Sean McDermott: We didn’t play at our level

Results from the pre-season period may not count towards the rankings, but they are not meaningless.

That was part of the message from Bills head coach Sean McDermott after Saturday’s season opener against the Bears, in which his team was outgained by 140 yards while giving up eight sacks, committing 11 penalties, losing the ball and failing to score a touchdown in a 33-6 loss.

“Our standard was not outside “Today,” McDermott said via the team’s website. “That’s not how we play, so we’ve got a lot to do to get ourselves ready to go here. . . . But we’ve got to learn from it. We’ve got to be honest about what we saw there. . . . Self-inflicted wounds are hard to overcome, and then you’ve got to play an opponent on the other side. So give them credit. They played well.”

The Bills are in Pittsburgh next Saturday, so they have a week to fix what went wrong before trying to show McDermott they’re on the right track heading into the regular season.