What can we even learn from a Week 1 blowout?

What, if anything, did we learn about the 2018 Buffalo Bills during their 47-3 beatdown at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens in Week 1?

Can anything actually be tangibly discerned from such a lopsided performance? That when a team is cleanly beaten in every facet of a game by a superior opponent, they’re going to lose by a lot, and look terrible in the process? Isn’t that much obvious?

I shouldn’t expect the Bills to look that bad every week this season, correct? Assuming they’re able to play competitively more often than not, doesn’t that make one season-opening blowout loss essentially meaningless? Should we just consider next weekend’s home opener against the Chargers a Week 1 re-do, and pretend that mess we saw yesterday didn’t happen?

Even if we play the Sean McDermott card and watch the tape, wouldn’t we just end up confirming our first-glance suspicions? That the quarterback play was awful, the blocking was worse, the receivers couldn’t separate from defenders frequently or catch the ball when they did, the pass rush couldn’t close the deal, the secondary broke down too often, and that there were too many negative plays on special teams? That a team with an incredibly small margin of error to effectively compete couldn’t accomplish basic tasks like converting third downs offensively, stopping third downs defensively, or winning the turnover battle?

Say, would you like to read about something slightly different now? The game was bad, so let’s focus on the bigger picture, shall we?

When should we start to question “the process?” If there was some sort of grand plan to let Josh Allen sit and learn, why did it only take 33 minutes and 38 seconds of live game action to scrap that plan? What did they expect Allen to pick up experientially from a half of football not that different from general preseason action? How can the team possibly consider putting Nathan Peterman and his resilience back into the starting lineup after benching him for the second time in three career starts?

They’re not going to do that, right? Aren’t they in a have-no-other-choice scenario now vis a vis starting Allen?

This isn’t going to end well, is it?

Bad teams aren’t made in one week, are they? Do they have it in them to turn things around quickly enough to avoid that label? Will the Bills improve enough that we can start trying to figure out what kind of team they can be this season? Or will our misery continue, and only add to our pile of questions?