KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- You want to talk about the playoffs? Really?

If the Buffalo Bills can win next Sunday at home against the Houston Texans, who are riding a four-game winning streak, then discussion of a run to the postseason can resume. The Bills would be back to .500 and capable of beating each of the final four teams on their schedule to crack the playoff field.

But chatter about the Bills playing past Jan. 3, the date of their regular-season finale, seems silly after their 30-22 loss Sunday to the Kansas City Chiefs. Instead, the pressing question right now is whether this team, coached by Rex Ryan, is even as good as Doug Marrone's squad last year -- which finished 9-7 but missed the playoffs for a 15th consecutive season.

At 5-6, the Bills have a worse record than at this point last season, when they improved to 6-5 with a win over the Jets. The Bills beat the Cleveland Browns the following week, added another huge win over the Green Bay Packers later that December and were in the thick of the playoff race until their collapse against the Oakland Raiders in Week 16.

Defensive tackle Kyle Williams endorsed Marrone immediately after the regular-season finale, saying, "If you look at the first time you have a winning record in a decade, that speaks louder than anything or any player or anything like that can say."

Marrone might or might not have been retained by the Bills' new ownership after last season, and he took his future into his own hands by opting out of his contract and trying to find a head-coaching job elsewhere. He did not find one. The Bills, meanwhile, replaced Marrone with Ryan.

"We feel like we got better at the head-coaching position," then-Bills running back Fred Jackson said upon Ryan's hiring. "Obviously you hate to see things unfold the way that they did, but you've got to look at the best side of it. We have a coach coming in here who wants to win, who's proven himself as a coach that can win. You've got to feel like you've gotten better."

But are the Bills actually better under Ryan?

Doubts on that topic reached a fever pitch Sunday evening after Ryan effectively went 0-for-5 on challenging (or opting not to challenge) close plays in the Bills' loss to the Chiefs -- a game that Ryan had billed as a "huge, huge game" just days earlier.

Most notably, Ryan potentially cost the Bills seven points by not throwing a red flag on a 37-yard catch by Jeremy Maclin in the second quarter, a decision he later attributed to a lack of replays shown on the Arrowhead Stadium video board -- even though the NFL doesn't require teams to show replays of such plays and even though coaches' booths are equipped with televisions showing the broadcast feed.

It seemed like an excuse, and the problem was compounded by Ryan's defense, dealing with injuries to several starters, that allowed Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith to have a 112.5 quarterback rating and fill-in running back Spencer Ware to average 6 yards per carry.

Marrone had his share of critics -- his conservative fourth-down decisions were questioned regularly -- but through 11 games last season his team was simply better than what fans are seeing from Ryan's version of the Bills this season.

Ryan won't be fired after one season, and Marrone most certainly is not coming back, but the question remains: Are the Bills even as good as they were last season?