Bleeding Bills Blue

They need to figure out how to run on a stingy defense that knows its coming. Rush isn't a bad backup with a week of prep - his teams are 9-5 when he starts. He takes care of the ball, and doesn't take a lot of sacks.

Sort of - as a cleveland guardians fan, prior to last year i couldn't watch their games unless i had some bally sports package that was 49 dollars a month including a number of channels i didn't want. After the bankruptcy, they wanted 29.99 per month for their games and their league wide package would have blacked-out guardians games.

I don't think allen left the pocket, i'm not sure he ever really did on the play.

True... but the last 3 games they're averaging 16.6 points allowed, 17.3 first downs, 103 passing yards, 139.6 rushing yards, 242.6 total yards, and 1 takeaway per game. Are any of those averages likely to win a game? No. They've also trailed all of 4 minutes during the 3 game stretch.

The chiefs have always gotten away with murder in the playoffs - hence the effectiveness of their blitzes. If they got a defensive hold on half of them, it would not be as effective a strategy.

Also going on 120 minutes plus of not allowing a single play greater than 20 yards.

I think they're a tough matchup for houston actually - definitely depends if lamar plays. As much as all the players missing will hurt, i expect them to probably sit back in zones and dare houston to run - then send the house on 3rd and longs. Houston's got a weak o-line, and even the backups with baltimore are a bunch of big boys that will clog it up and make it tougher to run the ball. Houston haven't been able to run the ball much. Strouds also running more, and getting sacked more. It's in baltimore, and stroud's traditionally been considerably worse on the road. He's also been considerably worse outdoors. Baltimore beat the crap out of them last year in Houston 31-2, and they basically just ran the ball the entire game. I know they're missing some people... but season's on the line for a SB favorite - i don't see them laying down.

So a considerable, measureable speed difference that affects your ability to climb effectively to the 2nd level in run blocking, and ability to get open or stretch the field. Knox has been an in-line blocker for a lot of plays, and then they'd rotate him off the LOS when doing 6-OL formations, but now they don't need to deal with the eligibility issues, and he can still function and play a hybrid role. I think his hands have always been an issue at times, but the guys a load to tackle and has scored a ton of TD's in his tenure here. I don't think he's worth his paycheck, but because we've never paid a free agent tight end, it isn't a position that's so expensive that its hamstrung the teams ability to do things.

Williams falling over certainly didn't help the cause. I think anytime we take 4 shots to get 10 yards, and none of those shots involves josh allen doing anything - the play-caller has made a mistake.

They had a few stunts later in the game that i noticed to try and muck up the middle a bit more. But I noticed we were a tad more aggressive early on to try and go against tendency during the first drive, and it didn't work. I was on the far end of the stadium so i didn't see the full TV response, but from what i could tell on that 1st timeout he was on the field dragging cords screaming at the refs. Usually imo that means the ref who's supposed to stand there and hold up for substitutions didn't do it correctly. There were also a lot of strange play clock issues that this crew did not have a good handle on.

Someone mentioned it i think on this thread - but when you play in the 1PM window against an 0-3 team, you might not get the A-team refs.

I just feel like between a high pick for kincaid, and shakir being a really good player - there was no need for a primary slot WR in the top of the 2nd round.

To be fair to coleman... he has more yards and catches on fewer targets than ladd so far this year. Ladd's also 3rd on his team in targets despite leading all Chargers pass catchers in snaps. His statistical impact may be affected by sharing slot snaps with keenan allen. There will be some movement there, and i still expect he leads his team in targets, catches, and yards by the end of the year - but the thought that he was a superstar WR might be overblown.

#1 in pass defense though, and shockingly only 30th in yards per attempt when they allowed 8.2 yards per carry in week 1. Like the actual team-wide yards per carry allowed actually went down against NO, even allowing 5.55 yards per carry across 34 carries. That's how bad they were in week 1. They need to do a better job with athletic QBs, need to tackle better to create more third downs and prevent conversions, and need to be better getting off the field. If they did all of those things better though - they'd probably be the best defense in the league.

Ray davis has been running into brick walls it seems so far this year. Cook's got an amazing ability to turn 1 into 4-6, or -3 into 1 with his patience and quick feet. Davis is more of a one-cut guy who needs an alley. Like you can't even break tackles when there is no where to go in any direction. Johnson's had a couple of drops, and needs to be better. He also blocks on more third downs so his impact isn't always going to show up on a stat sheet.

I think he'd need to take over at Weakside linebacker if he wanted to really fix the mistakes.

I think there's too much onus on the "he got his head around" part of it. He didn't play the ball and obstructed the receivers ability to get to the ball - isn't that interference?

Held accountable for what? They were 5/13 on 3rd and 0/2 on 4th. The longest 3rd down the saints converted was 7 yards on a scramble that cam lewis missed a tackle on from the opening drive. There was also a 3rd and 1 sneak, an option run on a 3rd and 3, a 3rd and 1 run conversion, and the TD pass to Olave which was also a 3 yard distance.

That was the same one with a fairly clear PI on samuel down the field as well.

For a team that can't rush the passer - why do we have the fewest passing yards allowed in the league? 9 sacks against 103 pass attempts is an 8% sack rate - the league average QB was sacked on 6.87% of their dropbacks in 2024. 194 air yards completed across 4 games, and 64 total completed passes so... the average completed pass has traveled 3 yards. The lowest in the league last year was 4.1 yards by Tua. They have allowed 243 YAC, which is an average of 3.8 YAC/completion. The lowest QB in the league averaged 4 YAC/completion in 2024. Buffalo has the #1 NY/A in the league. This is not affected by volume. (Passing yards - Sack yards)/(Pass attempts+Sacks) From an eye test perspective, i agree the tackling has been poor. I'd imagine some gap assignments have been missed by the defensive line, especially in the baltimore game. They seem to struggle to bottle up athletic QBs, which has always been an issue (and shouldn't since we rarely play man and our guys have eyes on QB quite often). But to say they aren't getting any pressure is just not true. Considering how insanely close to the LOS the average completion is, pressure is just not really going to come on those.

No play's that went beyond 20 yards in back to back weeks now. Hill, Waddle, Achane, Kamara, Shaheed, Cooks, Olave - no explosives. And even with the poor tackling display against NO - and a pretty one-sided officiating crew... they still managed to force 3 punts, 2 fourth down stops, had a takeaway, 5/13 on 3rd downs, and under 20 points.

And while yes - you can drill and teach players to tackle. Its not typically what you're working on in camp. Your ability to tackle was what got you here.

The refs were not doing well with substitutions, or the play clock, or getting penalties called in a timely fashion. Didn't feel like it was a well called game by the officials either. From the stands there were definitely some missed calls on the saints defense.

Agreed. I was just trying to say... the bad decisions go beyond tua. It's organizational failure, and a number of heads are gonna roll in this one.

More picks gives you more chances. 8 picks and no 1st's in a 2 year stretch is brutal, missing on 7/8 just makes it worse. The dolphins 2024 draft didn't produce much, and they used their 1st on another edge rusher despite having 2 high paid guys in chubb and phillips.