gave up almost half that in penalty yards. Making matters worse, we have the right side of the chart where yards-negated-by-penalty are factored in. The Texans negated just five yards. while the Bills had 58 yards wiped out by yellow laundry. Penalty HarmHouston TexansThere’s precious little to discuss on the Texans side of things. A false start (Kendall Lamm), an illegal block above the waist (Shareece Wright) and offsides (Jadeveon Clowney) were yards only. Clowney was also called for a yards-only taunting penalty after the Nathan Peterman pick-six. All things considered, Clowney’s feedback on the play was a lot kinder than that of Bills fans. A holding call on DeAndre Hopkins wiped out a five-yard gain to close out the list. With ten assessed yards and five negated, that gives it a 1.5 Harm rating to tie the taunting penalty for their worst of the contest. Here’s the taunt by the way. The Texans ended up with a total of 5.5 Harm. That score translates to mostly mistake-free football. If you’re still bothered by the Bills handing the game away, this also might be the last sentence you want to read. Just an FYI. Buffalo BillsWhere to even start? A couple holding calls were mitigated by field position on special teams (Siran Neal and Deon Lacey). Three false starts are all boo-boos. But THREE? The last boo-boo (Harm under 1.0) is courtesy of Andre Holmes being offside on a free kick, bringing the special teams penalties to our magic number of three today. Tre’Davious White was called for defensive holding three times. The first gave up one down with the five assessed yards. The second came on third down and gave the Texans a full set of fresh ones. The third was declined because...Phillip Gaines got called for a 41-yard pass interference violation Youth Charles Clay Jersey , setting the Texans up at the goal line. A heck of a stand saved the Bills’ chances, but this flipped the field like that (snaps fingers). Russell Bodine’s holding call wiped out three yards on a Josh Allen scramble. On third-and-two, though, the negated first down was a killer. Bodine’s flag was good for 3.3 Harm. Dion Dawkins was hit with one of two illegal formation penalties. His wiped out an 11-yard catch by Zay Jones. An assessed five yards and negated 11 yards comes to 1.6 Harm. Josh Allen’s best throw of the day went to Kelvin Benjamin for 44 yards. This huge gain came on third down. That vanished when Jason Croom was also called for illegal formation, for 6.9 Harm (5 assessed yards + 44 negated yards + 2 downs). The Bills now comfortably lead the league in illegal formation penalties with five. That might not sound so bad, but there have only been 37 across the league this year. That’d be average if there were only eight teams. Let’s look at both because we love salt in our wounds. I can’t blame the broadcast team for the lack of coverage, there’s a lot to unpack with rules here. In short, there must be at least seven players at the line of scrimmage at the snap. Of those seven (or more), the two at the ends have to be eligible receivers. The little line in front of Zay Jones is there to show he’s a yard or more behind the line of scrimmage. Because of that, it makes Dion Dawkins the left-most player on the line, which means he needs to be an eligible receiver. He’s not, so it’s a penalty. Here’s another wrinkle on eligibility of receivers to play around with. Patrick DiMarco is the right-most player on the line of scrimmage, meaning he’s supposed to be an eligible receiver—lucky for him he is. Lined up to his left Youth Kelvin Benjamin Jersey , though, is Jason Croom. Now, while the two players at both ends of the line of scrimmage are supposed to be eligible, no one else on the line is supposed to be. Croom runs a route rather than blocking and gets called for it. Now, before I reveal the total harm for the game I’d like to reiterate that around ten is the cut off from a good to a bad day. Teens are generally a pretty bad game. In a very winnable game against the Houston Texans, the Bills had 23.2 Harm. There’s been plenty of Nathan Peterman hate in the aftermath of the loss, but blown opportunities throughout the entire game deserve a large portion of blame as well. The Buffalo Bills hosted the Chicago Bears and... well, things didn’t go great at all. The Bills’ defense kept the Bears under 200 yards of total offense, but couldn’t prevent an onslaught of points in what was definitely a very weird game. Let’s look at playing time. Offense (91 snaps)The big story this week is of course the return of Nathan Peterman but that’s been covered well enough already. For playing time, the more significant narrative is that Sean McDermott elected to rotate offensive linemen in what appears to be an attempt to upgrade the trenches. For the skill positions, Zay Jones keeps his spot at the top with 87% of playing time. Notably, Terrelle Pryor saw nearly the same amount of time at 82%. Chris Ivory ate into LeSean McCoy’s playing time before leaving with an injury sustained on an attempt at a goal line dive. Team captain Patrick DiMarco was again used sparingly, with only three snaps out of 91. If that last sentence isn’t shocking let’s put that into context. The Cleveland Browns have participated in four overtime games this year Youth Ryan Groy Jersey , with an average time of nine extra minutes. Of those four games (and eight data points) only two teams have had more offensive snaps than the Bills. Even these were close with the Oakland Raiders logging 92 snaps and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ending with 95. Defense (51 snaps)The 100% club comes back to full strength with six players remaining on the field for every defensive snap. The only deviation from the intended plan was Julian Stanford subbing in for the injured Tremaine Edmunds. On the defensive line, Shaq Lawson exceeded the usual two-thirds playing time in McDermott’s usual rotation schedule. Star Lotulelei came in under 50% again. Lorenzo Alexander saw playing time in relief of both players along with some linebacker work. Jordan Phillips added to the rotation at defensive tackle. Taron Johnson (76%) and Rafael Bush (10%) indicate that the Bills continue to use a lot of nickel looks. At 51 defensive snaps, this shows the stark contrast in who held the ball in this contest. A difference of 40 snaps between teams is glaring, especially considering the score. For time of possession, the Bills had the ball eight minutes longer than the Bears did. Special teams (30 snaps)As always, the list includes players that hit 30% or more time on special teams. The Bills used 36 players in all on special teams which is right around their normal amount. Kyle Williams looks out of place on the list and nine snaps is his high for the season. However, he has had six or seven snaps in four other games. Julian Stanford’s number remains stable for special teams. However, with his defensive playing time reaching 100% subbing for Edmunds, it’s a safe bet he slept well.