transplantbillsfan

How about this missed opportunity? God... and it clearly hurt Allen. Wonder if he was concussed on this...

Seriously though... I just can't stop watching it

The kid was trying to win. Get him help. He clearly feels he has the team on his shoulders. And honestly, he still kinda does. We upgraded talent, but John Brown is a really good #2 WR, not the #1 WR Allen needs. For some dumbfounding reason Cole Beasley, his recent safety hatch, was hardly on the field in the playoff game. Our OC called a deep route for our goddamn Fullback. Our best offensive weapon (other than Josh) was taken off the field CONSTANTLY in favor of a Running Back (just think about the nature of that position) who was talking about taking his son to College this offseason and, other than one 14 yard run, gained a total of 8 yards on 7 carries. His raw but immensely talented (sound familiar?) TE has dropped the ball so much this season that he probably can't fully trust him. And yet, despite all of that, we almost won. Despite all of that, we should have won. But our coaches screwed their young QB over with terrible decisions and then threw him under the bus after the game blaming Allen rather than themselves. Can't wait til next season already.

Is this worthy of being a thread?

Great angle. When Allen threw it and I saw how it was coming to Duke I honestly thought it was going to be a TD. Sucks. Game was just full of so many weird missed opportunities. I really like Duke and think he has a shot to make the roster next year, but the reason he's a relative longshot to see much time on the field again simply has to do with investments. John Brown and Cole Beasley are our obvious roster locks and will be on the field. After that it's relatively open, except Daboll loves that Isaiah McKenzie type WR, so if it's not him, it's someone we pick up in FA or possibly in the draft. But really what I think will almost certainly happen is we draft a guy in the 1st or 2nd round, and that's the guy who gets on the field because of the obvious investment. Duke should have been active all year and Foster should have been inactive. It's that simple. With that time, Allen and him could have developed more chemistry that might have helped us even a little more in the playoffs. Unfortunately, our coaches are stubbornly married to skills that match scheme rather than ability to play on a football field. For that reason, I think Duke's time with the Bills in meaningful games is done.

Thanks for posting Hap. I haven't had the heart yet to go back and watch the All-22, but I still have a lot of questions that might answer. Was it really Allen who audibled to that run to Gore with 30 seconds in the 1st half or was that the play originally called? What about that Knox whiff on the block? Did our 2 defenders miss that tackle on Watson at the end because they ran into eachother or did Watson really pull a Houdini? This was such a close game. It was a game I really thought we were the better team in clearly, and we lost. Feels like such a Billsy thing to do, but I like Kubiak's eclipse metaphor. With Allen, I see that as accurate. You could see him hurting in his PCs right after the game and the day after and I think he's going to work as hard or harder than anyone else in the NFL this offseason to improve. Just sucks that it's another year we're saying, "welp, there's always next year!" and we have to wait over 8 months for another meaningful Bills snap. But in the end, that's how the fans of 31 teams end up feeling at the end of the NFL season, even if it's just prolonged a few weeks. But Hallelujah praise be to Jeebus, the Pats dynasty is at least over!

Yes, he does. And he can. Lamar Jackson fumbled 12 times in just 9 games last year and cut that down to just 9 in 15 games this year. Whatever he did, Josh needs to do. And I think he'll make that one of the centers of his attention this offseason.

I realize Josh came up short the other day. I'm still disappointed from it. And a big part of that loss Josh took on his own shoulders with his fumble in the 4th that led to Texans points. I stumbled upon this and thought it was kind of an amazing stat for him on the year. It's too bad his lone turnover in the 4th on the year came in that situation in a playoff game. Oh well, if we're disappointed, I'm sure Josh is 200 times more disappointed and he wants to get back to the season already. Probably workin on his game already

Honestly thought that line was hilarious. Really funny article. And it's frankly pretty hard for me to tell what the author's actual feelings about Allen are. Is this a massive sarcastic insult? Is he putting this out there with the hope that in the future when Josh tries these plays--which, let's be honest, he's always going to try some crazy *****... it's in his nature--they succeed on these big stages? Regardless, if you can't laugh reading that article, you don't have a soul.

We can say hindsight is 20/20, but a lot of us were pushing for Metcalf last year in the draft. Wonder what the difference would have been if we drafted him rather than Ford.

Gotta admit, I was cracking up while reading that.

Significant enough that I think we can all be encouraged he's likely the long term answer, but not enough to know with absolute certainty.

Haven't watched it again. Curious if it was and wonder if Allen or McDermott have been asked about it. If Allen did that, it's mostly on him. Except.... Why was he allowed to in that situation? Why wouldn't Daboll tell him in the headset there should be no reason to kill the play? Seems like Allen would've been given a look and that if he saw or did not see that look, Daboll would tell him NOT to kill it in that scenario. Still goes back to coaching. As for the players you claim Elite, I think we have different understandings of that word. Gronk? Last year? Elite? Really???

Pass attempt, not attempts. Duke not coming down with that ball was not McDermott's fault. McDermott's fault was the fact that that was the ONLY meaningful play in that sequence when there should have been 4 or 5 more. Absolutely. Another irritating aspect of coaching in this game. Disagree. It's easy to say this when you just look at the boxscore, but when you actually watch the game and see Frank Gore get 8 runs and Motor get 13, there's a problem. You'd think the coaches would figure out that those constant stuffed runs are problematic after one or two of them, but no, other than that one 14 yard scamper, Gore gained 8 yards on 7 carries. Why the hell wasn't Singletary in there getting the ball? 13 carries... he wasn't tired. I just sincerely hope McDermott finds a way to learn from this year and we see real growth in his gameday coaching next year.

Yeah exactly. We can play the "if if if if..." "then then then then..." game in absolutely every way possible and all we want, but very simply, in that game the Bills had a 2 score lead before you can really even make an argument that our talent was exposed in any way. And then the coach put Gore in there and called a run up the middle with 30 seconds left in the 1st half, wasted a down asking Josh to spike it on 2nd down... bringing the clock down to just 15 seconds. You can argue talent on that 3rd down pass to Duke that he didn't come down with, but the simple fact is that Allen and the offense should have had 5 or 6 meaningful plays on offense rather than 1. Tackling is a problem, obviously. But again, is that really talent or coaching? You think Milano and Edmunds and Oliver and Hyde and so on on Defense lack talent? Really??? It couldn't be that they're not getting enough fundamental reps during the week? What's the excuse for not going for it with 4th and 4 on the 40 but going for it on 4th and 27 on the 42 and attributing it to wanting to be aggressive? What's the excuse for losing the defensive aggressiveness of the 1st half in favor of what resembled the dreaded prevent defense all too often? Sure, all of this is cherry picking as you insinuate. The problem is that coaches have the benefit of being on the sidelines and are especially responsible for what happens between the snaps and plays that are called when the ball is snapped, among other things. Buffalo should upgrade their talent, but this team yesterday had the talent for that specific game. They may not have the 4 or 5 Elite players you say are necessary for Championship teams--then again, who were those 4 or 5 Elite players last year on the Patriots? Or the year before on the Eagles? Or the year before on the Falcons team that lost that 28 point lead?--but as far as Bills vs Texans, it seems pretty obvious the Bills had the talent to win, but the coaches bungled it up.

And I still disagree with that ratio. Gore on the field is obviously a talent problem, but it was a coaching decision to have Gore on so many of those critical (and stupid) runs rather than Motor, including that end of 1st half debacle. Duke Williams on the field over Beasley is a talent discrepancy, though I think the question all season should have been why Foster was active and Duke wasn't. Plus, why wasn't it just Duke over McKenzie rather than Duke over Beasley, who absolutely should have been on the field? Tyler Kroft as a TE who gets more targets than Dawson Knox is a talent AND coaching problem. Having the ball on the opposing 40 with a 4th and 4 early in the 3rd quarter up by only 13 and NOT either going for it (and in today's NFL, that's what teams do more often than not) or kicking the 57 yard FG and then later going for it on 4th and 27 IN THE SAME SPOT and attributing it to "wanting to be aggressive" is coaching lunacy and hypocrisy. Again, McDermott probably keeps his job for years because I think he's a good regular season coach and we can make multiple playoffs with him. But in one and done scenarios, I don't think he has it. And that realization really sucks. I hope he gets better, along with talent on the team, which should ho without saying.

Allen will get better this offseason. I feel confident in that. Beane will also upgrade the OL, which it needs, and get Allen a WR, which he needs. I can at least enjoy the playoffs now with Brady and the Patriots out.

I told @GunnerBill this earlier in the week: I don't think any of us are missing McDermott's strategy, we just think it's a bad one in today's NFL. Today's NFL is built around the offense. The rules themselves favor the offense. In-game playcalling should never change unless it absolutely has to because either it's not working (clearly not the case based on our 1st half) or you've fallen seriously behind (which we didn't). On top of that, it's probably a bad idea to veer away from things that have worked for your offense recently, and with that I'm talking about the no-huddle we'd been using with Daboll talking into Allen's headset about coverage and what he saw as long as he could. I fear that McDermott isn't ideal for the new NFL. He's good enough that he'll keep his job I think. But his coaching mentality and approach is always going to leave open the risk of good opposing QBs doing exactly what Watson did yesterday. And by the way, I call total BS that 3 scores is the benchmark for McDermott. I think 3 scores with a half to go would be almost acceptable as a benchmark. Almost. However, McDermott wasn't playing for a 3 score lead. If he were, he wouldn't have run Gore up the middle on 1st down to end the 1st half with 30 seconds left on the Texans 23 up by 10. He would have allowed Allen to use those 30 seconds to get off 5 or 6 good plays to try to score a TD and THEN be up by 3 scores. Instead, he coached like a weeny, wasted 2 downs, was almost bailed out by a great pass to the EZ that Duke couldn't come down with, we kick the FG and go into the half up by just 2 scores against one of the best QB/WR combos in the NFL. Honestly the more I think about this game, the more it irritates me. Allen made a bunch of mistakes and has a lot to work on this offseason. But the thing about Allen is he's not stubborn. He knows he made critical mistakes and you can expect he'll grind this offseason to fix them so he comes back better for 2020. I feel like McDermott is too unaware and/or stubborn to realize that he has work to do with his gameday coaching and maybe needs to reevaluate his whole approach to the game. I want a perennial winner year in and year out. McDermott's coaching doesn't set us up for that because he will always leave windows open for the other team to get back into it. It was almost shameful the was after the game yesterday McDermott seemed to put the onus of the loss on Josh when he said something about Josh trying to do too much--which he did, but probably because McDermott's coaching approach forced him into it--rather than holding himself personally accountable. Here's to hoping everyone gets better this offseason.

That was sickening. Absolutely sickening

The guy was pretty much staring Ford in the face when he blocked him. Ridiculous call. Oh well. Price we pay for being Bills fans. Maybe with the changing of the guard in the NFL with the demise of Marsha and the hoody some calls will start going our way. There was also a blatant delay of game somewhere in there the refs completely whiffed on.

Snippet from an article by Fairburn in The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/1509902/2020/01/05/a-lot-of-pain-in-that-locker-room-josh-allen-sean-mcdermott-let-down-bills-in-collapse-against-texans?source=shared-article At the end of the first half, coming out of a timeout, the Bills had the ball at the Houston 23 with 30 seconds to play and one timeout in their pocket. Rather than going for the Texans’ collective jugular, McDermott played for the field goal. In the third quarter, with the ball at the Texans 42-yard line, the Bills punted on fourth-and-4. Again, playing not to lose. But then, coming out of the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter, the Bills faced fourth-and-27 from Houston’s 42-yard line, down by three and with all three timeouts. McDermott inexplicably decided to go for it. “We wanted to be aggressive,” McDermott said. That was a hell of a time to cave to that desire. It was one of many ways in which McDermott outsmarted himself. Duke Williams, who didn’t make the active roster out of camp and was active for just four games in the regular season, played more snaps than Beasley, who had two 100-yard games in his last four. Frank Gore touched the ball eight times, some in critical situations, despite Devin Singletary racking up 133 yards from scrimmage. Tre’Davious White was too often left alone on DeAndre Hopkins, who had six catches for 90 yards in the second half and caught all four of his targets for 70 yards against White in the second half.

Drops? He had several? I know that EZ pass was a great pass by Allen but a very difficult catch. I wish Duke were in there all year. He clearly gave Allen another weapon he didn't have with Foster in there. I don't really think he'll be on the team next year though.

God man! Just reflecting back on that sequence at the end of the 1st half irritates the heck outta me!!! Ball just outside of the red zone at the 23 with 30 seconds left in the half with the clock stopped after driving pretty much the entire length of the field and you hand it to Gore up the middle??? Seriously?!?!?! And then Allen is forced to waste another play by spiking it? 15 seconds and 2 plays wasted in a 30 second range where we had plenty of time to potentially score a TD.

Article makes a lot of valid points. Another question: what happened to the no-huddle the team was running so much in order to have Daboll talking into Allen's headset about what he saw as long as he could? We grabbed the lead and went into a shell. It's McDermott's coaching philosophy. Everyone likes to counter with our 4th down aggressiveness, but I don't think it's really a bold decision to go for it on 4th and short with our QB. I hope the whole "play fearless" mantra comes into play next season and for seasons to come as we work to become the new Kings of the AFC East... because at least Marsha lost today.

Don't sleep on Carlos Hyde. He's the exact type of runner we struggle against. I hope our defense can fix its run issues.