fergie's ire

Sorry if this came off as grouchy. It's been gnawing at me for a while and for some reason I just feel in the mood to air grievances today.

Is it just me or is the "we don't adjust and always stay in the same nickel defense" the new "Josh is inaccurate." It is a statement that I hear over and over again that is, well, inaccurate. Every time we have a team run on us (Green Bay, Miami), we hear "power running teams are going to destroy us." Yeah...that's why teams like Cleveland with Chub, or Tennessee with Henry, or the Patriots with Stevenson, or Jets with Zonovan Knight have each racked up like 500 yards rushing against us. Wait...they haven't? But if a poor rushing team like Miami can rush for 200 yards, then what happened? Could it be that we played different differences against these different teams even if we used the same personnel? If anything we over scheme (which may be necessary when missing someone like Hyde). Zach Wilson, was hitting wide open receivers against us. Granted his stats weren't great but they were better than his 50% for 90 yards that we saw last night. Meanwhile, Green Bay ran the ball because Rodgers couldn't find open receivers. This defense actually does a good job of taking away what they perceive to be the opposing offense's strength, but make themselves vulnerable to the other team's weakness. Much has been made about the Dolphins running against us. Yes, Mostert had 101 yards rushing against us in the first quarter...but that means he only had 37 yards in the other three, which is not great. Our defense changed!! Of course, that left us exposed to Waddle getting open. My point is we need to stop claiming our defense doesn't adjust. It does...even if you seem the same players (including Taron Johnson) out there.

The zoo's festival of lights can be nice this time of year: https://www.visitcincy.com/event/pnc-festival-of-lights/1993/?utm_term=pnc festival of lights&utm_campaign=&gclid=CjwKCAiAnZCdBhBmEiwA8nDQxVUJzEnmor_igG_oys2UIFntotMGknTzo0G6RW190B4fuGCKrOsaWhoCUAAQAvD_BwE

As easily as they handled Houston?

Not as much as 3rd and 1 on offense scares me, but yeah.

I also remember a young left tackle, either Cordy Glenn or Snowman (maybe both?) who showed promise the first year, took a step back the second year and then was much better from year 3 on. The person in question had a revolving door at LG the 2nd year which, in addition to still learning the position, was a huge part of the problem. I wonder if that is part of the problem. Brown keeps learning and if we eventually get RG solidified, he might show great improvement.

Very much so. The offense moved the ball and scored touchdowns in the first half and looked much better than they have in the past few weeks. Then, suddenly, when Morse is out it went to crap. We've seen that happen before.

I wasn't there but it is my understanding that it was one of those metal pipes. At a fraternity party. He was asked to leave Kentucky, went to Louisville, switched to FB and the rest, as they say, is history.

I went to school with Carwell....when he played defense. Got a lot of unsportsmanlike penalties and was tossed out of school for beating a kid with the pipe from a vacuum cleaner at a party. A bad bad man.

Ipanema

I'll be interested to see the Dolphins injury report and what Tyreek Hill's status is.

His rookie year he was the toe drag swag champion.

Am I the only one who thinks that the timing on this means there's something else going on? (and maybe some have mentioned here but I haven't read through the entire thread). I mean maybe just a disagreement between coach and GM...but even then would think it would wait until the end of the season. Seems like it would be a Sean Kugler or Jerry Richardson kind of deal for an abrupt firing with a few weeks left in the season...and the team is leading the division.

Huh? The text is suggesting that if we handled the kickoff right or played better defense in the final seconds that one win would be a loss...and thus 0-6

And if he is falling backwards (as he was), forward progress would be outside the end zone and not a safety.

And a holding penalty away from another.

Yeah, that makes sense to me. Look at when Davis ran the same route as the Diggs touchdown in the end zone. Ball was placed just out of his reached but needed to be because the defender was right on his back. If you look at his route, not only did he not sell the inside move like Diggs, but he really rounded his route. Particularly in tight quarters close to the end zone, that's a problem. I noted it at the time, but hadn't thought that it might be because of his injury.

Last year the Bills and Josh absolutely abused Judon. Saw a good breakdown of it. They would chip him with a back or TE and get Judon to rush inside. Then Josh would run a sweep to his side. It happened several times for a lot of yards. Eventually Judon actually started stepping backward at the snap to prevent getting pinned and was not much of a factor.

Ummm, I actually tend to agree with you, but the second quarterback on the list is out with an injury he suffered on a run. Actually it's the same injury that Cam said he never recovered from, but fortunately for Fields it's on his non-throwing shoulder. But quarterbacks get injured in the pocket (as happened to Josh) and I think teams just have to balance risk reward and when qbs are a threat to run the reward is great. Josh can even manipulate linebackers on a throw with the threat to run.

And a red zone interception. Mahomes sucks.

Yeah...the problem is people fall in love with players during pre-season. I don't remember who but I remember a coach saying they did very little evaluation during pre-season games. Maybe they wanted to double check something in game action but they pretty much made their evaluations in practice. It sounded a bit crazy at the time but the more I watch the more I've come to believe that pre-season games are a terrible way to assess talent. Nathan Peterman looked like the next Tom Brady in pre-season. Da'Rick looked awesome. Players are playing at 3/4 speed and so it's not really game action. I think Shakir could be good, but in the pre-season he looked ready and maybe he isn't.

MVP for this game: Tyler Bass. Not only did he kick the game winning field goal, but I think his missed extra point saved us. If they were down four, the way their offense and our defense was playing, I do not have confidence that we would have stopped them. They would have gone for it on fourth...probably made it...and scored a touchdown with like 5 seconds left.

I am actually one who hates the red helmets, but, supposedly, they went to them to help Ferguson's interception problem. The theory was that he was accidentally throwing it to the wrong team and the red helmets would make Bills players stand out more.

Do they need to switch to red helmets?

Agreed. I think anyone who has played sports has had those times when everything goes to poop. All of a sudden you start making mistakes and can't hit anything. When that happens you take a deep breath settle down and just go back to the basics and try to get easy wins. It's like when a B-ball player loses his outside shot. Settle down, take some layups, then maybe some mid-range jumpers and regain confidence and form. That's what I felt like the Bills were doing today. Hit the easy target, take the easy points, take a breath and get the win and gradually work on adding in more aggression.