Thurman#1

Sorry, this just doesn't make sense. Yeah, it's true that if you can't make a sneak if the other team is lining up their normal personnel and formation then yeah, there's something wrong. But that's not what they did. They took out one of their LBs and substituted a 345 pound second team nose tackle, Naquan Jones. Then they moved their 5-tech in to the 3-hole. They compressed their formation and they brought in a personnel grouping specifically to stop runs between the guards. They had two nose tackles in there. Teams can stop something if they want. You can do it. You overcommit, and you can stop that one play. And that's what the Titans did on that play. The problem for the Titans with doing that is that it creates weaknesses elsewhere. But we didn't take advantage of those weaknesses elsewhere. They said, "OK, if you want a first down here, you're not getting it through the middle." And we tried it through the middle anyway. It was a bad choice.

A pretty damn fair amount. The difference between the #1 seed and the #2 seed isn't generally all that large. Look at their records, it's usually a tie or a game or at most two of difference. Particularly after a 17 week season, but even back when it was 16, teams are beat up and exhausted by the end of the season. Having a week to get healthy is huge.

There's statistical proof that the home team gets an advantage. And that advantage is bigger in loud stadiums like KC and Buffalo. And there are plenty of times when the best two teams didn't make it to the Super Bowl. More like the best, luckiest team in the playoffs, with matchups often making a huge difference. The Bills were probably the best team in two of our Super Bowls. Probably not the best team in the AFC one or two of those years as well, especially the year they made it from the wild card. Being the one seed doesn't mean everything. But it's a significant advantage, particularly these days when only the one seed gets a week off.

That run was for four yards. Which would have come in handy on that final play. I'd rather have seen Moss get the ball with the chance to pick his gap on that final play, or maybe Josh on an RPO or read option. Actually I'd really rather they'd just kicked the FG. I understand their decision, it was not stupid, but I wouldn't have gone that way.

You can't expect the OL to make that play. It's not reasonable. The Titans had compressed the line, moving their interior guys in. But they had also brought in guys specifically to fight off a sneak or a run between the guards. They had three three hundred pounders there, squeezed further to the center than normal. Naquan Jones had only played 14% of snaps this year, he's the backup NT. He's not a regular and he's 330+. The Titans essentially said, if you're going to beat us here, it won't be through the middle. And the Bills tried there anyway. Bad tactics. Both Morse and Feliciano had a guy on each shoulder. Every gap in the center had a 300 pounder in it, and they weren't playing read-and-react, they were simply coming forward low and hard on the snap. The one shot running that sneak was if Allen had tried to leap over and stick his arms out. Which is a risk, because the ball can be slapped out. But Allen went low.

Moss ran forward, the play was over. Which it generally is. Guys do push, but how often do you see it on sneaks? Virtually never, because it's too quick a play.

Good post, Shaw. A lot of sense here. Tough game to watch near the end.

It's a legitimate opinion. Certainly could have happened that way. But if we got the ball the odds were pretty good we'd have scored a TD also. IMO Vegas would have given the Bills a slight advantage for being the better team. Maybe made it pick-em. The rest and stretch-break you get before OT would have played in the Bills favor. I'd have kicked it, and if I went for it, I'd have faked a run into the middle and done something else. Daboll/McDermott apparently called a different play. Wish Josh had gone with it.

We know we have the talent. We also know we have the OC. Just because we have the talent doesn't mean the talent is executing. Allen doesn't appear to be throwing as precisely and consistently as he did last year. That's a big part of it, IMO. There's plenty of blame to go around. Williams was kicking butt at RT last year and this year he's not good enough to keep a rookie off the field. Dawkins doesn't appear to be fully recovered from his bout of Covid. And Daboll get his share too, but it certainly isn't all on him.

We have not run many sneaks when the D was going with two 1-techs. By far most of our sneaks came with one empty 1-gap. And yeah, if we had done something else people would have said that. Beside the point. When the D has three guys crammed into the middle there, there is a weakness somewhere else. I would answer this but I already did just above. Look for the post that mentions Matt Damon, directly above the post you just replied to. If you look at all situations sneaks have a high percentage of success. If you look only at bad situations - and this was a bad situation for a sneak - the percentage is much lower. And the home team is the favorite in most games too. But not this game. The Bills are the better team and the odds would have been even or slightly in the Bills favor. The Bills should have been quite confident they would win it, especially after a rest for the defense before the overtime.

He's right, it's not believable. We scored as many points as they did. We held them to as few points as we had managed. It would have been even odds, probably we'd have been favored a bit, as we were in the game. And yet again, the reason sneaks succeed at such a high rate is that teams aren't ready for them, one of the 1-gaps is empty. In this situation that play was absolutely not an 80 - 90% chance. Not even close.

Completely misses the point. Every sneak is different. Most sneaks come on plays where there is only one 1-tech. Meaning the gap on either the left or right side of the center doesn't have a man in it. And yeah, especially with nobody in one of those gaps, the conversion possibility is high. The Titans thought a sneak was probably the most likely thing the Bills would call. They were ready. They had two guys playing 1-tech, meaning the center had a guy right on each shoulder and there was a 3-tech between Dawkins and Feliciano as well. The Titans were completely ready for this. In some situations it's a great call and the possibility of success is high. This was NOT one of those times. The analogy is that you can study a fairly handsome, smooth guy's success rate in asking out women he doesn't know. And maybe his conversion possibility is 75%. But if this time he's asking out Luciana Barroso, who is both spectacularly beautiful and happily married to Matt Damon, his odds on a conversion are not 75% in this case. Same here. Awful situation. They did not have a 75% chance with the defense set up as it was. This was gutsy, but in the situation it was not smart. If you have a choice between gutsy and smart, go with smart. Allen will learn, but this was a bad decision. Just read in another thread that Allen admits to changing the play. Wasn't McDermott's or Daboll's call. McDermott absolutely has evolved, but this was a bad decision, by Allen. I'd have kicked the FG myself, but at least would have called a different play. Daboll/McDermott did.

That's not the problem. Go look at how the Titans lined up. They had a guy in each of the center-guard gaps and a guy between Feliciano and Dawkins, all really tight. They were running into a 2 on 3 for Feliciano and Morse. That tight, it was a horrible setup. Two 1-techs and a 3-tech on the left. The reason Brady has such a high sneak success rate is because when he sees the defense set up like that he audibles to something attacking somewhere else.

Thing is, it's like asking what a guy's success rate is with asking a woman out on dates, finding out it's 80%, and thinking that therefore if he asks out Beyonce, Ariana Grande and Gal Godot out his chances of getting at least one yes is close to absolute. Every woman is different. Every sneak situation is different. An awful lot of his successful sneaks have come when there was no defender in one of the center-guard gaps because they weren't ready for a sneak. The Titans were ready. But with a first down and 18 seconds left and the clock stopped with that final timeout, you throw in the end zone and get a TD or an incompletion each time and you have probably three or four plays. It wasn't a brain fart at all, or at least not for that reason. If we'd been successful we'd have been just fine on time.

No, we have zero percent chance to win. His exact quote was that he "would rather lose that way than ". Again, "lose that way." After you've lost, you have zero chance. That's nuts, preferring aggressive losing to having a chance to win. So, no, I would have just about an infinite preference for having a tie with a chance to win than having a loss. I find it hard to imagine why anyone would not feel the same. I don't think going for the sneak was a horrible call. But seeing how they lined up specifically to take away the sneak, they should have kicked the FG or at least tried another play. I would have, anyway. I genuinely hate the whole "I liked the guts" thing. Guts means squat. Smart is much much better. It takes real guts to take off your helmet and run into a brick wall head first time and time again. Guts. Aggressiveness. Courage. And complete insanity and stupidity. It's much much better to judge whether to do something based on how smart it is than how much guts it would take. Hopefully you're right that it won't derail the season. It seems that way to me too. Oh, and Beasley wasn't open in the end zone till after Josh crossed the line of scrimmage. That's why he was alone, the Titans all came running up after he crossed it. You can see it on the broadcast angle (I went back and looked on nflgamepass. When Josh crosses the LOS, Beasley is about to cross the goal line and he's covered.) When Josh crosses the LOS, Beasley is in the frame.

Um, think you ought to check that one again. 237 at the combine. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/draft/2018-combine.htm You may be thinking of the other Josh Allen, the one who is a defensive lineman. That guy, now a Jax Jaguar, was indeed 262 at the combine. And I don't think that situation put the analytics on our side. They were prepared for the sneak. They had a guy in each of the guard-center gaps and another on the other side of the LG between Dawkins and Feliciano. So both the center and the LG had a guy on each shoulder. If you catch a team unawares with one of those gaps not covered, yeah, the odds are way in your favor. They weren't on this play.

You can trust Cletus Purcel, long as you're not trusting him to stay sober. in any case, a lot of people talk about loving aggressive play calls. No, thanks. Smart ones, yeah. But any aggressive call? No, no thanks. The Titans had a guy on the gap each side of the center and another on the other side of the LG. With the defense that well lined up to defend a sneak, they should have kicked it, or at least had Allen head out to one side with a choice to throw or run. I love it when they sneak when there's nobody in one of the center-guard gaps. Those situations present fantastic odds. This one not so much.

I disagree on that too. Just went and watched it again. He had to run forward and but through a narrow opening, and he had to look down to get through it. At the end of the opening there was a Titan reaching towards him on Josh's ball hand side, and he had to be really careful to protect it. He was running forward at the time and by the time he recovered throwing position and got his head up (a step and a half or so), he was past the LOS. And just for the record, when he passed the LOS, Beasley wasn't open yet. Part of the reason Beasley was open was because the Titans saw Josh couldn't throw it and came pelting up to stop him.

No, you can't fumble forward, and particularly not in the last two minutes of a half. If you could you'd see everyone being tackled fumbling forward if their team was behind on third or fourth down. Those fumble rules come from the holy roller. If you fumble forward out of bounds it's spotted where the fumble occurred. Again, if that wasn't so, everyone would fumble forward every time they were going out of bounds to pick up a few extra yards. More, it simply wasn't a fumble. No way. You're down when any part of your body but the bottom of your feet or the hand without the ball touches the ground. When his back hit the ground, he was down, and he had control then and until his ball hand went down and hit him in the chest. It was not a fumble. It was not a first down.

He's not 260. I've seen it everywhere from 237 to 250, but it's most likely low to middle of that range. The other Josh Allen, the DE, runs around 255. Are you thinking of him? Our Josh is a big strong dude, but he's been stopped on sneaks before. And if he didn't slip, he still wasn't getting the yardage there. Might possibly have been able to change direction or something, but they had it stopped.

Um, no thanks. After the tie we have a chance to win. I don't think it was an awful decision, but I kick the field goal there every time.

Yeah, I never heard them mention Josh Allen, not even once.

He didn't make it. It was really obvious in slo-mo. I wondered the same thing at first, but he didn't. He fumbled the ball well behind the line.

Sure, as soon as players start being suspended for idiotic plays or fans for idiotic takes.

Nope. He's not getting good. He's getting even better. Same with Lotulelei. And yeah, that's a wonderful thing.