Coming into this season, the Buffalo Bills and their fans expected a lot from running back LeSean McCoy. After shipping off a major weapon in Sammy Watkins and releasing backup running back Jonathan Williams, you’d expect McCoy to be the focal point of the offense and reap the rewards.

It hasn’t happened yet.

After a strong performance against the New York Jets, a team who’s given up the third-most rushing yards, LeSean McCoy’s numbers have slumped. The seventh-year pro finished with just 63 yards on the ground in Sunday’s 20-16 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals and he hasn’t reached the end zone since Week 16 of last year.

Digging deeper, McCoy is averaging just 3.2 yards-per-carry, a harsh drop from the 5.4 last season that ranked fifth-best in the NFL out of running backs with at least 50 rushing attempts. McCoy averages 17.4 carries-per- game but when you compare those to other top running backs in the NFL such as Kareem Hunt and Leonard Fournette who average around 21 carries per game, the numbers are weak.

When Bills head coach Sean McDermott stepped up to the podium today, he blamed some of the run game struggles on penalties, rather than scheme.

“The important part here is we’ve had untimely penalties that have cost us critical first downs, as late as yesterday in the game,” said McDermott

“Really, getting on track in a rhythm with the running game, so that he knows where the holes are, he knows where the blocks are, and that we’re getting on those blocks and sustaining those blocks. Again, it’s not just one position, it’s multiple positions, all of us doing our job better.”

After reading this, you might hem and haw at the validity of this explanation. Yes, obviously the team could have done better at all positions in a 20-16 loss and penalties are never good but on the other hand, part of the success lies in McCoy being explosive and making plays. It’s a disservice to the team to not identify the struggles of the run scheme and how they’ve hindered the rushing attack thus far, that is to say, McDermott and Rick Dennison aren’t already devising a plan behind closed doors to fix this.

The real problem right now with Buffalo’s rushing offense is the scheme they’re deploying. Under Rick Dennison, the Bills are running a zone blocking scheme that doesn’t utilize the pulling guard much. Pulling Buffalo guard Richie Incognito was a major part of the Bills running success last year and hasn’t been used much yet.

In a zone-blocking scheme, ball-carriers need to rely on holes being available and the running back has to be able to identify them. If the holes aren’t available or if LeSean McCoy can’t identify them, you see performances like McCoy had against the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos where he rushed for nine yards and 21 yards respectively.

So what can the Bills do about this?

If Buffalo can recognize the success they saw last year with the rushing offense and implement that within this year’s and create a sort of hybrid, the Bills could see much more success running the ball.

This all comes down if Rick Dennison will stick to his guns or adapt to survive. Hopefully, he chooses the latter so Buffalo and LeSean McCoy can get running again after the bye week.