dave mcbride

Stafford was hurt (elbow; he missed a large portion of that season because of it) and if memory serves a couple of o-linemen went down early in the game, which opened the floodgates.

7-6, btw. They did have some serious injury issues in the early part of the season. Both Nacua and Kupp have only started 8 games, and they had o-line injuries earlier too. Last season, they were 8th in points and 7th in yards.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/202009270buf.htm The Bills gave up 478 yards and allowed 7.25 yards per play. They blew a 28-3 lead and in the second half, and the Rams moved the ball at will. In the second half, the Rams ran 23 plays on four straight TD drives for 201 yards (with the longest playing being 31 yards). That is 8.74 yards per play. Two of the plays were one-yard TD runs, so take those successful plays out, and they gave up 203 yards on 21 plays (9.7 yards per play). Clearly, McVay knows how to attack this defensive scheme. (In the September 2022 game, Stafford was dealing with an elbow injury, Van Jefferson was out, and their o-line had gotten banged up during preseason.)

Again, he was very good last season, which was post-contract.

Not saying at all that he's not playing hard. He just isn't making the sort of plays that he's paid to make, and that was the case yesterday too. Maybe my standards are too high for him, but "almost" plays aren't good enough, especially when he's made those actual plays in the past.

He was good last year, and that was after the contract.

Oliver had 3 assists, no actual tackles, and a couple of hits on the QB that, IIRC, didn't materially affect the play. I am happy he can anchor, but a physically quick and explosive three-technique needs to make plays behind the LOS. He just isn't this year.

Rousseau at least made one play (a TFL). Oliver, as per his standard game this season, made zero.

I felt this deserved its own thread given his draft position and his contract, but mods, if you think it should be merged with the d-line thread, that's fine. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/O/OlivEd00.htm Oliver has only eight tackles this season (through 13 games, although he missed two) and had 34 last season. He has one sack, two TFLs, and 8 QB hits. He had 9.5 sacks last year and 14 TFLs. What the hell has happened to him? He's arguably the worst producer on the entire defense this season - definitely worse than Daquon Jones. And I don't buy any "he does the dirty work" sort of argument. 3-technique DTs are supposed to explode through and make actual tackles in the backfield.

I do consider a blocked punt returned for a TD an actual turnover regardless of the NFL's statistical categories. It turned out to be the game-deciding play.

How one can consider a blocked punt returned for a TD NOT a turnover is beyond me.

They were better than our slow secondary and WEAK pass rush. Starts an ends there. The D, collectively, is slow. Belichick said it 10 weeks ago.

And it was a sustained 25-30 mph wind throughout the course of that game.

The Bills’ D was *SHREDDED* all game long. Starts and ends there. No late-game decision excuses allowed.

Literally everything about this game was the Bills’. HORRIFIC defense. Starts and ends there — full stop. @Success

This reminds me of the second half of the 2020 Rams-Bills game. McVay outschemed McDermott on virtually every play, but the Bills were saved by Allen heroics and a really shaky illegal contact call on Gabe Davis on 4th down at the end of the game. The combo of Stafford, Nacua and Kupp are built to skewer zone schemes.

Well, it felt like 15-20 yards!

I recall that ridiculously negative play vs Miami in OT where he lost like 15-20 yards

The Rose Bowl is SO far from campus that it's a joke -- 25 miles!

UCLA football fan enthusiasm captured in a single image (I went to UCLA, as it happens):

He's a villain because he's a JAG defender and both the overall business of NFL and actual teams are built on QBs. Headhunting QBs is really bad for the league and bad for 53-man teams that no longer have a credible QB. I don't think the penalty is enough given the absolute centrality of competent QB play to watchable football.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/2024.htm#team_stats The numbers in this link are pretty remarkable. They are terrible against the run and good vs the pass in terms of yards per play surrendered, but they also rank 20th in plays per drive and 19th in yards per drive (meaning they're fairly bad on third down defense - ranked 20th). They are also 19th in the number of sacks made. Yet they are 6th in points allowed and 11th in yards allowed. My takeaway? They are heavily reliant on preventing big plays that result in short scoring drives (in terms of the number of plays on the drive) and turnovers (they are second in the league in turnovers forced), and turnovers are more likely to happen on drives with a large number of plays -- the idea being that the offense will make a mistake sooner or later. They are 3rd in passing TDs given up and 6th in rushing TDs given up, which seems to confirm the philosophy. Will this approach work against the better teams in the postseason? I have no idea, but it hasn't really worked in the past. That said, I do think that they are better at getting after the passer than they were in, say, 2021 - despite the overall low numbers for sacks (2.4 per game). Finally, they are 11th in opposing team passer rating: https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-average-team-passer-rating. Solid, but they've always been better than this in the Allen/McDermott era: 4th in 2019, 7th in 2020, 1st in 2021, 2nd in 2022, and 7th in 2023. Differential in team passer rating is the greatest statisical predictor of team success/failure in the NFL. Last thing to add -- the scoring numbers for the D really speak to the importance of complementary football. The offense is second in the league in terms of fewest turnovers given up, and they are first in fumbles lost (meaning the least). Opposing offenses therefore are gifted with hardly any short drives, and the Bills haven't allowed a defensive TD score all season.

Forbes has been AWFUL.

Bill Walsh's famous quote about Steve DeBerg: He's just good enough to get you fired.