HappyDays

Fair to say yesterday was more about the 2nd half. The 1st half might have been the best defensive performance of the season when accounting for the caliber of the opponent. That 2nd half was so utterly bad though that is hard for me to shake. Especially their final drive in the 4th quarter where it was nothing but big completions to wide open players. When our offense moved through their defense in the 4th quarter it was because Allen turned broken plays into 20 yard gains. Their offense did whatever the hell it wanted. I understand LA's talent is going to make some plays but the complete lack of resistance is troubling.

I can accept this narrative if the defense actually improves. Like if in a month the pass coverage looks functional we can all look back and say "how lucky we were to bank all those wins while the defense was still figuring it out." My concern though is that I haven't really seen improvement from the pass coverage. The issues we're seeing now are the same issues we saw in week 1. Leonhard seemed exasperated in his presser today so he is clearly feeling the same way. After the bye week is when we'll know for sure if we're on the right track. That is his opportunity to right the ship. If the pass defense looks like this all year, then all these wins will be fun to watch and remember but realistically we are not competing for a championship this year. Bottom 5 defenses don't win the Super Bowl. Can he get us to average?

Admittedly I'm pretty desperate about the state of the defensive coverage right now. When Benford is in our outside CB group is fine, but LBs and safeties have been a mess. I'm open to any and all options at those positions no matter how radical. If that means moving significant investments like Bernard and Bishop to the bench, so be it. Bernard I'm ready to bench now in favor of Thompson, Bishop I'm willing to give him until the trade deadline. We're staring down the barrel of another season of Josh Allen in his prime wasted by awful defense so IMO we don't have the luxury of patience and hoping guys figure it out.

I'm starting to wonder if this is really the case. He's a good route runner but he gets thwarted by physical coverage too frequently to say that he's great at it. It's right there on tape, he isn't separating consistently enough that Brady should feel obligated to make him a big part of the gameplan. As a prospect I hoped he would more cerebral like Kelce is in manipulating leverage and finding soft spots to create throwing windows, but that part of his game never developed beyond functional. I think the correct answer to this thread is that both players work as complementary pieces, but when Moore is out they're asked to be featured pieces and they simply aren't that caliber of player.

I guess I appreciate that he's gone from saying "we're closer than it looks" to "we suck." Leonhard is going through one right now and I just hope he can find some answers.

Wow two game suspension:

Yeah I'm not saying it was a good coaching sequence... But the amount of negative attention it's getting relative to the outcome is way out of whack IMO. In fact the whole 1st half everyone in the live game thread was freaking out that Allen sucks, Brady sucks, meanwhile I was pleased with how we had managed the game through halftime.

Yes I agree that was the main problem, like Brady didn't know if he should go for points or just get to the half. Like I said tough needle to thread. If we had converted on 2nd down then I think we go for a legit drive. Once we got to 3rd down it was kind of an impossible situation. They didn't call TO because they wanted to let the clock run down in case they didn't convert. If you call TO then punt it back LA is probably getting points. It wasn't a very well planned sequence but also not as bad as it looked IMO. Just a weird and unique game situation because of how backed up we were and how our downfield passing offense had looked up to that point. I usually have a handle on how I want the Bills to operate in certain situations but this one I couldn't tell you the right plan.

Circling back to this thread because my new idea is Budda Baker. Probably sending Arizona back Cole Bishop and maybe a 3rd. I want to like Bishop, he looked like he was on a good track last year, but he has been maybe the worst defensive starter in totality the last couple weeks. He is just not picking up his coverage responsibilities. Baker has lost a step but he can immediately step in and execute what Leonhard needs him to do. Also he gives us a legit blitzing skill set that nobody else in our back 7 has. I believe he would count $10M against the cap right now if we traded for him and we could cut him in the offseason for just a $3M dead cap hit if we don't want to extend him. I don't know I might be overreacting and I'd probably give Bishop until the trade deadline before making this move, but this seems like the easiest and most realistic path to improving the defense this year.

Eh I was fine with it even if the ending wasn't ideal. As I said in the live game thread we were caught in no man's land. You want to try and drive for a FG attempt but also you don't want to stop the clock and then punt the ball back to LA from deep in your own territory. Tough needle to thread. I get that fans these days think you should be all aggressive all the time but I'm still of the opinion that you should let the game come to you. Like kicking the FG on our 1st drive, that was big. I've seen other coaches around the NFL hurt their team by chasing points early in the game. It is okay to concede the middle ground result. Giving the ball back to LA when they couldn't really do anything other than a hail mary was a fine result.

How so? We scored 37 points against a good defense despite missing our best WR and losing our RT midway through the game. The only decision I didn't like was going for 2 in the 3rd quarter, too early for my liking and we got punished for it. Other than that I thought Brady managed the game well and had about 4 huge play calls in big moments that delivered us the win.

To be fair it is hard for the pass rush to get home when the opposing QB has wide open completions available as soon as they hit the top of their drop.

I don't think Hamlin was the problem. For all his faults as an athlete he is the only middle of the field player that is consistently where he's supposed to be. He doesn't blow assignments. The problem last night was our LBs and safeties covering grass on way too many plays. Nacua beats IGB clean on a 1v1 route, okay I can live with that. But when Bishop for the second consecutive week gets his eyes stuck in the backfield covering nobody while a WR sneaks behind him for an easy 3rd down conversion, that is the kind of stuff that is killing us right now. An offense as talented as LA will make their plays but you can't give them freebies. This defense needs the bye week in the worst way. Hopefully with a week of nothing but film study they can become functional in their coverage responsibilities. We don't need top tier, just execute the basics regularly and we'll be significantly better.

If you watched this game, you know that the simple act of kneeling the ball could have gone 100 different ways and none of them good.

Yep and this is the circle we need to square. He needs to stop fumbling but we can't afford to bench him no matter how many times he fumbles because without him our team goes nowhere. All we can do is hope that he learns his lesson. It's a problem without a solution other than him just figuring it out on his own.

Not sure whose side I'm taking in this one. Hmm. Huh.

Grable is a good shout out. He had one ticky tack holding penalty away from the play but otherwise I didn't notice him which is all you want out of your backup RT.

When Groot blocked that kick, the collective groan from Massachusetts registered on the Richter scale

Man I get it! I think CJGJ has been fine the past 3 games after a rough start to the season. I think Bishop has been notably worse. But I agree some kind of radical changes are needed here. Because giving up nothing but easy TD drives for the final 20 minutes of the game isn't going to cut it for a team with championship aspirations. McVay identified the whole middle of our defense as easy targets and relentlessly attacked them after halftime. If Leonhard can't figure it out with the current personnel then he needs to try other pieces. I'll continue to bang the drum that Shaq Thompson was our best LB last year. Give Bernard a week off for, uh, injury, and let's see what happens. Start rotating KEO in for Williams more. We're at "it can't possibly be worse" territory.

Played an important role tonight although I give Brady more of the credit for some of those timely play calls. We needed like 4 big play calls from him tonight and he delivered in big moments.

That last fumble though was just so inexcusably bad. Besides that he played great and we don't win without him. Impossible to grade that kind of floor to ceiling performance but I can't give him a game ball.

It is frankly unacceptable. I thought Leonhard had a great game plan in the 1st half but that 4th quarter and OT was a nightmare. To be fair to him our best DL players were nowhere to be found tonight. But too many plays where the coverage players once again had no clue what their responsibilities were. I am ready to try some radical changes. Raiders next week is a good time for some swings. Let's see how it looks with Shaq Thompson in at MLB, maybe with KEO next to him. Keep Bishop on a leash and have Kilgore ready. Anything is better than the complete mess we've seen too frequently through 5 weeks.

And yet it looks just as good at 4-1. Jags and Ravens should have lost too but that's why they play every second.

Allen Big gap Groot the special teams player Joe Brady - offense did what it needed to despite having basically no contribution from the WRs