Virgil

You dare correct me!? 😋. You're right, it felt like a lot more than that

He’s not the second coming of Aaron Donald that many tried to sell him as. He slipped for a reason. He’s decent, but not great. I look at it this way, it he were to miss a game, how much would we miss him?

Fine. I’ll change it from great to good enough to win 😋

We didn’t have a run game last year, but still got the job done. So who knows

I get why they went for it and know I’m in the conservative minority, it’s how where they chose to attack is my bigger problem. When Henry scores 3 touchdowns, it’s hard to say they did a good job against him. But I see the point you are trying to make

Did he have games where he threw for under 100 yards? Was this meant to be 300?

Statistics, trends, analytics, whatever you want to call them; they are great for planning and creating your overall strategy. However, once the game begins and new information arrives, you have to make adjustments based upon what you are seeing in the moment. If there's one things I don't believe we did in this loss, it's adjust to what was happening in the moment. There's going to be a lot of frustration and arguments as the Bills lose again going into a bye week for the third straight year; as well as conversations about how we are 1 and 2 against teams with a record of .500 or better. With a soft schedule ahead, I expect a lot of dismissal about who we beat and more focus on who we lost to. 1 - Trenches - This game was lost in the trenches on both sides of the ball. The Titans had three guys with their hands planted and one roaming fourth defender come at Josh for most of the game. In some cases, that was enough as the Bills offensive line struggled to pick up the stunt. There were a few plays that Allen looked deep, but had to get rid of the ball or got hit as he threw. The line didn't get much push as Motor and Moss were relatively ineffective all game, even though Daboll kept pushing it up until the last drive. Similar to the Steelers game, and what we will probably see against the Bucs, our offensive line is still not able to win the 5 on 4 match-ups, allowing the opposing defenses to drop 7 into coverage, with two safeties deep. 2 - Allen - Allen had an overall good game, barring the second to last series were he took an unnecessary shot deep against double coverage, setting us up for a long 3rd down. I have no issue with him wanting to take shots downfield, but that wasn't the coverage or time to do it. Had he taken the open underneath passes, we would have had a much more manageable third down and possibly a sustained drive. The slip on the 4th down sneak to end the game was unfortunate, but it's hard to blame Allen for that one. Considering the lack of run support, pass rush, and two deep safeties, Allen did more than enough to win the game. 3 - Pass Rush - For a Titans team that gave up seven sacks to the NJ Jets, it's infuriating that we weren't able to generate any pressure in the second half. I understand that we were trying, and failing, to stop Henry, but there were multiple 3rd and long plays in the second half where the Titans were obviously passing. Yes, Henry was in the backfield for a few of those 3rd down plays, but the Titans didn't attempt to run the ball on a single 3rd and long play. So fine, watch out for the draw on the first few occasions, but eventually take a shot and blitz on these 3rd and longs versus giving Tannehill all day to find AJ Brown. Additionally, I don't understand Boogie and AJ being inactive for this game. 4 - Small my table, sits just two Got so crowded, I can't make room Oh, where did they come from?... Stormed my room! And you dare say it belongs to you... to you 5 - Henry - Occasionally, I will focus on the strong play of the opposing teams and Henry deserves that time here. Similar to Aaron Judge and Lebron James. Derrick Henry is a physical specimen that you rarely see at his position. When his career is over and done, he could easily be in consideration as one of the best all time halfbacks. I remember when he came into the league and was splitting time, with many in media saying he would never be an every down back. He shouldn't be allowed to be as fast as he is for his size, but he showed it on his break away touchdown in the first half. He's Tannehill's best friend and caused us to structure our entire offensive game plan around stopping him. Three touchdowns later, Henry showed why he is king and I tip my hat to him. 6 - Defensive Formation - The Bills ran a lot of a formation that looked similar to a 4-4. We had 4 guys on the line and 4 guys (mixture of safety/linebacker/DB) about 5 yards back parallel to the line of scrimmage. It was an interesting stacked box that could commit to stopping Henry or drop back into coverage. On some plays, in fact for most of the first half, it did a good job of slowing the Titans offense down. Honestly, if you take the Allen interception and Henry big run out of the first half, the Bills defense did a great job to start the game. In the second half, the Titans made adjustments, our guys got slower as the rushing attack beat on them, and the pass rush was non-existent. The strategy was there, but the execution by the front four wasn't. 7 - Best Shot - I don't watch the Titans and generally don't like them as a team, so this is completely based off of body language and what I saw on the field. There's no question in my mind that we got the Titan's absolute best game. Vrabel's face on the sidelines showed as much as he seemed to live and die with every play. The Titans played out of their minds and we still had multiple chances to put this game away. Unlike when we lost to the Chiefs twice last year and it looked like they had our number, the recent 0-2 against the Titans doesn't feel the same way to me. We controlled the outcome of this game and many aspects of our team didn't perform well. It's tough to lose to a likely division winner when we are in an ongoing battle for the one seed, but I do not believe for a second that we lost to a better team. 8 - Red Zone - Houston (see what I did there), we have a problem. Controlling the first few series of the game doesn't mean much when you can only put up 6 points. As we saw with the Henry run, all good efforts were wasted on one play, and we were then down by one. The Bills continue to struggle getting touchdowns and it's cost us twice this season. I don't know what's changed since last season, where we were largely dominant, but it's something we need to use the bye week to address. We have the size in Gabe, Jake, and Knox to win the height battles, but don't take those shots. Above all else, Daboll really needs to get to work here. 9 - Offensive Line - Spencer Brown, the golden child by many, had a rough game out there. He allowed a pressure which led to an interception. Morse and Mongo couldn't communicate on stunt plays, letting guys run free to Josh. Dawkins got destroyed on the final play. Overall, in the second week of their new look starting lineup, the Bills front 5 were didn't show up when it mattered most and it showed on the final scoreboard. With no rushing attack, Allen was his normal pass happy self and made some throws to counter the pass rush. However, with a better effort up front, we could have easily seen a better outcome. 10 - The play - Would I have gone for in 4th down at the end of the game? No. I'm conservative like that and I chose to trust my entire team and let them play it out, versus putting all their efforts into one play. I don't blame McD for going for it and understand why. We are allowed to agree to disagree on this one. However, I have an issue with the play call. Like I said in the intro, past game stats are great indicators for future strategy, but this game showed something different. After watching this entire game, it was hard to bet money on the Bills offensive line winning a battle for the game. There's a lot of questions around why the play failed. Was it Allen slipping or Dawkins getting blown off the ball from the snap. What I know is this. The Titans only had 4 players on the line versus our 5 and we still couldn't get a push. Even if Allen didn't slip, you can't say he would have gotten it. Regardless of the outcome, McD shouldn't have gambled the game on us winning in the trenches because the entire game showed you we'd lose. Let Allen play fake and then make the choice. The minute they went to the line, everyone in the stadium knew Allen was going to sneak it over Mongo, including the Titans. In full transparency, this game absolutely pissed me off. I could feel it coming all day and the deja vu heading into a bye week is not a great feeling. I felt like we were the better team but couldn't execute or adjust to the Titans play calling. How we couldn't cover AJ on 3rd down in the 2nd half, time after time after time again was infuriating. Henry getting his yards was to be expected. And the last call will stick with me for a while. Seeing Tannehill smile on the sidelines after a pedestrian day made me want to break my TV and I had to just put myself to bed. I shouldn't care about the narrative and didn't expect to go 16-1, but I wanted this game. Hopefully it will keep the Bills honest and lead to necessary changes in game plan. Go Bills!!!!

And it was a poor decision. Zero sacks, and rarely any pressure in passing situations. I am actually somewhat okay with their run defense.

I read tweets too

They didn’t call a single run or draw on 3rd and 7 plus all game.

I very much disagree and hope to prove it when the All-22 comes out. He was one of the better players for us and made solo tackles when others couldn’t against Henry

Read what I said again and then think about your response. I said on passing downs. You know, when there was an empty backfield or 3rd and long.

Nope. Not even 1 out of 10 times. Stupid call. Take the tie and bank on either getting the ball first or your defense. I hated it the moment they stayed on the field. They called the play everyone knew was coming and got beat where the Titans kicked their ass all game. This loss is on McD as much as it is on the defense.

Poor defensive play calling. We generated no pass rush on obvious passing downs and empty sets. No excuse for that

I blame the coaching. We only rushed 4 on passing plays, but didn’t have our best pass rushers out there. Why is Zimmer playing so much on passing downs.

We get beat in the trenches all day, so we put the game on the line for a call that everyone sees coming…in the trenches. Stupid. Just stupid. Going for it shows no faith in the defense (which maybe rightfully so). But you don’t know who gets the ball in OT. Allen can’t slip there, but Dawkins got destroyed. If you run that play, have an extra blocker.

I was thinking the exact same thing.

I really don't understand Boogie and AJ being out. Boogie has been part of the heavy package and good against the run. I thought AJ was starting to prove himself against the run and was starting to overtake Addison in those situations

Agree and disagree. We haven't won anything yet, so there are 30 teams out there that we shouldn't relish in their pain. Until we beat Brady, we can't say anything to the Bucs. As for the Pats, that's open season now. They deserve all of it. They weren't there before Brady and are leaving quickly with him gone. Terrible fan base

Like any job, there should absolutely be an an evaluation process. There shouldn’t be a one and done, but feedback, tracking, and appropriate escalations

I just want to know what happened to the deep crossing routes. They were such a big hit for us last year and you could make a two hour movie of just Bills receiver toe taps on the sideline. I don't get it.

1- Star 2 - Edmunds Tough call between the two, but I'm going to put Star in the lead. If he can absorb 2-3 blockers like he has and allow the other defenders to attack clear lanes, Henry will hav a tough time going.

Is an extra 5 yards tacked on for murder?

Titans 41 Bills 9 Move over Chiefs, there’s a new Daddy in town. The Titans dominate the line of scrimmage and King Henry is a man amongst children. Titans control time of possession and Allen forces turnovers down field.

Panthers connection jokes aside… Cody Ford to Carolina could make sense