sven233

The thing is, our defense is very much a player-based defense. It isn't about the X's and O's. Without getting into explicit detail as to what our scheme is and how we play defense, I'll try and break it down into an easy way to understand it. It is a very basic defense overall, but talent, particularly on the back end with White, Hyde, and Poyer executing at a high level makes what we do on defense possible. The idea is to use great athletes to cover a lot of ground in hopes that we can get to the QB with 4 and force the other team into mistakes. And when we have a pass rush, and are facing average to below average QBs and talent, the system we run can excel. And during the regular season, we see a lot of teams like that and our defense can put up great numbers more often than not. The problem is, when you get to the playoffs, the players on the other teams we play are just as good, or at least pretty close to us talent wise. And the QBs we play are, for the most part, very good to elite. You can't get away with the same stuff against really good teams as you can against those with lesser talent, especially if you can't get the the QB. In the last few years when we have been in the Playoffs, we can't get to the QB at all. Not even close. And, when that's the case, the weapons these other teams have are going to get open against our zone defense that inherently has holes and weak spots in it. Great players are going to find the soft spots and make plays no matter how good the back end plays because QBs have all the time in the world to sit back and make the right decisions as they already know where the defense will be vulnerable if given enough time. There is no real change in scheme from week to week, and teams know where the weaknesses are in this defense if there is no pressure on the QB. If there was a consistent pass rush, there is no doubt the system can be effective because it does take away a lot of initial reads and makes it look like the entire field is covered at times, but the longer plays go, the more weak spots appear. Unfortunately for us, in the biggest games the last few seasons, we have been picked apart by good QBs because they never got touched. Von was supposed to be the piece of the puzzle to make sure we finally got that consistent pressure, but he was watching from the sideline injured and nobody stepped up to take his place and dominate. So, what do we do? Hope everyone stays healthy this year and run it back with a simple and potentially solid defense that the players already know like the back of their hands hoping we get that pass rush in the Playoffs next year or do we go in a completely different direction where the scheme changes week to week based on opponent and maybe make a couple of mistakes here and there? I know, personally, I am ready to see something different that doesn't count on the line getting to the QB in 2.5 seconds or less to be successful. Also, seeing a defense that doesn't play their DBs 15 yards off the LOS when blitzing on 3rd and short would be a nice change of pace as well. I am ready to start scheming up ways to slow down what offenses like to do rather than just try to be fundamentally sound and perfect using the same defensive scheme week in and week out.

Paying Brady under the table so they only had him on the books for about half, or less, than what he should have been on the books for certainly helped a lot. Cheating (in a bunch of different ways, probably in a lot of ways that weren't even discovered yet) had a bunch to do with it as well. Throw all that on the fact that Brady was good anyway, and boom......dynasty.

We have a lot of holes to fill on this team, but if done right through the Draft, much of it can be done. The first thing we need to do is identify our "Justin Jefferson" / "AJ Brown" / "Davante Adams", etc and get them at #27. There are a lot of WRs in this and every class with talent and preferably we find someone with some speed. Obviously a combination of size and speed would be great, but at the end of the round, you have to do your research and make sure you get it right. There are plenty of star WRs in this league that have been drafted in the bottom of Round 1 or even in Round 2. Find one and draft him. From there, luckily Guards are not considered a premium position and many of the best ones in drafts don't even come off the board until the 2nd and 3rd rounds anyway. So, get a couple of them in that area. Getting a couple of Guards that play physical with some nastiness to them would go a long way towards improving this line. Fixing the RT position will be tough to do in the draft because of all the other needs, but based on Beane's comments, I am not sure they view that as quite a necessity as many of us perceive it to be. We can't fix everything, but if you can get a quality LG in the draft and put him in between Dawkins and Morse, I think you will start to see those guys immediately start to play better as well. Our "Pro Bowler" Saffold was so bad most of the time, I think those guys suffered a bit trying to make up for his errors. And while I don't think Brown is great, I think the same thing can be said if we can put a true road grader in at RG as well. Eventually, Bates might be able to take over for Morse at C whether it be this year or next. So, while not perfect by any means, getting a true #2 and a couple of quality lineman in the first 4 rounds is imperative. Then, it us up to Beane to find some nastiness up front on the defensive line. Right now, we have a bunch of athletes, but none of them have that edge to them that I want my DTs to have. Jones was very good for us this season and we really missed him against the Bengals. But we need someone else in there that brings that nasty fight on the inside. Absolutely nailing the draft takes a lot of burden off of the lack of cap space. There are plenty of things that can be done with current contracts to create space, but it is time to start seeing some major impact from drafted players instead of just getting contributions. We need to draft some stars instead of just role players.

This defensive system relies on getting pressure on the QB. If the QB is unaffected, there is no scheme on the back-end to make things difficult on the QB and the good ones will already know where the back-end is vulnerable. It's good enough to slow down bad teams, and there are a lot of average to below average teams that you play in the regular season to boost your stats and make the defense look better than it is. But in the Playoffs, you need to beat the best of the best all the way through and that is why we have failed on defense the last several times in the Playoffs. Good QBs can beat this system when you don't get consistent pressure and even with all of the investments we have made up front over the last few years, the pass rush has not created pressure in the Playoffs at all and that is the main factor why they can't get stops.

If it's me, I'm telling Benford at his exit interview to be ready to take snaps at FS in training camp. I've seen enough of Elam to feel comfortable with him coming back next season and immediately slotting in as a full time starter opposite Tre. Look....I love Poyer and everything he gave to this team as we all do, but there is no way I am signing him to a big contract at his age. We need to make tough decisions in order to save on cap space and I think Benford could fill the void at S admirably. In his snaps throughout the first part of the season, he showed that he's smart, can cover fairly well, and is a willing tackler even if he's a bit undersized and slower than the typical CB. I think he has enough talent to see playing time, but I don't need him rotating with Elam. This leaves you with Tre, Elam, Johnson, Hyde and Benford as your starting secondary with Jackson slotted in as your primary backup at CB. You can't have all stars at every position, especially with the cap situation we will be facing, so you have to get creative in spots. I think Benford is smart enough and has enough physical tools to make a switch to safety work. Actually thought that when he was drafted as well, but Beane said he wanted to try him at CB first. I think he did just fine there in his first year, but I think he can make a fine NFL safety. Then, we'll have to find a replacement for Hyde most likely after next season. Hyde will be good for Benford to play off of and learn the position from this year for sure, though.

Until I see something about Frazier being out officially, I am not even going to give this another though. McDermott loves the guy and I have a hard time believing they are going to push him out the door. The guy I wanted was just hired by the Browns anyway. But yeah......I'll have to see it to believe it in regards to Frazier being gone before I think about this too much.

It's one advantage other sports have......one bad day doesn't end your season. But this is the NFL.....and the game is much more violent and you can't simply add games onto the schedule to make it a double elimination tournament. I mean, I suppose you could, but you would have to knock off like 4 games from the regular season to do it. You can't ask players to potentially play 4+ more games. This sport is hard enough on the body as it is.

This team wins 3-5 games this year without Allen at QB.

The coaching staff isn't great. They were out game planned and out coached. It has been proven over the last few seasons that this coaching staff isn't good enough, particularly on defense against good teams.

Diggs is great. He's a competitor and wants to win. He's fiery. He's one of the best WRs in the league, but our coaching staff can't find ways to get him the ball. You watch all these other teams with either #1 WRs or dominant TEs, etc. and you constantly watch them being schemed wide open with play designs. Daboll did this fairly well. He was able to design plays to get certain guys the ball, but that didn't happen at all this season. Some of it is on Allen. Some of it is on the line putting Allen under immediate pressure. A lot of it is on coaching and the lack of creativity.

Terrible coaching Terrible O-Line No true #2 WR No pass rush No interior D All of this focus and high draft picks spent on the defensive line who hasn't even had a sniff of the QB today against a back up filled offensive line. We are trying to play a defensive style that needs pressure on the QB to succeed and we are routinely getting blown off the ball. Look, as long as we have 17, we will be in the hunt to win a championship. We can easily be right back here in the same position 365 days from now with another opportunity, but man.......we have a lot of holes to fill and we could really use a philosophical change on how to play defense. This Frazier/McDermott scheme doesn't instill fear into anyone and while they can get away with playing this style against bad teams, they can't against good ones. There will be a lot of time to discuss things this off season, but my plans have certainly changed with how I am handling certain players. If it's me, Poyer, Oliver, and even Edmunds (I like him more than most people do) can go. No need to tie up big money in these players. While they may be better than those that end up replacing them, it won't be dramatic enough to justify the price difference and we're going to need the cap space to upgrade other spots. Go get a real #2 WR. Diggs is great and Shakir has shown enough promise to keep. Davis is fine to be on the team until he needs a new contract. Everyone else can go and we need to give Allen some real weapons with some speed. And, for the love of God, get some real offensive linemen in here. We have 2 good lineman in Dawkins and Morse, but the rest are barely backup level right now. Frazier has to be gone and a new system needs to be in place before next season. Beane is on the spot and there is a lot of work to do. But many things that need to be done are obvious. While we won't exactly be underdogs necessarily next season, we won't be favorites either. It's going to be back to Buffalo vs The World and that's the way it should be.

Coaching has gotten this team eliminated from the Playoffs the last few seasons. It is well on its way to doing it again.

Just about there now....

This is usually where the defense folds. Finally get something going only to have the defense give up points on the next drive.

Crap call as usual.........

I'm definitely not one to just jump to "this game is over" territory, but I think I'm there today. Everything I feared with a Frazier/McDermott defense is showing to be true. They play a defense that can beat average to below average QBs, but when they go against good ones, they can't keep up and they look like fools. It's time for a change in philosophy and it starts by letting Frazier go. This coaching staff has made decisions that have gotten us eliminated every year from the Playoffs the last 3 seasons and it looks no different today.

Leaving Chase wide open is certainly a choice....... Frazier schooled again.

GO BILLS!

It's interesting for sure to not see Brown get the nod. Maybe, this is their way of reigning Josh in just a bit. Don't give him one of his vertical weapons and put more of the guys in that work the underneath stuff to force him to check it down once in a while. We did see that Shakir, although not a burner, could get down the field a bit when they asked him to and with McKenzie back in the fold they feel OK about the speed they are putting on the field. As for Kingsly, we have only seen him a little bit this season. But, from what I remember, he did have a bunch of flash plays rushing the passer when he played, though. I also remember him getting out of position which led to big plays the other way, though. Guess we'll see.

I don't want Allen to change who he is at his core. I love the fact that he takes the deep shots more often than not. But, what I do want for Allen is for him to be completely unstoppable and he has the potential to do that because he has a skill set like nobody has ever had in the NFL. Teams are forced to play Allen differently than any other QB. They are forced to play deeper because they know that is where Allen wants to go with this ball. Like I said earlier, I want Allen pushing the ball down the field because he can. But, I also want that to become as easy as possible to do. All I need Allen to do is take the "free cheese" underneath just enough to force defenses to respect that he might do that. Teams play Allen so deep, that there are several times underneath options are wide open that can easily gain 7-15 yards almost every time. So, in an ideal world, I want Allen to almost set teams up for deep shots by taking a few of these underneath routes early forcing the defense to come up and respect them. And, if they keep giving Allen the easy pitch and catch, so be it. Just march down the field chunk by chunk. But once teams start creeping up I absolutely want Allen chucking the ball down the field. Allen started this year doing this really well. Go back and take a look at some of those early games this year when he was just going off on teams. He was hitting deep shots for sure, but he was also taking the easy stuff when it presented itself, and he was on a record pace to put up something like 6,300 total yards like halfway through the season. It was ridiculous. But, somewhere along the way, he started to stray away for mixing things up and I'm not sure why. Regardless, there are opportunities there to take some of these underneath routes, especially early in games, to make those deeper throws even more open. But you can't change who Allen is and nobody should want to. Keep chucking that Duke, 17! But maybe just make it a bit easier on yourself and I think you will find that teams will get even more frustrated playing you than they already are.

Looks a lot like the NBA game today as well......

Ravens barely over the Taron Johnson Pick 6 and now they have this one to chew on......

I will be the first to admit, I am not the biggest Dorsey fan. Today was a little tough for me, though. I have a hard time criticizing Dorsey too much. Yeah, there were a few calls that I would have liked to have seen something different, but there was some stuff I really liked. I loved the design of the Cook TD run. Took advantage of his speed and was a nice wrinkle to see. I loved the way Diggs was being used early. He caught the deep ball and followed it up with some great work on a slant. But, where I take issue is that he never really went back to some of those things that were working. Where were the slants for the rest of the game? It seems like too many times we don't do the basic stuff most NFL teams do easily at times. All that said, though, we scored 30+ points and it could have been a lot more early. If Knox holds on to that TD early (I would still argue that maybe shouldn't have been overturned, though). If Allen is just a little more accurate on a couple of the deep throws he made (just missed on a couple of bombs that would have been TDs), that would have helped. If his guys just hold on to a couple of dimes Allen threw that should have been caught, that would have been big too. This team was literally 3-4 plays that maybe should have been made that could have led to a 50 burger. I get the frustration with Dorsey for the most part. I'm right there with many of you in that he deserves his fair share of blame most of the time. But, today, I don't come away from this game with him anywhere near the top of the list to blame for things that went wrong.

There is a lot that can be said about this game. It was one of the sloppiest games we have played in a long time. While we all saw what happened, there are a couple of things that really stand out. First, this game should have been over early and it could have been ugly. You could probably pick out 4-5 plays in the first half alone that if they go differently, probably would have had us up by 30+ at halftime. Instead, it was a game that gave many of us health issues until the very end. This is both very concerning and encouraging at the same time. Obviously, this turned into a slop fest, but the way things were going up until the Knox drop in the end zone, and in some of the subsequent mishaps that should have been great plays for us that turned into negatives, shows that the potential is there for us to just kill teams if we just stop actively killing ourselves. That said, I just need a couple of things from this team going forward. I need guys to catch the ball when it hits them in the hands. There were multiple big plays in this game that could have changed this dramatically if the ball is just caught. I need Josh to start taking more of the "free cheese" underneath, especially early in games. I love Josh and the way he plays the game and I don't want him to fundamentally do anything different. I want him to keep pushing the ball down the field more often than not. But, I think it would benefit him, and the entire offense, if he took the easy underneath stuff more often. Every week, you look at the tape and teams are just giving the guys working short a ton of space because they are playing deeper because they know that is where Allen wants to go. If Allen would just take a few of the short ones, and force defenses to respect the fact that he will take those when they present themselves, it will open things up down the field that much more. That is one of the things Allen was doing so well the first few weeks of the season, but somewhere along the way, he stopped doing it. I guarantee that if he started taking the underneath stuff just once in a while, he would find things would get easier down the field. Finally, I need the coaches to stay out of the way. The last few years, this staff has done stupid things in the Playoffs that have cost us our season and they tried to do it today. For the love of God, stop taking these stupid defensive time outs! They NEVER work. I can't remember one time where they have taken one and actually have come out with an outcome any better than if they would have just kept playing. Today, McDermott cost us points, field position, and opportunities to end this game much earlier because of stupid defensive time outs that backfired each time he did it. And this 3rd and long defense never gets any better and it gets more and more frustrating every time a team converts one. We have so many flaws that are showing themselves. While Davis had a better game today, outside of Diggs, we lack a real playmaker outside. Our offensive line is a joke. Granted, the Miami Defense has a really good front 7, maybe better than anyone else we will potentially see in the AFC playoffs, the line isn't good and looks even worse when Allen is having a tough time bailing them out. And while we did get pressure from time to time today, you can see just how much we miss Von getting after the passer. Anyway, this post has gone on a lot longer than anticipated when I started it. But I am not sure my heart rate has returned to normal yet since the game ended and I am still running a little hot! HA! But whatever.......survive and advance. Clean up the stupid stuff and find a way to win the next one. GO BILLS!

While it would be nice to win this game comfortably, and I hope we do, style points go out the window in the Playoffs. It's about one thing now......WINNING. Survive and advance by any means necessary. Doesn't matter whether it's by 1 or 100. JUST WIN. GO BILLS!