Losing White big blow to Bills

Injury to star cornerback will test defensive depth

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. The Buffalo Bills righted their ship, at least momentarily, with a rousing 31-6 victory over the Saints on Thanksgiving night in New Orleans.

Now, they’ll have to navigate the rest of their playoff run without their most important defensive player.

The team announced Pro Bowl cornerback Tre’Davious White would miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL in his left knee, suffered in the second quarter of the win.

White has started 72 games for Buffalo and is one of the highestpaid cornerbacks in the NFL at $55 million (U.S.) guaranteed over four seasons. An MRI confirmed the worst fears of the Bills and their fans.

The Bills were already thin at cornerback behind White, considered their most indispensable player after quarterback Josh Allen. Buffalo’s defence leads the NFL in yards per game and yards per play. But the pass defence, perhaps the best in the game, will suffer greatly from his absence.

The offence, which has been maddeningly inconsistent over the past two months, will have to be even better if the Bills are to win the AFC East and perhaps gain the No. 1 seed in the conference.

Allen says the Bills need to start stacking wins as they head into the home stretch and a potential Super Bowl run. Winning two in a row would be a start. The Bills have alternated wins and losses in seven straight games dating back to a victory in Kansas City on Oct. 10.

On Thursday night, Allen passed for 260 yards and four touchdowns, his sixth four-TD performance in the last two years. Buffalo’s defence limited an injury-riddled Saints team to 190 yards and 3.3 yards per play. The Bills defence leads the NFL in yards allowed per pass attempt at a stunning 5.0 — but that was with White operating as a shutdown cornerback.

“Prayers up for him,” Allen said of White after the win. “I know all the guys in the locker room are praying for him and hurting with him. You can’t say a single bad thing about that man. He comes in and busts his (butt) every day ... We’ve got to have guys step up.”

The Bills have 10 days to get ready for their next test, a Monday night home game against the surging New England Patriots on Dec. 6. The Patriots have won five straight heading into Sunday’s home date with the Titans, and were first in the AFC East until the Bills won in New Orleans.

White’s injury comes just as the Bills enter the toughest part of their schedule. They play the Patriots twice in four weeks, and they go to Tampa in two weeks to take on Tom Brady and the defending champion Buccaneers. Tampa Bay leads the NFL in points per game, and the Pats have averaged 35 during their five-game win streak.

“The easiest way to get to the playoffs is winning your division,” Allen said, “and we’ve got to continue to find ways to stack these wins. Every week is a one-game season. We’ve got to look at it that way and find ways to win football games here going forward. But again, it’s the pursuit of perfection.”

The Bills have been perfectly inconsistent for nearly two months. The quest for perfection will be even more daunting without one of the top defensive backs in the league.