Shaw66

I wanted to give another example for @Logic and others. I know Logic was talking about defense and I gave an offensive example. Here's one for defense: Maybe it's been discussed here, but a friend told me that Mahomes went 12 for 15 against man-to-man in the AFCC game. That would mean he was 6 for 11 against zone. Just prorating, if the Bills had played man on 10 pass plays, Mahomes would have completed 8, and he would have been 9 for 16 against the zone. That's one fewer completion. Would that have made a difference? I don't know, but it's one fewer play that the Chiefs would have had success on. He averaged 13 yards per completion, so 13 yards could easily have made a difference in the right drive. For me, that gives rise to a lot of questions: Did the Bills know that Mahomes was that much better against man than zone, either in general or against the Bills specifically? Did they plan to be that heavy in man and if they did, why did they think they could have success in man when obviously they couldn't? Did the coaches realize during the game that he was killing them in man? If so, how did they adjust? I don't know how one does this, but it seems to me that if the Bills thought they could have success in man, they should have a plan for what to do if they didn't. Wouldn't it be good, for example, to have planned to show man pre-snap and then switch to zone post-snap? Maybe I'm dreaming, but my understanding is that good coaches do exactly that kind of scheming. It's all just nitpicking, because the Bills obviously planned for the game and had success doing things, both offensively and defensively. However, it sure seems like the Chiefs always have a little more success in their scheming before and during the games, and the game comes down to just a few plays here and there. It's true that players haven't made plays, like Kincaid, but in the McDermott era, it sure seems like the Bills are less well prepared than their opponents in the playoffs. Maybe it's only the Chiefs, because most of the playoff losses are to the Chiefs, and that may mean that the Bills just happen to be the best of all the teams that lose to the Chiefs. There's no shame in that, because the Chiefs have shown a remarkable facility for winning. Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that the Bills shouldn't be working to find ways to close the gap. They've been close, maybe closer than any other team in the league, to beating the Chiefs, and I'm sure they're working at closing the gap. I don't think the answer is new coaches, in part because there aren't any coaches who have shown that they're closer to beating the Chiefs.

Okay. Your bolded is a good point, and I don't have an answer for you. I've become a firm believer in my own ignorance, so I can't answer this question. I don't know anything about the fine points of football. I think I see things that are inadequate about how the Bills are prepared, but I don't know if I'm right and I don't know how to fix them. The example I've talked about in threads a bit is the fourth down throw to Kincaid. As I understand it, the Chiefs showed a blitz to the right side, and on film that was consistently a bluff, and they would send the blitz from the left. As a result, as I understand, the Bills set their blocking assignments to the left, anticipating the bluff. Instead, the Chiefs broke their tendency and brought the blitz from the right, and they had the Bills blockers outnumbered. Okay. Seems to me that the Bills needed to be prepared for the Chiefs to break tendency. Maybe they still set their blocking assignments to the left, but the players needed to be prepared to execute a successful play if the Chiefs broke tendency. They weren't. That's a major coaching failure. Seems to me that when the ball is snapped, Josh needed to verify where the blitz was coming from. When he see it's right, he knows he's in trouble and he should have been prepared to roll left immediately. He had Shakir out there. In addition, the blockers on the left side of the line, once they saw that the rush wasn't coming from the left, should have pulled left to block, either downfield, or guys who were trailing the play. All the receivers, except Shakir, were going right, and Josh would have had options. Now, that's just my creation. I don't know if it would work or not, but the point is that Josh needed to be prepared for the blitz coming from the right, and he wasn't. No one on the team was. That's bad coaching. I think the Bills should have been prepared to run something other that a QB sneak, once the Chiefs showed they could stop it. It was foolish to keep running a play that no longer had a 90% probability, especially a play that was predictable by the formation. That's bad coaching. I don't know what the solution was, but the Bills should have been prepared with something else. I don't know how you fix that. You need some high level, creative football thinking to identify those problems in advance and then to prepare for them. I think the lack of that kind of preparation is what we saw in 13 seconds and what we saw last week. Reid's teams are prepared in exactly those ways. They seem to always have a play. Belichick's teams were prepared in that way. Good coaches have their teams one step ahead of the opponent, so all the players have to do is execute. When you're not one step, you're hoping Josh will make a miracle throw, which he did, and your receiver will make a tough catch, which he didn't. Coaches have to make the game easy for the players. I don't know how you do that. McDermott should start by hiring some football savants, some guys who have the reputation of being creative football thinkers. That's what I would suggest, but as I said, I don't know what I'm talking about.

But it IS "coach better and play better." All three recent playoff losses came down to exactly that. The Chiefs make the plays they need, and they have strategies that win. True, their offense has declined, but they make the plays that win games. They don't beat the Bills by being fundamentally better on offense or defense. The games are close, and the Chiefs are better in the final two minutes with the game on the line. The regular season games are similar, and the Bills won those. So, I don't buy the notion that there are fundamental problems with the defense. If the Bills had made ONE play in each of the last three playoff games against the Chiefs, nobody would be looking at this graph. That doesn't mean the Bills don't need a better defense. They do. But they don't need a better defense to win more playoff games. Dawkins needs not to back into Allen, Kincaid needs to catch the ball, and the coaches need to strategize like pros, not like high school coaches.

Allen isn't where he is on that graph because the defense was bad. He is there because most of his playoff losses were against the Chiefs, which is the only team that can score points like the Bills can.

What that geaph says is the Bills have been the second beat team in the playoffs and would have several more wins if Mahomes weren't around.

I think this is generally correct, but I don't put it all on Josh. I am very much a believer that we can see Josh's comfort level in his eyes. I can see the anxiety in certain games and certain plays. I don't necessarily believe that it's a big-game thing, although it may be. I was really excited mid-season, when Josh would come out of the huddle and survey the defense with a look that suggested that he understood everything he was seeing and he understood where the play should go. I think in both the beginning and the end of the Chiefs game, that look was gone. It was as though he didn't have confidence in what he was seeing or confidence that the play call would work. Certainly at the end of the game, he didn't seem like he knew what he should be doing. I contrast it with Mahomes. His face never shows that lack of confidence. He sees the defense, knows he good or changes the play or calls timeout. Either way, he's in charge and he knows what he's doing. I think in those moments, like the end of the Chiefs game, it's the coaching that's letting him down. I think Allen was finding himself either in plays that didn't fit the defense, or he was looking at a defense he didn't expect or that was unfamiliar. He just wasn't sure. And I don't buy the point of the OP. I think this is more cherrypicked data. In the first place, Allen is playing an era of pretty high scoring offenses, so when you lose in the playoffs, it's probably because you gave up a lot of points to a high scoring team. There's no shame in that. Second, as someone pointed out, by changing the number of games, you find a lot of big name QBs with similar data points. Without going back and studying those games in detail, I know it's fair to say that four or all five of those games were one-score games, and could just as easily have been wins rather than losses if someone had made a play. Certainly the last two Chiefs games could easily have been wins if Allen hits Shakir and if Kincaid catches the ball. If the Bills had won those five games instead of losing, the fans of the other teams would be nitpicking the data in the same way, and they would be complaining that their defense failed them. It's pretty simple. Bills need better coaching and they need players to make plays.

I don't think so. If the Bills had known that the rush was coming from the right side, Allen never would have rolled to the right. He certainly would have drifted left and he would have had other options. At the very least, they would have had a run by Allen around the left end with a blocker ahead of him. They only needed five yards. What you describe wouldn't have been the plan. The plan would have been to avoid the rush, and that meant escaping to the left.

Thanks. Good discussion. I focused on the quoted language. We're talking about the same thing, but I look at it a bit differently. McDermott's objective is to have his players do what you said the KC players did - just go to the places where you're supposed to be, do your job, etc. And the Bills players do that very well, probably better than any other team. However, the coaches aren't giving them the details you're talking about. The game gets easier the more details the players get. It's the difference between Allen and Mahomes. Mahomes almost always makes the play he's supposed to make, not because he's better than Allen, but because he's better prepared than Allen. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. I heard a retired NFL player (I don't think I heard his name), a journeyman who had played for several teams, say this: Under Belichick, Patriots players were routinely better prepared than their opponents. He said it was the only team he'd ever been on where every week, the coaches gave him two or three or four keys the were player or situation or formation specific. Things like "when they're in X formation and the guard is pulling, he lines up six inches back from where he normally lines up." Little details like that. He said they were always right, and it gave him an advantage on a half dozen plays every game. He said he never got that stuff on any other team. It's not enough to be prepared for what the opponent has done in the past. You have to be prepared for what they might do in this game. Reid knows you know his tendencies, and he knows how you'll respond to those tendencies. Spags did it on 4th and five.

Well, sure, some of their plays looked like they were talking candy, but really, the Chiefs struggled all day to put up points. The stats were incredibly even. It wasn't a cake walk for the Chiefs. The difference was what everyone always says - the game is about five or six plays and who made them. In this game, coaching is what enabled the Chiefs to make plays, and the lack of coaching is what hurt the Bills. I don't know where I said this, but the Bills coaches needed to go away from the sneak. Once the Chiefs almost stopped it, it meant that the play would not have a 90+% probability of success. When they did stop it on third down, that was proof positive. Bills needed an answer on fourth down, and the coaches either didn't have one or didn't see that they needed to go there. Either way, the coaches let the team down. Yes, but his drift back to the right was based on the assumption that the Chiefs would go with their tendency and blitz from the left. They had the blocking set to handle the blitz to the left. They were showing blitz from the right, and he needed to be prepared if they went against their tendency. If he had looked at the snap, he would have seen that the blitz was coming from the right, and then he could have rolled left.

I really agree with this. I'm trying to not get demoralized. I wouldn't call a massive coaching gap. It's just a gap. Bills lost by 3 and had a quality chance to win. That isn't massive. However, I think there more than enough plays in that game to demonstrate that there is a coaching gap, massive or not. I wrote to a friend that the Bills are long on culture and tenacity, but short on coaching acumen. Now, in McDermott's defense, no one else is outcoaching the Chiefs, either. Their record in one score games this season is a testament to that. Still, if you want to beat Reid, you have to think along with him, and the Bills are not doing that. It's really galling to hear the Bills saying over and over that the Chiefs did things the Bills hadn't seen on film. Well, duh. It's a simple task. You look at the Chiefs' tendencies, prepare for them, and also ask yourself what the Chiefs are likely to do to counter their own tendencies. It's basic game prep.

Since this discussion of the play began, I've been thinking about what should have happened. We've seen replays of Shakir floating out into the flat on the left side. Bills only needed five yards. So, here's what I think should have happened. The Chiefs showed the blitz coming from the right. The Bills knew their tendency was to drop those potential blitzers in coverage and instead blitz from the left. If Allen had been well prepared, Allen would have shifted the protection to the left, as he apparently did, and then on the snap check where the blitz was coming from. If the Chiefs stay with their tendency, he hangs in the pocket and the play proceeds as called. If they switch it up, which they did, and come from the right, then Josh immediately scrambles left. Because the Chiefs were blitzing, they were in man, and all the patterns were dragging the receivers out to the right. Allen then has the option: toss it to Shakir or let Shakir block the first defender to arrive and Josh keeps it. The first down would have been more or less automatic if he had rolled left.

Exactly. Ask Mark Andrews. 90sBills is correct; it wasn't an easy ball to catch. But pretty much any tight end in the league will tell you that it was a catchable ball, and that he should make the catch. The Bills have a 35-year history of not making the play to win the game. Start with wide right, and go forward from there. Make a play in the Music City Miracle. Make a play in the Cowboys Monday night game. Make a play in 13 seconds. Make a play against the Chiefs in the playoffs last year. Make a play against the Chiefs in the playoffs this year. Think about all the clutch catches you've seen in big games. That guy for the Steelers in the Super Bowl with the incredible two toes inside the line for the touchdown. Edelman picking the ball of the ground. That guy for the Giants pinning Manning's desperation throw against his helmet. You have to make plays to win big games. Josh made the play against an incredible rush and put a catchable ball out there, a pass that would have put the Bills in position to tie or win the game. Kincaid has to make the play if the Bills want to win.

It's a good point. There is no question that players need to make plays to win games, and Kincaid didn't make the play. However, if the Bills had been properly prepared for that blitz and had called the right protection, Allen would have had time in the pocket and would have thrown a ball that didn't require Kincaid to stop all of his momentum and come back for the ball. My reaction during the game was that the Chiefs were better prepared, and these comments seem to support that.

The thing that is really revealing to me in this excerpt is that the players are essentially saying that they got outcoached. Why? Because they keep saying "we didn't see that on film," and they went against their tendencies. Well, that's what scouting and coaching is all about. If you're self-scouting your own team, you know what your tendencies are and you design plays to go against your tendencies. You save those plays for when you really need them. And you prepare your players BOTH for the other team's tendencies and for what they might do to beat you by going against tendencies. What these players are saying is that the Chiefs were better prepared than the Bills were, and I believe that is true.

Well. I'd like to agree with you, but he didn't show me much during the season. There was a good discussion of him here a week ago or so. I said he needs to get stronger and show some real fight for the ball. Gunner and others said he needs some training in his footwork and other things getting into and out of his breaks. Whatever it is, he has to develop something that we didn't see this season.

Very good. Yes. I have this odd feeling of anxiousness but not worry. Whatever happens, will happen. I can't imagine losing, but I'm not counting on winning. For me, some of it is old age. And some of it is just how long I've live with this.

Thanks for this thread. It's interesting to think about that evolution.

Thanks for this, and I agree. I don't know the technical aspects that good coaches and trainers might teach to getting separation, and I'm sure there are things he can learn about it. So, I hear you. However, in my mind, he's never going to be a great separator, because he doesn't have the foot speed and he just doesn't look to me like a guy who can make the sharp cuts and the stop-go moves that are key to separating. Yes, he can improve, but he isn't naturally gifted in the way that Shakir is, so there are limits to what he can do. That makes me think a lot of his catches are going to be in close quarters. If he can't win in those situations, his future will be limited, because he's not likely to become elite at separating. To make contested catches, he needs to be stronger and to fight harder.

Of course, you're free to disagree, but your your disagreement is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules. You are correct that if this were basketball (and if we ignore all the earlier contact by White), what happened looked like a charge on Coleman. White occupied the position, and in basketball Coleman is not permitted to run through him. Charge. However, in football, who got there first has nothing to do with the play. The question is whether White interfered with Coleman's opportunity to make a play. It may be just a coincidence, but I like to think that is why they call it pass "interference." White got in position, stopped running, and interfered with Coleman's ability to run to the spot where he might catch the ball. (Is there any question that if White hadn't gotten to that position, Coleman would have a good chance to catch it? I don't think so.) It would not have been interference if White himself were making a play on the ball. Neither play is deemed to have interfered with the other if they're both trying to catch the ball. On this play, however, White wasn't trying to get in position to play the ball - it's obvious, because he stopped running to the place where the ball was coming down. It's even easier to understand by considering how offensive interference has been called for the past several years. One receiver cannot occupy a space, remain stationary, and get in the way of a defender trying stay with another receiver. That is a completely legal pick in basketball - it's a basic basketball play But it's a penalty in football because the offensive player is interfering - there's that word again - with the defender's opportunity to make a play. As for Coleman's acting job, if you want to call it that, I was glad to see it. Earlier in the season on a few similar plays, Coleman just stopped when the defender got in the way, and he didn't get the call. To get the call, it's necessary to show the officials that you're making a play on the ball, and at this crucial time in the game, Coleman did exactly what he was supposed to do. White interfered with Coleman, and Coleman made the play that left the official little choice but to throw the flag. . I've been meaning to say this for weeks now, and this is as good a place as any. A week after the season ends, Coleman has to get himself in the weight room to build upper body strength. He may be good at high pointing the ball, but he doesn't win fights for the ball in close contact. He would do well by watching a week's worth of Mike Evans video. He could be a version of Evans, but he needs to learn to win when the ball arrives.

Excellent. Right on the money. They want to beat opponents with the run or the pass - whatever the opponent gives them. They failed a bit against the Ravens - didn't get the passing game going as the running game got stuffed.

Me too. What I was saying was that if the ball had been spotted at the one after Cook's run on second down, then on third down they could have run the quarterback sneak and probably gotten the touchdown or at least have left themselves so close to the goal line that they would have a realistic chance on fourth down to go for it. I didn't have a problem with the spot after Josh's third down run.

I sort of agree. A lot of it is tough to make simple, but I think there are some things that could be done. First, as to what's a catch, I've actually stopped worrying about it, because I don't see too many plays where a real injustice has been done. We all know what a catch looks like and when a ball has been caught. It's easiest to think about a second baseman taking the relay from the shortstop, or even an outfielder dropping the ball after hitting the wall - we know what's a catch and what isn't. The problem is to describe that in words, because replay is going to be looking at it, and they need to know what the rules are that they should apply. In Ultimate, the rule is that the player caught the disc when it's in their possession and the disc has stopped rotating. That's pretty good, and maybe that plus two feet down would satisfy you and me. Actually, as we saw this year, I think maybe it should be two feet down or one foot down twice. Someone this season caught a ball and the end zone and for some reason hopped - he took two steps, but they were with the same foot. It was called incomplete. What about three hops? Four? At some point, it's completely clear that it's a catch, and two feet is just too restrictive. I think two things have to be done. First, they need more quick replay reviews. The face mask call that wasn't actually a face mask could have been overturned very quickly with quality reviewers in the press box. There are multiple mistakes a game, not anyone's fault, just mistakes, and they should be fixed within a minute. If it's at all unclear, it stays as called on the field, but when you can see, obviously, that the call was wrong, it should be fixed. Second, they need to do something about the ticky-tack stuff. Ineligible player downfield rule has to be made simpler, or has to be called only when it has an impact. Teams are getting flagged for that when it had nothing to do with the outcome of the game. Maybe the line has to be three yards instead of one yard. Something, but those calls are screwing up the game. The officials who call offside and illegal formation should be telling the players in advance of the play that they're lined up wrong. In basketball, the ref doesn't toss the ball for a jump ball until he's verified that all the other players are outside the circle. They don't see a guy on the line, toss the ball, then call a violation for being on the line. Third, they need to get electronics involved in first down measurements, and ball spotting. My impression was they spotted the ball wrong on Cook's second down run before Josh was stopped on third and goal from the two where a touchdown would have put the game away. Looked like it should have been at the one. If it had been at the one, the Bills probably run the sneak, and the game is over. It all happens so fast in that situation, and it's so hard for the head coach to see it from the sideline that the coach is not going to challenge. My two and three would get rid of a lot of the officials' responsibilities on stupid stuff and allow them to focus more on the true, tough judgment calls.

This the fundamental rule that differentiates good officials from bad ones. Good officials have the discipline to call only the fouls they actually see. It happens in basketball all the time, and it drives me crazy. Ref on the baseline looking at the back of a player posting up, guard comes down and swipes at the ball and the ref calls a fall. How can he possibly see through the big man to have seen the actual foul? Impossible. This weekend there was a phantom face mask call. Defender grabbed the far shoulder and pulled with force and at the right angle so the ball carrier whipped around, including his head. Flag. Granted, it all happens so fast it's hard to see, but the refs have to be as skilled as the players, and for them the skill is to call the face mask only when you actually see the hand on the face mask. On this play he couldn't have seen it, because the hand never touched the face mask. What's so galling about the Dawkins call is that the officials must have been instructed about this play after they called it on Dawkins incorrectly a couple of weeks ago. They should have been looking for it, and they still missed it.

This goes to the point that is obvious but many fans refuse to see. Players AND coaches improve year to year. Players stop improving after a while because although their mental skills continue to grow, their bodies begin to slow down. For coaches, if they're good at what they do, they keep getting better. This is particularly true for McDermott because he consciously has committed to continuous improvement. That's what the growth mindset is about. So, McDermott may have been too conservative in earlier years, but he is a continuous learner. He has learned that by preparing his team the right way, he can be rewarded by being aggressive. The people who want to boot McDermott don't understand that he's a better coach today than he was five years ago, and he'll be still better five years from now.

As for the Dawkins call, I saw it once on replay in the stadium, and it's the same bad call that's been made against Dawkins a couple of times in the past few weeks. As someone said, it's surprising that the refs haven't been educated about this move. And they called it on Torrence earlier this season, too. And it was a big play. Score tied 7-7. Second and 11 at the Baltimore 47. Allen completes and 8 yard pass to Samuel, to make it third and 3. Instead, the Bills lose 10 and it's second and 21. Bills punted two plays later. Bills quite probably would have gotten the first down, and they probably would have gotten 3 or 7 points.