Shaw66

The Rockpile Review – by Shaw66 No Match for the Patriots It’s a point that’s been made many, many times by many, many Jets, Dolphins and Bills fans: If you’re in the AFC East and you don’t play home games at Foxboro, it’s tough to make the playoffs. You have to go 10-4 against the rest of your schedule, because you aren’t beating the Patriots, not when it matters. Every season, one or two or three mediocre teams, teams with lots of flaws, make the playoffs. They make it by winning a couple of close games that could have gone the other way, hitting a little hot stretch, losing a few ugly games where they look like anything but a playoff team, getting lucky with injuries. And they make it by not playing in the AFC East, by not having those two more or less automatic losses on their schedule. The Bills could have been one of those teams this season, and if a long line of dominoes falls just right next week, they could be. But it’s a long shot, and for the Bills longshot is spelled B-E-L-I-C-H-I-C-K. Belichick’s teams are consistently among the very best in the league, and only the Bills, Jets and Dophins have to play them twice a year. Baltimore and Tennessee didn’t play the Pats at all this season, and Carolina and Atlanta, the other two wild card teams, each played the Pats one. Carolina’s there only because they got a 48-yard field goal as time expired against the Pats. So that’s just crummy, that the Bills have to play the Patriots twice each year. On the other hand, that’s the hand they’re dealt, and it doesn’t do any good to cry about it. It just means that to make the playoffs the Bills have to be better, probably one game better, than one or two of the AFC wildcard teams. So, be better. So, what happened this time? Pretty much the same things that happen whenever you play the Patrlots. Belichick takes away what his opponent does best, and he did it Sunday. Yes, Shady, because he’s Shady, had some highlight reel carries, but in the end Shady wasn’t going to beat the Patriots. Belichick wouldn’t let him. Job one for the Patriots was stop the run, and they did it. Okay, if the Bills knew the Pats would stop the run, the game was in Tyrod Taylor’s hands. Tyrod’s just not that good, especially with a limited receiving corps. If the Pats are selling out to stop the run, the QB’s job is to slice and dice the secondary, and Taylor didn’t do it. Missed some long, missed some short, and looked like a raw rookie getting sacked for a 15-yard loss on what may have been the most important play of the game. The Pats had just scored to take the lead, and if the Bills were going to prove they belonged on the field with the best in the league, this was the time. The offense had to answer; instead, Taylor took the sack that answered any questions anyone might have had about the outcome of the game or Taylor’s future in Buffalo. Ugly. Unbelievably ugly. One characteristic of the Patriots is that they get better as the game progresses. You may look good against them on your first possession, maybe you second, but over the course of the game they find the answer to whatever you’re doing and you’re done scoring. On offense, it’s the same. You stuff them for a possession or two, or a quarter or two, but gradually they figure it out, and by sometime in the second half, they’re moving the ball at will. We saw it Sunday. Another characteristic of the Patriots is that they crush you with whatever part of their offense you DON’T focus on. Yes, they take away what you do best, and then you struggle. But when you take away what THEY do best, they just beat you another way. Brady wasn’t all-pro on Sunday, in part, apparently, because the Bills pass defense is THAT good and because the Bills took Gronk out of the game. So the Patriots ran the ball, and the Bills had no answer. The Bills weren’t ready for another Pats staple, the quick snap to catch the defense with too many men on the field. Way too many. Or for the quick snap before the defense can set, followed by the QB sneak or a simple dive play. Nothing’s new. Of course, a loss to Patriots wouldn’t be complete without the Patriots benefiting from some outrageous officiating, rule interpretations, or whatever. The catch rule is stupid and cost Clay a touchdown (on the ball he should have held when he hit the ground). The replay situation is out of control; after ten minutes of studying the Benjamin TD, it’s probably true that the pass was incomplete. But that’s not how the rule is written. If the call on the field isn’t clearly wrong, the call on the field standards. Not in a Patriots game. Oh, and let’s be sure to give the Pats a generous spot or two – the refs are always good for a couple of those. Maybe the Bills will sneak into the playoffs, and that would be great, but they aren’t a good team. The offense just isn’t good enough. Still, I like where the Bills are going. McDermott preaches all the fundamentals, both technically and emotionally. His team is prepared, executes, and doesn’t quit. As he loads the roster with guys who fit his scheme, they’ll get better. And he needs a QB who can throw, or an offensive coordinator who knows how to throw, or both. Now, let’s beat the Dolphins, just for the fun of it. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.

Waves in a light breeze.

That's interesting. Thanks.

So, you don't want the bottom half of his list. And Cousins isn't on it because he's too old. And some of the top half of his list will bust. Shows how few really good QBs there are.

That's a great story. Probably took a little courage for your neighbor to speak up when he thought it was a confederate flag. Good think you're not a Raiders fan - he might have thought you were a nazi.

I'd guess that the Pats play EVERY team better the second time around.

Actually Taylor's 4th quarter stats are just fine. In fact people complain that when the Bills are down two scores he pads his stats. The problem is either Taylor is good but the coaches are stubborn and narrow in their outlook or Taylor isn't good and so the coaches limit his throwing. I trip l it's mostly the former.

Talk to teef about hanging limp.

Sweet!

Well, to defend the OP for a minute: There IS some correlation to the fact that the Bills have had very few (count em on one hand) 300-yard passing games in the last 10 years and the Bills have lost more consistently than they've won. None of us will argue that a good passing attack is a valuable asset in the NFL, much more so than it was 30 years ago. If you have a good passing attack, you're likely to have a shot at winning more games in the 4th quarter than if you don't. If you don't you can win only one way - run the ball, get the lead, hold on. That's tough to do consistently in the NFL. But much like the thread about Murphy and the fans' negativity, I find it difficult to complain about the lack of passing yardage when the team actually is winning.

I've been fascinated for years to understand teef. Just trying to engage him in his world.

Anything on the flagpole?

I'd like to see the Bills pass more, but this rant is a little out of bounds. 300 yards passing is not the be all and end all. In fact, it's usually the case that when your passing totals get up over 300 yards, you're losing. But there's another reason the Bills's totals are low, and that is that the defense is a bend don't break defense that has had more plays run against it than just about any other team in the league. They give up a lot of yards. The result is the Bills are right near the bottom of the league in time of possession. So the offense has the ball less than just any other team in the league. Add to that the fact (that many people don't like) that the Bills want to run (and are pretty good at it), and you get low passing totals. Sorry, but that's the way it is. If the Bills were 5-9, I'd be whining along with you.

My wife is from Spring Valley, and her favorite team is the Cowboys, then the Giants. She thinks Eli is cute. But after 40 years with me, she roots for the Bills every week. She believes they suck and will lose every week, but she roots for them.

There's a difference between having a word that describes the historical experience and letting the word control your perception of the present. 8-6 and competing for the playoffs is where you want your team to be. In isn't Billsy.

I live in Connecticut. Everything is Giants and Patriots here. So it's always fun to see a Bills license plate frame or a someone wearing a Bills cap. I often stop and say hello. Most weekends during the season I put my Bills flag out on my house. Especially if the Bills are playing the Giants or the Pats. Every once in a while I see another flag. A couple years ago, just before Tyrod's first season, I stopped at a house that had a Bills flag flying. The owner and I talked for a few minutes about where we were from, about our history with the Bills, about how we thought Taylor might do. There's another house with a big front lawn and a 20-foot flagpole. I drive past that house once every month or so. They always have the American flag up, and beneath that is another flag. Unless the wind is blowing, you can't tell what the second flag is. About 10 years ago I noticed (or so I thought) that the second flag was a Bills flag. So I always checked out the flag when I went by, but usually it was just hanging limp and I couldn't be sure. Then for a year or two it clearly was a Cowboys flag. Then it went back to what I thought was a Bills flag. One day I decided to stop and say hello. I drove in the driveway, got out of the car, then noticed it actually was a Giants flag. I jumped in the car and drove away. Yesterday I drove by the house. The wind was blowing, and that definitely was a Bills flag. I went back to the house and rang the doorbell. A great woman answered the door, I introduced myself and asked her what the story was with these flags. She said she's a lifelong Bills fan, her husband is a Giants fan. Her two sons played youth football for a couple of years, and the team they played on was called the Cowboys. The deal in the house is that whichever team won last week, or whichever team is winning more recently, gets to fly the flag. Except that when their boys were playing, they flew a Cowboys flag to support them. And she hated Rex, so there was a two-year moratorium on the Bills flag while Rex was the coach. She was really happy that she's been able to keep that damn Giants flag off the pole just about the entire season! Go Bills.

Correct. The Bills aren't playing the best ball in the world, but they're winning, and that's enough to celebrate. They had a horrible mid-season collapse and they picked themselves up and went 3-1. The only loss was to the beat team in the world. That's enough to celebrate. I'm looking forward to the game with excitement. And next weeks game too.

I agree. The GM does deserve credit for getting Cadet; he found a good one. But it's not like finding a bona fide franchise QB in the fifth round. It's just what most good GMs do.

I didn't listen to it, but I suspect I know what they're talking about. I've been noticing it around here for a couple of weeks. Generalizing, of course, but I think a lot of fans assume it's impossible to beat the Patriots. I've felt that way for a while, but I think that's not the way the coaches and players think about it. It goes to the point McD, the Bills players and frankly most other coaches and players make all the time: all they're thinking about is the next game. And it's just a football game. It's the same game we played in high school. The outcome of most games is NOT determined in advance. Sure, in high school and in college there are a few games on your schedule where you're clearly out matched, where you're lambs being led to slaughter. But in the NFL, where the talent is pretty much equal across the board, "on any given Sunday" really is the rule. Most of the teams can win any game on their schedule. That doesn't mean that one team shouldn't be favored over another, because there are better and worse teams. But it does mean that the outcome of most games isn't such a sure thing as a lot of fans assume. Bills-Pats will be a three-hour battle, the same game we played in high school, except better players and better coaches. Pats are favored, but it's foolish to assume that we can mail in the result. Pats are well coached, but so are the Bills. And the Bills are as motivated as any Bills team playing in Foxboro for the past 20 seasons. This is a big game, and the outcome is not pre-determined. I think there's more pessimism about this game than is merited.

The amazing thing isn't that the Bills are 6th in rushing. The amazing thing is that they near the bottom in total yards, in the bottom third in total points, in the bottom third in yards allowed and in the middle in points allowed and they're STILL in contention for a playoff berth. There are a lot of things wrong, but the name of the game is winning, and somehow this team is winning better than it's playing.

To you and RoyBatty: I get it. Drives me nuts, too. My point is that I think McD has crunched the numbers, the probabilities, in his head, and where he comes out is that his chances of winning, and therefore not losing, are better playing conservatively. And my real point is that we all can have our opinions about whether his number crunching is correct, but I'm sure he has more data about this than we do. Still doesn't mean he's right, but he knows some things about the probabilities that we don't know. I also agree about Taylor being a conservative QB, which makes the offense ultra-conservative. That's another reason why the move from Taylor to Peterman befuddled be - we hear that the mantra in the position rooms and on the practice field is "no turnovers," the Bills have a QB who is for sure a no-turnover guy, for some reason they're in a hurry to replace him. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

That's an interesting theory. McD doesn't do much with a reason, and that's a better rationale than most we heard when that craziness was going on.

As I said, I think it's a close question. If you put another 7 points on the board, it shortens the game in another way - the number of scores, and therefore the number of possessions, your opponent needs goes up. With a two-score lead, your defense has to be tighter; with a three-score lead you can go into more of a no-doubles defense and force the opponent to burn clock. Frankly, I think what decides the question is the nature of the team you have. In this case, McD has a team where he trusts the D more than the O. Sohe decides that burning clock and punting is okay because it reduces the possibility of mistakes and puts his better unit on the field.

I know the feeling, but I really wonder if that's the difference between a coach and a fan. Yes, I want my team to be dominant and look like they're in total control. But look at what that attitude got the Falcons in the Super Bowl. They went for the jugular instead of preserving the field goal try and running the clock, and they lost the game. I really don't know the answer, but I understand the logical. The question is when you're leading by more than two scores in the second half, is it a better move to keep pounding on their defense or to go more conservative to run the clock. I think the analysis goes something like this: Aggressive: If I keep playing a diverse offense with a fair amount of passing, I can another touchdown or two and put the game out of reach by early in the fourth quarter. Even if I don't score, if I get a couple more first downs than I would get going conservative, I hold the ball longer and run some clock. What's the downside? Two or three things: Passing risks losing field position if I get sacked. Passing increases the risk of a turnover. And perhaps most important, if subtle: each incomplete pass is like a timeout for the other side. That is, each incomplete pass saves the opponent 30 seconds of playing time, more or less, and which means the opponent gets two or three extra plays that he wouldn't get otherwise. Conservative: If I start featuring the run, the clock negative of passing becomes a positive. Every time I run, I take 30+ seconds off the clock. So if I run three plays for 9 yards and punt, I'm better off - by a whole minute of running time - than if I go 1 for 3 passing for 9 yards and punt. If I get three first downs rushing, I can run an extra three minutes off the clock, which essentially ends the game at the time the two minute warning ordinarily would be given. That's a big plus. And I'm less likely to turn it over. And I'm less likely to lose 6 or 7 yards, what I might lose on a sack. As I said, I don't know if there's a right answer to this problem, but I'm confident that the question is a closer call than following our guts, which are telling us that it should be pedal to the metal all the way.

The Rockpile Review – by Shaw66 Chorus of Westerly Had lunch Sunday with some old friends, and then attended the annual Christmas Pops concert by the Chorus of Westerly (Rhode Island). It’s a great show, talented performers. Catch it some time, if you get a chance. Tickets go fast. Consequently, I didn’t watch the Bills defeat the Dolphins to go 8-6 with the Patriots and the Dolphins (again) standing in the path to the playoffs. Looking at the box score, it looks like another typical Bills win of late. Just enough offense and just enough defense to win. A workmanlike game by Tyrod Taylor, with enough good passing and some big runs. What is it with this team? No one is mistaking the Bills for an NFL powerhouse. In the second half of this season (the second half being the time when the best teams emerge), the Bills certainly haven’t dominated. Every game’s an adventure. So, what is it? Looks like grit. This time of year, for teams around .500, the mantra is survive and advance. It isn’t a beauty contest, there are no style points. All that matters is winning (or at least not losing) this week’s game. It’s 100% about this week’s game. Nothing else matters. Find a way to survive this week’s game and next week’s game will take care of itself. These Bills, week after week, have been finding ways to win. Since their three-game collapse in the middle of the season, the Bills are 3-1, having lost only to the Patriots in a game where the Pats offense couldn’t dominate and where the Bills offense may have been better if Taylor hadn’t gotten injured. These Bills seem to be focused on the prize. They may get beaten, and they may not make it, but it won’t be because they quit. These guys fight to the end, and if at the end the score doesn’t go their way, they will come back fighting next week. These Bills are playing meaningful games in December. Survive and advance. The season isn’t over, but we already know some things about the Bills in 2017. We know that their rookie head coach isn’t a bust – he’s gotten a team with a lot of problems to 8 wins and maybe more. We know that the 2017 Bills are a team in transition – Beane and McDermott have gotten rid of players most fans thought were part of the Bills’ core, and they’ve gotten performance out of newcomers and no-names. And we know the 2017 Bills don’t quit. Survive and advance. Bring on the Pats. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.