[Keys to Bills v Colts game:]

Easy, the Colts do one thing on offense, they run, then throw deep, then run and then throw deep.

 

Take away Wayne, and they're without their speedster Avery this week. Waybe is by far Lucks favorite receiver, and if he isn't doubled on every play Wanny needs his head examined. Rush 4 until it appears it no longer works. Keep a scout on Luck in the backfield. Essentially play them to run, and double Wayne and make Luck beat you with his other receivers.

 

For the Bills offense. The Colts are suspect in the run defense both up the middle and on the outside. They are also prone to the screen which will come as a big plus for Chan's offense. Look for the usual from Chan and Fitz in this game as the Colts D does not matchup well with Chan's offense.

 

That's the plan, now execute.

 

 

Tim-

Rushing 4 has rarely worked for us this year. Why not send 5 or 6 on every play? We do that and Luck will run out of luck very quickly. Lets hope the coaches look at the film and change things up to a more aggressive defense. This team should seriously be able to win its next 4 games (Indy, Jax, St Louis and Seattle) Our coaching is holding us back on both sides of the ball. The Bills biggest weakness this season is coaching. We play our vanilla 4 with 7 in coverage like we always do, and we will get lit up. If Tannehill had more experience, he would have beaten us also with us rushing 4. We got some pressure against him w our front 4, but nearly as much as we should have, or could have by blitzing a whole lot more. Luck is at a different level. Certainly not elite yet, but miles ahead of Tannehill and Fitzie. Our corners are marginal. Justin Rogers is not an NFL player, and anyone he tries covering in the slot will light him up repeatedly. I would start Ron Brooks ahead of him. Sure he hasn't played in an NFL game yet. But he has got to be better than Rogers on pedigree alone. Rogers played at Richmond, Brooks at LSU. Enuf said on that. Next season Rogers and A Williams do not need to see the field at corner. I would try Williams at safety, and cut Rogers. It is time to get rid of ALL the marginal talent on the roster-nice draft picks Buddy!!!

[Moore , Merriman Please]

Since the Bills brought Merriman back & Anderson & Kelsay went down they have had to put Moore & Merriman in the line up to get more snaps & last week it showed the 2 have made a difference .

 

I thought Merriman was brought back as an insurance policy or a player to fill the void until Anderson came back & then would be cut , but so far i think he is playing better than Anderson was , If he continues this week to get better with increased reps i think the 2 should stay where they are .

 

Kelsay may get some reps this week but i would bring him in slow if for nothing else to see if the new tandem continues to do better than the others did & if so the needed boost in our D to get to the playoffs may be welcome not to say needed .

 

Then there is the deal when Anderson does come back who will be let go if that is something that will need to be done ? If these guys are doing better than the starters were who do you keep who do you sit ??

 

What do you all think ??

I would rotate Mario, Kelsay, Moore and Anderson on the D line. With of course Dareus and K Williams. Spencer Johnson and Alex Carrington have brought absolutely nothing to the team this year on Defense. And both need to be replaced after this season. (I know a lot of posters seem to hold out hope that Carrington has some upside-I personally don't see it. He is slow, unathletic, and certainly not a difference maker) And I would put Merriman somewhere on the line or at outside LB. I would have him rush the passer from the outside LB position. He is probably a little stiff and slow at this point to drop into coverage. But coming in off of the edge w Mario Anderson/Kelsay Moore and a DT makes for a nice 5 man rush. (wouldn't it be nice if we actually blitzed more than 2-3 times per game?)

[A Few Thoughts About The Game, in no particular order.....]

That empty backfield on the 3rd and 1 was ridiculously stupid and reckless.

 

I don't think there is a football coach anywhere else in the United States that would do that.

And what about lining Choice up in the wildcat on the first 3rd and 1 deep in Miami territory? That was a horrendous choice of plays and personnel. Gailey is this teams biggest liability. I think he is the worst coach we have had in the dark era (2001-present) and that is saying something. I seriously can not believe that Buddy thinks we can win anything with Chan at the helm. We NEVER outcoach our opponent. Sure we will win some games because we have some good players. But our coaching never gives us the best chance of winning a game. If Tannehill had more experience, we would have lost this game easily..

[The defensive effort against Miami / game of small differences]

Dr. Missing the Forest for the Trees: the insight is that the Bills didn't play a ton better than they did against NE.

I thought offensively we played a lot worse than against NE. Spiller ran hard, but the passing game especially in the second half was dreadful. No attempts to go down the field whatsoever. And where are the 15-20 yard intermediate passes? All we were throwing were the 3 yard slants over the middle, which every defense can stop. We scored ZERO points in the second half last nite. And for the year we have scored a pathetic 35 points in the 4th qtr.. The reason is that every defense we play against figures us out in the second half. We make no adjustments, and equally as problematic is that our receivers have a real hard time getting open. We definitely need a big speed receiver. What were we thinking taking TJ Graham in the third round. Seriously, has he caught a pass that has traveled in the air more than 10 yards downfield all season? Our lack of downfield passing game is as crippling to us as our lack of any athletic LB's. Combine that with unbelievable horrible coaching by Gailey (the two 3rd and 1 calls inside the 20 in the first half were dreadful) and you have a team that is severely handicapped. Lets here it for Byrd Scott and McKelvin for making the three plays that won the game for us. And of course CJ making the Miami D sweat every time he touched the ball.

[The Next Four]

Sure all four games are winnable. And 7-6 going into the last 3 would feel real good. But this defense, and especially this coaching staff has shown us nothing to believe that 4 wins in a row are going to happen. The toughest game is going to be tonite's. We have been horrible in division games under Gailey. And I am sure Miami is feeling good about their chances. A solid mistake free game w lots of CJ and good game management will go a long way towards a victory. Beating Miami should give this team some confidence. Another bad performance at home against our biggest rival, and Gailey can start packing.

[Still have to go Defense heavy in 13' Draft]

Based on where this team appears to be headed, I would get behind drafting a guy like Manti Teo in the first round all day. Fitzpatrick isn't the problem. Anyone who knows anything about the NFL knows that if your offense is scoring 31 points that you should win most of those games. Once again, they lost the turnover battle. They were -3 in that department. Notwithstanding everything else, a team that's +3 in turnovers will win the ballgame about 95% of the time based on history. Why is CJ Spiller not getting the ball more? The guy is electric on the field and averaging 7.3 YPC and yet they stubbornly split with Freddy every game. It's manic bad logic from the coaching staff. The linebackers are a huge weakness on this team. They can't cover and can't fill the gaps to stop the run. That's why this offense runs out of gas at the end of games. Stop someone!

So true about our LB's. They are supposed to be the heart and soul of your defense, if not your whole team. Ours are incredibly bad. It is almost shocking that we went into a season with this group of LB's. None are starting material. And possibly not even backup material on a lot of teams. They are costing us bigtime. As a GM Buddy needs to take some accountability for this, as does Chan. How can you start Barnett, Sheppard, Bradham, Scott, Moats? You could see this in the preseason. And it has carried over to the regular season. We seriously need at least two if not three new starters at LB next year. This is so typical of our organization going w the guys we have at such a crucial position. Seriously, every starter does not have to be a pro bowler. But come on, can't they at least play guys with NFL talent at every position?

[Is this the Start of faith in coaches crumbling? From Inside?]

I'm as big a Wanny detractor as anyone, but the Bills held the Pats* to two FGs in the 4th quarter, and one of the Pats* TD drives was less than 15 yards. Just sayin'...you're not really accurate with that statement. The Bills also held the Pats* to a key 3-and-out after Fred fumbled on the one -- also in the 4th quarter.

Seriously, have you ever seen a team give up more plays where receivers are completely wide open, or runners are completely untouched threw the hole as we have this year? Noone touched Woodhead on his TD run. We have NOONE on the defense that can cover a slot receiver. There is just a huge vacant space between the D line and our safety's on most runs and passes over the middle. Other than Byrd's two picks against the Cardinals, I seriously do not think our safety's have made one other play against the opposing teams passing game this season. And what have our LB's done? They are terrible. It is embarrassing watching Nick Barnett try to play Defense. He needs to sit and be cut.. He gives an effort, but the skill is GONE. You make it like our D stuffed the Pats..They did nothing of the sort. Whenever the Pats needed to make a play, they got it. Our Defense puts us in a hole against every decent team we play.

[Is this the Start of faith in coaches crumbling? From Inside?]

35 1st downs and 480 yds of offense says otherwise

I love your user name, but 13-28 say completely otherwise. Yards and first downs are nice, but in all actuality they are window dressing and nothing more. Look at Brady's numbers and the Pats total offense. Not super, but they were in control of the game the entire time. Our defense could never stop them when we had to. We took 14 penalties and turned the ball over 3 times. And our defense looked like garbage and completely overmatched most of the game. Mistakes, undisciplined play and a defense that looks constantly unprepared and out of position falls on the headcoach. This is a weekly occurrence. Does anyone on this board have any confidence that Chan can turn this around? I sure do not. If anyone does, give me some solid evidence to support your position.

[The Final Play in Foxborough]

So I know this is being discuss in multiple other threads in other topics. I think we need one place to discuss this as it likely will be a hot button topic for the week, (and likely until we play the Pats again next year.) Mods if you collapse this thread please keep the title.

 

I watched the play a few dozen times now.

 

You can watch the play here:

 

http://www.nfl.com/v...ne-interception

 

1.) TJ Graham is clearly supposed to run his route infront of the defenders in the end zone. We have seen David Nelson run this route many times and Scott Chandler run this route a few times. The Safties and Corners are in the end zone and TJ Graham is supposed to cut in front of them and not run in the midst of them. This was a boneheaded rookie mistake. TJ Graham doesn't even seem to be aware he is a viable option as he is starring at the goal post for most of the play. I don't think TJ Graham was anywhere near the top option on that play.

 

This is just one specific example of how much Fitzpatrick misses his David Nelson security blanket. That expected route looks like David Nelson's signature inside route.

 

2.) McCourty had to jump in the air when he was 5 yards deep in the end zone to catch the interception. If Statement 1 is correct and Fitzpatrick was looking for TJ Graham to break in front of the defenders why was the ball thrown so High? If you watch the flight of the ball, the Ball would have been way over TJ Graham's head if he broke infront of the defenders.TJ Graham would have likely had to jump in order to catch, and Jump real high; exposing himself to a big time hit by those safties and corners.

If Fitzpatrick would have thrown the ball where it should have been located on that play, At TJ Graham's Numbers OR LOWER. In this situation with a 6'0" receiver the Ball should have landed safely on the ground two yards deep in the end zone. That ball should have been at TJ's Numbers or LOWER.

 

So not only did TJ Graham run the wrong route but it appears Fitzpatrick had poor ball placement on the play, like usual.

 

This is another example of how the 6'5" David Nelson and 6'7" Scott Chandler that usually run this route might have actually made the play. But the 6'0" TJ Graham even if TJ broke infront of the defenders he might not have made the play given the height of the throw.

 

3.) CJ Spiller is pretty open in space on that play.

 

If you're going to take your best playmaker out of the backfield and get him in open space what better position to throw him the ball with time on the clock.

 

If you watch the timing of throw to where TJ Graham is on the field it just seems off even if you're expecting TJ Graham to break inside. Its obviously easy to watch the play 36 times on nfl.com, knowing the outcome and make a judgment as compared to being in the pocket. TJ Graham is staring at the goalpost for the majority of the play.

 

CJ Spiller is open in space. He likely wouldn't get in the end zone, he likely would get within the 5. Spike the Ball and you have 2nd and goal.

 

CJ Spiller also was ready and aware of the situation and wanted the ball. TJ Graham was not.

 

I'm emotionally exhausted. I can't take these **** Sandwiches this team is feeding us for much longer.

Thanks for posting the video. Watching it again for the first time since Sunday, it is obvious that Fitz made a horrible decision. No reason to throw deep in the endzone when the Pats have that part of the field covered. CJ was breaking across at the 10 and if he gets that ball, he is easily inside the 5 and possibly could have made a quick dart to his left and scored. Stevie had run by his man on the left sideline and is wide open in the back left part of the end zone. And Donald Jones is also wide open on the rt sideline inside the 5 yrd line as well, and would have walked in the end zone. Watch how much effort Fitz has to use to throw that ball. As a result it would have been high and a little behind him if TJ would have cut inside to his left at the goalline. Just a bad decision by Fitz. Time is running out on his tenure as our starting QB. Sure he can put up some numbers against marginal teams, but when it comes to crunch time when the pressure is on, he always falters. What more can you say. The good ones get it done when the game is on the line, and the not so good ones don't more often than not.

[McKelvin is better than Williams]

Gilmore may be our Ike Taylor--average player who gets beat fairly often and/or has a lot of PI calls.

Gilmore is no where near the player that Ike Taylor has been for a decade for the Steelers. Right now he is not showing anymore upside than a poor man's Thomas Smith. the guy seems to have no feel for where the receivers are going, and therefore looks really lost on the field. Wow, we have picked some marginal DB's of late. Rogers has nothing. And Aaron Williams is not quick enuf to play NFL corner. What are the scouts looking at. Just brutal.

[Defense Wins Games & Championships !!]

Glad u bring up the talent (or lack thereof) of the defense. Sure our scheme is pure vanilla. But I have never seen a worse back 7 in all my years of watching football. Our LB's made no plays today. And neither did our secondary. Barnett, Scott, Sheppard, Bradham and Moats collectively are the worst in the league. They can not cover anyone, don't rush the passer and do not fill any holes. Anytime the Pats needed a big run they got it. Barnett has regressed dramatically this year. He continuously gets mauled by O lineman near the line of scrimmage and can not disengage to make a play. And his pass coverage skills are gone. Cut his butt. He is a disgrace. The rest of them have no clue, and are incredibly limited athletically. As for the secondary, it is almost laughable having Gilmore, McKlevin and Rogers as our top three corners w Wilson, Byrd and Searcy at safety. None of these guys should be starting on an NFL team. And looking at our D line the effort is marginal except for Kyle Williams. He plays as hard as anyone in the NFL on every play. But after him, there is next to nothing in talent and effort on this defense. (what will it take to light a fire under M Williams and Dareus)

 

Buddy and Chan have done a horrible job w this defense. They play scared, timid and clueless. Sure Wannstadt has not done a good job. But there is almost nothing to work with here. Just no athletes and playmakers on the defense. I would not mind getting rid of our entire linebacking core and secondary including Gilmore. He is a first round pick w the skills of a late rounder. Our defense is probably the worst in the NFL. Possibly one of the worst of all time when looking at the numbers they have allowed. Lots of work to be done.

[The next 6 days determine the season]

If coach Gailey suddenly gets "a case of the runs" and uses Spiller & Jackson than I like our chances to at least be in the game in the 4th qtr.

That would definitely be a start in the right direction. For what seems like forever, the Pats have moved the ball at will on us. Sure we beat them at home last year. But they still moved the ball up and down the field most of the game. We got lucky that Brady threw 4 picks. Otherwise the game is not even close.. We still needed a last second drive to win. And when u r at home, it should never be close when the opposing QB throws 4 picks.

 

Watch how the Jets and Fish play the Pats. Games are always close regardless of how good the Pats are. Jets and Dolphins have pride and know its a divisional game. Gailey has brought ZERO toughness to the team. Today it has to come out (pride and toughness) and a really solid gameplan..Anything less and we are done. A big loss today, and we will have nothing left for Thursday nite. These two games will define the Nix/Gailey era. 3-7 w a week and a half off to wait to play Indy and things will get real ugly, real quick. Wholesale changes will have to come than. EVERYONE in the organization knows this.

[After only 8 games it has happened]

These two games will define the season and Gailey's tenure as head coach. We lose both to fall to 3-7, we are done, and Gailey and his staff are done. Simple as that. We will not recover from two more losses in the division in 4 days. I see 5-11 at best if we lose the next two. (possibly beating Jax and St Louis) Win both or at least compete hard in both and beat Miami, maybe we can turn it around to at least rise from the dregs. Lets see what Gailey has planned. I am really not holding my breath. Can we just avoid another blowout, and play w the Pats for 4 quarters? Is that too much to ask for?

[Why do I keep seeing on here Gailey would be good OC?]

His schemes are awful when you look at game/clock management and his COMPLETE inability to stay in offensive rhythm. 3rd and 2 and he calls a 30 yard sideline pass, which fitz, 19 out of 20 times will miss and doing it when he has one of the best running backs in the league. 3rd and long, he has Fitz throw 3 yards behind the line of scrimmage in hopes that his target will make up the needed yardage??? Total Goof. Fire him and fast.

I agree with you and every other poster on here who wants him fired IMMEDIATELY.. His schemes of running 5 wide, empty backfield w a horrendously inaccurate QB that can not throw downfield, and marginal receivers (other than Stevie) at best, when we have an awesome ground game combined w horrific game management. (ie-Wildcat pass by Brad Smith to end zone against Arizona, not being aggressive against Houston by kicking FG on 4th and 1 inside 5, refusing to feed CJ Spiller the ball even some of the time on a consistent basis behind a very good run blocking line against Houston and just about everyone else-what coach would not give the ball to CJ w his yards per carry this year?) and his total inability to motivate the team to play hard, fast and tough on a regular basis, as well as his total uninvolvement for the defense makes it impossible to defend him.

 

Look at his record w the Bills. 13-27 w how many blowout losses? Would someone who has more time than me please figure out over the past two and a half seasons which teams in the league lost their games by the biggest margins? I have to believe we would be in the top three for this dubious statistic. And what this shows is that Gailey is not capable of coaching up a team that can compete (let alone win) in the NFL on a weekly basis. We are not prepared to play a large amount of the time. We should not even be having this thread as he should have been fired after the loss to San Francisco. Period!!!

[Bill Polian on what it takes to win]

Why no mention of the other two items Polian listed? Your focus seems to be entirely on the aspect of a game-managing QB.

 

Fitz IS a game managing QB. No doubt about that. But I submit our defense and it's utter lack of being able to get off the field consistently, especially at critical junctures in games, gives Fitz ABSOLUTELY NO ROOM FOR ERROR. Few QBs are good enough to have to operate with no room for error, let alone someone with marginal talent to begin with.

 

GO BILLS!!!

You are a huge Fitz apologist in many of your posts. Stop it already..The guy STINKS, plain and simple..He can not, and will not throw the ball more than ten yards past the line of scrimmage. What QB throws a 2 yard pass on 3rd and 8 more than Fitz? Noone in the league..He is constantly throwing the underneath garbage. In today's NFL you have to stretch the field vertically to consistently move the chains and score points. Did you watch Matt Ryan last nite for the Falcons? Unless he is throwing a called screen pass, everything he throws is downfield at least 15 yards past the line of scrimmage. I can not understand a QB who does not WANT to throw down the field. That is supposed to be what QB's do. They air it out. (My 13 year old son who plays on a very strong 8th grade middle school team in the Atlanta area has better accuracy than Fitz on balls thrown 30-40 yards down the field. And his O line was pretty much garbage all year, but he threw DOWN FIELD every game.)

 

More than his inability to throw down the field is the lack of leadership and energy he is bringing to the team. He simply is not making plays that win games. Everyone is all excited about how he played against the Titans. He dumped off to CJ and Fred, and hit Stevie with several underneath passes, as he always does. Than late in the game, he brutally underthrows the ball down the rt sideline for I believe Donald Jones and it is picked, and we know what happened than. And after the Titans score, 1:03 left and TWO TIMEOUTS on our own 20. We just need a field goal to win. Fitzie could not even get a first down. That is ridiculous. My 13 year old would have given us a better chance to kick a field goal there. He just does not have the skills to win games at the NFL level against any team but the worst the NFL has to offer. When was the last two minute drive he led us to victory? I would rather have J P Losman than Fitz in the last two minutes. And look at his demeanor. When does he ever get excited? When is he in his teammates faces, or at least explaining what they need to be doing? He looks like a beaten man, who KNOWS he can't play. He is not the leader that this team needs to turn this mess of an organization around.

 

And sure our Defense has been very poor this year. But I submit that Fitzie has brought the D down. They all know he aint going to get it done. These guys are professionals. They know who has talent. And they know that Fitz does not have it. And he never will. We stopped the Texans on several occasions yesterday, only to have Fitz not get it done. His whole game right now is throwing passes to the sidelines parallel to the line of scrimmage. His game has gone drastically down hill since his first year starting. He is no longer a gunslinger. He has been muted into a cap gun.

 

Remember the Bills-Ravens game in 2010. He was a completely different QB. He was winging it everywhere. Sure he missed a few. But the guy at least was willing to let it rip. Now he looks totally unsure of what to do if the 5-8 yard slant or dump off is not there. On several occasions yesterday after escaping pressure, he would NOT throw the ball downfield. Instead he held on to the ball, tried to make a few yards, and got tackled. He is AFRAID to take a chance any longer. Everyone on the team knows that. He is DONE!! So stop saying it is not his fault. He is the QB..Sure, our D is terrible. But Fitz is equally as terrible, and has NO UP SIDE!! At least with somechanges on defense, including a new D Coordinator, we should improve. If not this year, than under a new regime..

 

This is all you need to know. With Fitzie starting the last 17 games, we are 4-13 with wins over Denver last Christmas Eve (Tebow turned it over 4 times, two for TD's) and horrible KC and Cleveland teams, and than over Arizona in a game that Fitz did absolutely nothing. Watch the NFL my friend...With as good an O line as we have, Fitz is a bad as it gets as a starting QB in the NFL.