Wraith

Think how much random good luck Tampa Bay had last night in order to keep that game close: Mayfield had at least 5 tipped/batted passes. None of them get intercepted and two of them go for scores (TD to off Benford's helmet, 2-point conversion tipped by Phillips). Meanwhile Allen is basically flawless with his passing all night except for one pass that gets tipped in the air directly to a defensive lineman. Tampa Bay fumbled twice and recovered them both. The facemask on Phillips on 4th down was bad luck. The play should've been blown dead already. I agree it looked like Phillips was trying to find a way to tackle Mayfield that wouldn't results in a roughing the passer penalty. The illegal contact penalty on Johnson on the prior 4thd down was a terrible call. Johnson made contact at the line of scrimmage and just ran side-by-side with him afterwards. It was a terrible call in a vacuum and even worse given the context of the game.

The first punt was 4th & 4 before the delay of game with 3:00 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter. That one was definitely the correct call by McDermott. The problem was the following punt. That one was initially a 4th & 2 with 10:00 minutes to go in the 4th. The problem there was by that time Tampa was clearly in "no punt" mode and it is really hard to stop an NFL offense when they get 4 plays per set of downs instead of 3. McDermott should have trusted the offense to get 2 yards and essentially end the game right there.

No, you're just plain wrong here. The offense was fine in the fourth quarter, the coaching and play calling just got ultra conservative. The Bills offense was using very little clock the first three quarters and with a two touchdown lead in the fourth quarter they decided to downshift to eat some clock.

Morse, not Allen. Watch that play again. Morse quick snapped it because he thought he had Tampa Bay in the neutral zone (probably did). Neither Allen nor the rest of the OL were expecting and let defender through the middle unblocked.

According to the analysts at Cover1, the Giants really picked on Williams in pass coverage. https://www.cover1.net/buffalo-bills-new-york-giants-recap/

So it clearly wasn’t an Achilles since he’s trying to play through it but he’s clearly hobbled. Interestingly enough, that non-contact injury Kelce just experienced happened on slit film turf, which has been shown to be much worse for injuries compared to other artificial surfaces. The NFL is down to just four stadiums using that turf in the continental US (Met Life is another). Also, Tottenham Hot Spur Stadium uses slit film turf for American Football.

My bet is achilles. His initial reaction looks just like Rodgers and Tre. Not good for the league.

Don't forget, yards per attempt is heavily affected by completion percentage. Basically, incompletions count the same as a completion for 0 yards, bringing down the average. Separating out completion % and yards/completion can provide more detailed insight into quarterback performance but conversely yards/attempt is a very good overall summary statistic for quarterback play.

Allen's ball placement is every bit as good as Tua's. He has been elite in that category for several years now.

Prior to yesterday, Tua already had the reputation for being a system-QB and yesterdays results are only going to strengthen that opinion. As Romo correctly pointed out in the game several times yesterday, Tua isn't even the most valuable player on his own offense.

This confirms a lot of our fears. I am so sorry the Pegula family has to go through something like this. I can say from first hand experience that something like this is traumatizing for both the patient and the supporting family members. However, I can also say from first hand experience that there is a lot of hope - still. Recovery is slow but the brain is an amazingly elastic thing that can adapt and relearn, continuing to improve even years after the original injury. I am amazed at the success Jessica Pegula was able to achieve in her tennis career while going through a year like this.

Agreed. In addition. the two Bengals TD passes were both on completely busted coverages that left the receiver uncovered. On the Hurst TD, at least it was a good play design that tricked the defense but the Chase TD was just embarrassing. I don't know who made the mistake but somehow the Bills ended up with both Marlowe and Edmunds covering the running back in the left flat, Poyer over the top of Tre White for one receiver on the right outside and nobody covering Chase from the slot or the middle of the field in general. It was way too easy for the Bengals.

The quarterback does not determine the drop length, they are part of every play design in order to achieve proper timing with the routes being run by the receivers.

Interesting...

Yikes

Yeah, that was my point.

Yesterday, I was infuriated at both the offensive and defensive game planning. I went to bed thinking the Bills should let Frazier go but should continue with Dorsey, as he was a first year OC with an offense that was overall very strong this season. However, some arguments today now have me on the side that the Bills need to upgrade at OC immediately. The fact that they have prime Allen and Diggs right now means they can't afford another wasted season. Seeing a tweet like this reinforces my belief. A full 2/3rds of the Bills passing plays were perfectly covered. That is shockingly bad and speaks to how much the Bengals DC outcoached Dorsey. Incredible.

Yeah, I've thought the same thing. The Bills record was 13 - 3 with the best point differential in the AFC and the second best strength of victory. They were a legitimately good team. A person can't simultaneously argue they were both under talented and poorly coached, unless you're trying to argue that Allen was super human. Obviously, it is very important for the actual decision makers to figure out which of the two is the real root cause of yesterdays debacle. My vote is on the coaching, especially the coordinators in charge of the game planning.

What evidence do you have that Allen is happy with Dorsey and the current state of the offense? Dorsey was the natural successor to Daboll and clearly Allen endorsed Dorsey at the time because he wanted to keep the offensive success of recent years rolling. People are reading too much into that endorsement beyond that. I doubt very much that Allen has been comfortable with the offensive game plan of "block nobody and hope Josh does something amazing" we've rolled with too many times recently. The last game that seemed to have a coherent offensive gameplan was the first New England game.

Yeah, that idea is moronic. There is zero evidence Sean Payton is a better coach than McDermott. I don't think McDermott needs to be fired. He does need to adapt and change some of his philosophies but unlike many head coaches he actually has demonstrated he can change in the past and I hope to see that happen again. He did make a few terrible decisions yesterday that I thought he had previously gotten past. Along those same lines, I think it is time to move on from Frazier. He has not shown the same ability to adapt. This season, NFL defenses bucked recent trends and finally started pushing back against high powered offenses - and yet the Bills defense managed to get worse overall and especially in big games. I don't know what to make of Dorsey. Watching the game yesterday I couldn't tell if the defense's terrible start wrecked Dorsey's game plan or if there never was a coherent plan to start with. Of course, the Bengals fast start was entirely predictable, so who knows? I haven't seen it mentioned much but amongst a sea of bad coaching decisions yesterday I thought the worst one was deferring to the second half. The Bengals notoriously start off hot and the Bills offensive game plan was very conservative to start with and that combination meant the Bengals had a 14 point lead before the Bills had run their fourth offensive play. Such a terrible way to start.

Right! First time I saw this on third down I thought they were showing blitz but were going to drop back back to clog passing lanes and maybe get a pick but nope, everyone rushes and literally every receiver is wide open at the sticks.

There is no question scheme was a huge problem. Check out the image below. How the hell can you rush 7 and play the CBs deep on third and short? With the poor footing from the snow there was no chance of this working. Bills started pressing on early downs after the 1st quarter but on third down it was consistently soft all game. It was too easy for the Bengals offense.

That went out the window when the defense gave up two long, time consuming touch down drives to start the game. From that point on time and possessions were at a premium.

Imagine the effect on people's perceptions if the Bengals-Bucs game was canceled at half-time instead? Down 17-0 to that moribund Tampa Bay team, followed by a near collapse against New England and two lifeless performances against a depleted Ravens team (one of them in the playoffs). Instead, the Buccaneers hand the Bengals the game on a platter in the second half and suddenly everyone thinks the Bengals are some kind of goliath. So bizarre.

Need this plastered at the top of the board and every thread. It is that simple.