appoo

Thanks for the knowledge drop and help man, I really appreciate the opportunity to get better at knowing Ball! I think you diagnosed my issue. Where I was seeing man, was actually pattern matching zones

But wasn’t it starting the 3rd drive they started playing more man/man zones? It is worth noting that after the first quarter the Bengals scored 13 the rest of the way (3 quarters), and the lone TD was hugely aided by a bad DPI call. Really, the offense was much more to blame than the defense

They played mostly man for about 3.5 quarters, with corners who were at a disadvantage against man and a Dline that was playing its worst game of the season. They also started bringing a lot more blitzes What change would you have suggested of Frazier?

Like I feel like I’m losing my mind. Basic football fundamentals. When do you go “aggressive”? When you can’t stuff an offense playing base. When do you go exotic coverage? When you can’t stop a pass game by moving/hurrying the QB + struggle to cover their WR, or feel it’s a plau rheyre extra protect and you want to confuse them. So Von Miller? He makes the rest of the lineman better, which means the bills don’t at all need to ring pressure to stiff offenses. They had one of the 5 best pressure rates WHILE having one of the lowest blitz rates in the NFL - while Von was playing. And THAT is why you pay that man 20M a year. lMy biggest criticism of this defense is they don’t go disguise coverages often enough. Teams will load up in pass pro and just send 3 out, knowing we’ll be in Cover 1/2/6. I would love to see more disguise coverages because we have the backers that can go from LOS to middle third. Why do I know this? Because I’ve literally SEEN Edmunds do this in of the few times we called a Disguised zone. Here’s the thing, QBs guess when you have everyone close to the LOS. Literally know QB can “know” the coverage when you have everyone out of position. I would love to see more of that once we get Micah back, and a better cover SS in there

Or Von Miller. like people understand why they’re paying him 20M right? RIGHT?!!

That’s a hyperbolic way of describing the defense. It was flat out good when they had Von. Again look at the chiefs game or even the first Dolphins game

They a million percent play MUCH MUCH Better. Von got hurt week 12, and weeks 1 - 11 the Bills were something like 5th in pressure rate. 12 - 18 they were 22nd or so, and add Jones makes an immense difference to the run D, and Hyde makes 2 positions far more effective. In fact I’d go as far to say that the Bengals wouldn’t have scored 20. The much bigger problem is the Bills offense scored 10, and probably still loses the game

I would suspect they’ll be more complex in coverage disguise and schemes with more experienced - and capable - players back there I mean….Josh Allen is still on this football team.

No, I expect them to have a minimum of 4 new starters on offense. Guard, Right Tackle, RB, and Slot.

Because the Ravens pass rushers played far better than the Bills pass rushers did, and gave a much better platform to their 2 elite backers than the Bills 2 elote backer got. The fonts are easy - beat the man lined up across from you. The ravens did a lot more of that than the Bills did

Respectfully disagree with the financial part (I agree you can make a lot of scheme changes). Just think there’s very little space there

Haha took me awhile to figure out what you were disagreeing with me on, and finally figured it out with your last sentence. You’re right though, there’s a lot of upside with this current group

The core and majority of our defensive players

As far as ACL issues go, von got lucky. They called it an “ACL Injury”, with at minimum a partial tear - they were doing surgery to fix a meniscus/cartilage issue when the doc decided the knee wasn’t as stable as needed. So I’m pretty hopeful of a quicker, and full recovery. Tre on the other hand, suffered a full tear of his ACL.

So, this wasn’t what I was saying at all, and there good reason to believe if the Bills had a healthy Von Miller they would have been much better on Sunday They can’t afford to make any changes on the DLine

I think where I’d like more complexity is disguising coverages, rather than anything to do with the front. But that may have been partially why they let the safeties coach go They were with Von. I mean you saw what they did to the chiefs right?

Not necessarily saying this because I want it to be true (I’m 50/50), but because contractually it’s impossible not to do this. The Bills defense is tied to Von Miller and Tre White. Both players have contracts that are A) uncuttable, and B) untradable. I believe all the DE and DTs will likely come back either under contract or renewed cheap contracts. Poyer is gone as a FS, and will be replaced by Micah Hyde (Poyer replaced Hyde as the FS this season to not great results) Jordan would have been replaced by Damar Hamlin, and will now likely be replaced by Christian Benford, an inexperienced but athletic and big player at 6-1, 205, with a 4.55 40. They’ll have to work to get Edmunds signed but that’s gonna happen That’s all the bad news. Here’s the good news The bills pass rush was excellent with a healthy Von Miller - which has more to do with Von’s cascading effect than Von himself. He forces the attention of the oiffenses protection scheme, and that makes life easier for the other DEs, and especially Ed Oliver, who because he faces much fewer doubles, is more effective, which in turn makes life harder for the tackle he’s next lined up closest to him, and that really helps the other DE. When you have a ferocious pass rush, and you have to two elite linebackers in coverage, that’s a secondaries best friend. Why do the Niners have the best defense we’ve seen in a few years? Because they have a great pass rush, the best 2 linebackers in the game right now, and a fairly average secondary that gets away with being average. The Bills secondary actually has considerable upside. Benford is inexperienced, but a clear athletic upgrade to Damar Hamlin and even Poyer. He showed reasonable defensive instincts when he played early, so there’s some hope there that he can be more than an average SS. Finally, Micah Hyde is a top 5 FS, and that’s huge coming back. Year 2 Kair Elam. He finished his rookie playing very well, and I expect him to get a bit better heading into year 2, and he has everything you want in someone you look to extend towards the end of of his rookie year Year 2 of Tre coming of his ACL. At worst, my expectation is that White can be a quality boundary corner. He was already showing signs of that towards the end of the season. The ceiling for him is to return to his normal elite Zone/Boundary state who can also play field given some over the top help (he was never the fastest corner, but his short area quickness + instincts made him remarkable in both zone and basically any shorter to intermediate route) Finally, Von Miller is an athletic freak of nature, and I don’t expect him to be slowed down at all. He’s already done this and come back just as strong and furious and he’ll do it again. So when you hear Beane talk about his Defense, this is why he probably sounds a bit more optimistic than you’d expect. 3 injuries really crushed that defense in a way that no DC would have been to overcome in Micah Hyde, Tre White and Von Miller. And especially losing Von Miller was the final break. My expectation, if we get Edmunds back, if White is a bit more explosive in his 2nd year coming off tje ACL and Von is resumed his normal explosiveness, is a top 5 D thag actually holds up in the playoffs. That was the entire reason for bringing Von, because of the cascading impacts to the rest of the DLine. Bills had their bad luck season. Time to get the normal to good luck season on D

I think the more accurate statement is we don’t know if we need a WR or not because the oline and Dorsey’s growing pains makes it next to impossible to truly assess the WRs.

That's a really weird, bizarre and probably useless stat.

like there should be room for legitimate criticism of everyone in that building, and especially the head ball coach. And I'm a McDermott fan. There's a lot of things you can question him on. There's a lot of answers, but nevertheless a lot of questions

Why so the Bills can lose to the Bengals twice?

Responding in general, and repeating: Wins are not a QB Statistic

Have zero issue with this, and am actually liking him more for saying it. The franchise intentionally has these players speak their minds, its one of their values. Diggs isn't calling anyone out, and at the same time sending a clear message - don't be ok with losing and don't be ok not performing to the standard

Ok, let's look at this real quick. vs Raiders; 24 - 34 244 yards, 2 TDs, vs Tenn; 28 - 37, 1 INT, 19 points vs KC; 23 - 28, 250, 2 TDs, 1 INT, 27 points (OT), vs LA; 22-33, 263, 1 TD Now take a look at how Josh Allen performed in those playoffs, as well as against that same Chiefs team which had Burrow mostly contained. He was an above average QB in the playoffs last season, and their defense and some luck, and timely playmaking by Burrow, were why they managed to get to the SB. These playoffs Burrow has been excellent, but not yet at the same level that Mahomes and Allen showed in past playoffs

The zone defense has some evidence, but we also have evidence that he's good against it to. We say this play out in 2020, which happened to be the last time Allen had an elite slot WR. Don't think that's coincidence