Jon Feliciano: Bills got what they deserved in loss to Chiefs

Former Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Jon Feliciano believes he could have made the difference in the team’s loss to the Bills—if he weren’t benched.

Apparently, Jon Feliciano is happy to let any ounce of goodwill drain completely and to burn any bridges still standing in the wake of his departure from the Buffalo Bills this offseason. We supposed that’s one way for a player to handle being benched for a half-season.

We knew the season-ending loss to the Kansas City Chiefs would likely haunt the Buffalo Bills organization in various ways. It’s the nature of a postseason loss, especially the sort of stomach punch that takes only 13 seconds to complete. To be candid, Chiefs Kingdom knows this feeling well and includes kickers we still refuse to name or an unreasonable fear of the Indianapolis Colts even today.

Back to Feliciano. The Bills had penciled him in as the starting left guard through the first half of the 2021 season, and he’d been a starter along the team’s offensive front for the previous two seasons. However, Feliciano lost his starting spot when injured last season to Ike Boettger, and even when Boettger when down in the playoffs, Buffalo went with an unproven player in Ryan Bates.

That sort of shift happens every season to a number of players who find themselves on the outside looking in after coming back from injury. The league can be cruel that way, but Feliciano recently decided to be cruel back. As my therapist once told me, “Hurting people hurt people.”

These days, Feliciano is gainfully employed by the New York Giants (following Brian Daboll) and apparently he feels free enough of any organizational ties and/or friendships to just throw everyone under the bus. In an interview with Ariel Helwani, Feliciano talked about that loss to the Chiefs in which Patrick Mahomes got the best of Josh Allen and company with an incredible fourth quarter and overtime.

Here are the remarks in particular via Zach Rosenblatt of NJ.com:

"“I was definitely sad for my teammates. I did what I can on the sideline. I was coaching up people. Every time (Bills receiver Gabriel Davis) scored I was on his hip, like ‘I’m there for you.’ But I can’t lie, there’s a part of me that was like, oh, y’all got what you deserved. Honestly, when you look back at that game .. Everyone was just going through the motions. There wasn’t anyone challenging in the face of KC’s defense or there was no attitude out there and I feel like that’s what I bring. I feel like potentially if there was that it would’ve been a close game. But who knows, I might be wrong.”"

We’re pretty sure Feliciano was right. Anyone watching that game would agree that both teams were going through the motions, and it seems reasonable that a 29-year-old backup guard coming back to claim his starting role would have done the trick. If only Sean McDermott would have given him that chance.