colin

the bills not forcing the issue is part of it too IMO. this far off coverage makes it hard to ride and hide the holding out of the brake, the lack of crowded fronts make it hard to get mucky up front, atl was doing that and so was NE. i remember when we played the delay rush spy game vs kc in the past two reg season wins over them. our LB spy/late rusher would maul any wr in a shallow pattern, and i think it might have gotten called 1 out of 10 times. if you press the issue you make it hard for the ref to call the penalty (the cb mugging coleman all day was let go because it was at least 5050 half the time). if you play finesse ball, your physical play is more obvious and gets called more.

i remember when i worked in London a colleague of mine mentioned that there are tiny airstrips all over the UK that private flyers can just book and take off and land from. it was part of him describing how the UK favors putting a little bit of resources into everything to have something for everyone rather than a real determined focus to pick what one wants to do well and put resources into that. IMO, that's the exact problem with our team right now. we have lots of nifty things, lot's pass rushers on d who sit more than half the game, lots of tight ends who can block and run, and what seems like 4 slot WRs and 3 backs (two of whom sit on any given play) who can do a few things. furthermore, our philosophy on o is sprinkling the ball around out of many groupings and formations, to give teams more things to study on tape. on D, we like to have eight reads for each person in the back 7 and four calls to be made pre snap so everyone can be on the same page, and we are trying to defend everything all at once. clearly, this approach is not working. on the all 22 of one of the plays, i saw ATL overload blitz, press man all over, and rode the back out of the back field so he wasn't an outlet (the back ran to the offense's right). the slot wr on the left was uncovered, no one within 10 yards of him. they gambled because they had confidence on what we were going to do, and were willing to take a risk at a super easy first down (and more) if allen and the O picked it up. they saw our tendencies and decided to not let us pick our best shot on O, and dared us to press the matter, which we did not and just took our best non 17 weapon off the field for the last like 4 drives. Our D ends up giving up giant gashing plays underneath the coverage that will die before it allows a deep pass, but it still seems to produce some stops and maybe turnovers after getting totally cooked for long periods of time (don't get me wrong, the d sucks). on O, we have somehow backed ourselves into a corner where if we do anything wrong and get behind the sticks, none of it works. the silly jet sweeps would work if executed perfectly, but for what, 12 yards? meanwhile targets to tight ends out of play action are easy mode plays that pick up chunks and TDs, and passes to backs are similar. to diversify your game on O but still be fragile is a foolish thing to do, having the ol and qb make hard reads into blitzes which simply would not work if we used different formations or groupings is the height of arrogance. i'm not saying go back to 5 wide empty and just throw the rock like we did in 2021, but we have to have a couple things we can go back to when we need production, and the OL, QB, TE, and RB talent we have is so so so much better than our WRs that i'd be quite happy to see more than 1 WR on the pitch less than 25% of the time. we present a degree of difficulty with our D that is near the lowest in the nfl, it can make some stops with great DL play, but it doesn't actually force the O to take any bait or get out of their comfort zone. On O, we seem to refuse to go for easy mode stuff, and rely on coleman one on one, or a back picking up a free runner, or the OL to diagnose and stop all blitzes instead of maybe running a screen. OP is 100% correct we need to make our best players the focus of the O, and having a screen game, less predictability (80% run from under center, 80% from shotgun is disgusting), and chucking the no reward trick plays into niagra falls is a great start. remember the fake punt in the playoffs vs kc, the flea flicker vs baltimore in 2024, and the jet sweeps to our 2nd best TE and maybe 4th WR in the past two games? i think brady might not be capable of learning what works vs what doesn't. every time we show a look that murks people, we throw it away for some weak stuff that the players clearly don't have confidence in.

the odds makers (something i've done a bit of myself, altho i admit im a fool for the bills so i let that go most of the time) have a much more sober view than we fans do. the bills have had this near exact pattern, and finished as few as 13 seconds from advancing past kc, who just about every year threatens to get to the super bowl or does get there. they also try to balance their book and change the odds as money comes in, but these kind of bets will most often rely on their model of who is likely to get there. based on all of this, i suspect mcd makes a splash move w the coaches, likely takes over play calling, and at the least screams the riot act to brady. also, some kind of wr or secondary player trade.

we have one total trucking game every year, we have two losses in a row, almost always in late sep/oct every year, and our d always has drives/games/several games where it looks totally fragile and allows explosive plays underneath (runs and shorter/mid passes) and also either gets take aways or attacking stops. i suppose we have to just accept that this is the rhythm of this team. the team will be better this year if and only if the defensive reinforcements get us over the hump and the O just figures out what it is good at and does it well instead of this gadget trash. honestly, we have had the too cute on O stuff many times in the past where a couple of simple plays might have won us the game. it does get tiring, but this is nothing new.

That look like not very good players being so utterly concerned about being in the right position in the holy and wonderful scheme that they are told they are not good enough to run, that they let the only guys who pose any threat get wide open. a lack of instinct, a lack of talent, and most of all a d that wants to make every blade of grass covered instead of the modern nfl idea of taking something away and pressing something else and forcing the O to beat you with what they aren't best at.

mcd took d play calling out of frazier's hands a couple time, and he took the whole thing over for a season after dude left. a change is needed, and this is a job mcd has been one of the best at (DC, not HC IMO) so if he wants to light a fire on the team's butt, this is his easiest avenue. i think the "culture" knock on effect might be a positive influence on the O as well because it could put the whole organization on notice. i'll keep banging my pet drum on this tho, brady is a bigger failure to date than babbich, and babbich outright sucks the bag. vs NE, ATL, Miami, and the saints the best unit on the field for us was the D. key take aways and just enough stops vs miami and NO, and as much as they stank in the last two, they held the opponents to 20 and 24 points (coulda been 31 vs atl, i get it they suck) and the O just went into limp mode. clearly dumb and idiotic play calls in high leverage situations, trying to build on weakness instead of strength, and having no bag to go to to answer the questions atl was presenting shows a very very low level of mastery as an OC.

our o is worse than our d. our d is awful, but it can make stops and (except for penalties and silly dropped balls and such) puts itself in a position to get turnovers. also, the first 3 scores all happened after the d made a good play, got a stop, or got a turnover all which were unwound but bad little penalties (the 3rd down PI was criminal, no such foul was committed). the O just sets itself up to fail all the time. NE and atlanta both keyed in to stop the run by flowing to the ball fast and hard, and they both overloaded pressure because we never pick it up. why did they feel like they could do that? well, because we tell the d what we are going to do at literally better than an 80% clip based on how we line up. we force plays to overmatched wrs, and we just decided not to run our best position groups, RB, QB, TE and OL en masse and throw and pass out of it. brady is a garbage OC. he has the nfl mvp, a top 5 or so rb, good OL, and suddenly a great TE room, and his answer is to just keep randomly generating plays and player combos that are not repped, have shown nothing, and in no way tricking the d or seeking the best match up. our d constantly gets trucked, and is a mash unit and is missing players to suspensions and is young otherwise. and again, it sucks, but it makes stops, and makes multiple stops in every game. the O just magically finds ways to lose. the jet sweep fumbles, one in each of our losses, the forced throws to covered outside wrs, and most of all the lack of an answer, the lack of adjustments to what the d is doing, and the total inability to go back to what is working are all signs of a bad play caller. we lost games where we gave up 20 and 24 points. we have a fully healthy OL, RB room, the NFL MVP, and we still have some TEs who can play. any quality OC can get 27 points at home vs NE or on the road vs a fast but small atlanta d. line up the big boys, use misdirection and tricks, and stress them on the edges with cook and go up the middle with our other guys. basic freaking football, but instead we get these mesh concepts vs jail break blitzes and stop cook because the atl d couldn't do that themselves.

neither is the 20/20 hindsight answer. we would have been much better off to let milano walk, extend edmunds, draft bernard and let him walk, and rinse and repeat. on d (except front 4, which is now actually really stacked) we have just position groups with a lack of speed/power/skill. our rook corners (all 3, my gosh) go down and we have the ghost of tre out there, and bernard is playing cheeks and isn't fast to start with. bishop is not good, but rapp is so much worse, and the back up is hamlin who was never good. milano goes down (obv) and bernard goes down, and we have street free agents and dorian (i still have faith, but he does make so many mistakes). turns out shaq as a street free agent is a better nfl lb than anyone else on our roster, including like 22mm a year on our "starters". atlanta is not a good team, and does not have a good d, but they have a squad of small fast long pass rushers, and they just used that to stymie our idiot OC. aside from our front 4 (which means we have real talented players on the bench doing nothing while tre white and bernard and rapp give up plays over and over) we only have weak defensive position groups

The d has been less bad than the o for about a month of poop football over which we are 2-2 and cratering. The d is still horrible, obv, but the o is fixable at least. A change in coaching on o might be a bigger boost, cuz Brady is terrible

I'd love to have a clear inside picture of what thoughts are shared when the bills pick players or plan their scheme. How on earth are benford and Groot and Bernard extended for big dollars on a team that drafted Walker and Spencer Brown and Josh Allen? Like, slow lower ceiling and often injured guys vs raw super power hi risk how reward guys. And why do we have these crazy heavy jumbo sets that do well but then run the weak trash we ran vs atl and ne? Like if the d just decided to overload and play the run hard, we force balls to 0 (appropriate number) and palmer? This team just throws stuff against the wall man

All true, but the d has been better than the o for large portions of the last 4 games. The o just lost palmer and kinkaide, but ow has been full strength. The whole o, including our MVP QB, has been cheeks. They are simply unprepared. I get fire babbich, but I raise you fire Brady

Ok, that game was disgusting Babich being fired and replaced by literally anyone else in the building is an improvement, but the O has been worse than the d the last few weeks. That is just shocking, the d is a mash unit and don't my bad based on mistakes and silly penalties and things like that. Every single aspect of the o is getting worse. No continuity, no identity, on penalties, turnovers, blocking and Allen sucks too The play of the o and particularly the play calling has been a level below and it's gotten worse for consecutive weeks. I think mad is forcing the o to ball control and what not, but the three wr set plays are laughable. The team does not buy into what the coaches are calling

This team is totally reliant on game script and our QB being the goat Not prepared, poorly built, cap problems with no play makers, extensions to slow injury prone corners, small injury prone lbs, and ends who don't pass rush well are out biggest extensions. 55mm per year on benford Groot and Bernard, not a impact player on the lot

Was that a hip drop that injured Palmer? No flag in it

Bad coaching, poorly formed roster. Finesse team that's slow and not smart.

This d just commits cheap little penalties to allow points Not good enough

DB is such a bag of shower man. Didn't he hit the zempic and lose weight before? He's back up to his chubby biggest. Not a man with self control

I thought Palmer would be a plus addition, and he might still be, but so far he's not much. We'd have been better off keeping hollins. Familiarity, outside size, and plus blocking for pretty cheap. Separation doesn't mean as much for tight ends because they can post up the body more easily than someone running an outside wr route. I'm convinced we need health on d and to just bully the NFL out of our mutli back and te sets. Baltimore and new England have had a ton of success in those formations (be back in the day) and if they slow down the run we pass to our te squad, cook, one wr who lines up, or Allen just runs it. No one is stopping that from 30 over 4 quarters.

knowing this, and seeing the film of the last drive from the NE 27 where we chuck 3 dumb balls to WRs in no position to catch and make a play is maddening. if we went jump w two TEs and had kinkaid run up the seem the whole middle of the d would follow him leaving the other TE wide open for a first with room to run, bang we are inside the 12 w a new set of downs. we can walk that in over the 8 downs we'd have there, and milk the clock like a bell cow.

a corner and/or a safety could go a very long way in helping this team. it could be the difference between a playoff exit and glory

my big gripe w brady is he's so arrogant (shades of mcd). no thought toward self tendencies, run when we are under center, pass when in shot gun. no concept of lining up for your best advantage vs the opponent, he just calls what he feels like all the time. most of all though, he is so so resistant to having an offensive identity. asking allen to just be superman is NOT a coaching feature, it should be seen as a coaching failure if it has to happen to win (way too much). multi back and te sets, extra OL, why the heck are we not running that until someone stops it? out of those formations with cook as a cheeky outlet we coulda had an extra 100+ yards and at least 7 more points vs NE, even with all the other bad stuff that happened. instead we ended drives with incomplete passes to covered WRs even after allen steals an extra 5 seconds of time behind good blocking. you don't have to be a pro scout to see what NE is good at and what they struggle against. it really shouldn't be this difficult given the talent we have on the O side of the ball. 5 targets to him last sunday, sacrificing forced trash attempts to covered wrs, prolly gets him another 40-50 yards on 3-4 catches.

we've actually had a sick pass rush, and it looks like groot just woke up from his slumber (think it was a knee). adding back ed will be a huge gain. if we can also get tj, obiwankenobi, and hoyt (sadly, not till the next week and likely not fully operational until after the bye) we might actually have the d we are supposed to.

agree, but i thought babbich and the D were pretty solid on sunday night (vs prior weeks). great pass rush, did well on 3rd down and vs the run, just total disaster in the back end, and i think that was on the players (rapp basically lost his courage, and tre is not nfl level). the 4th quarter total flop was weak, but we were a couple slightly better plays from the DL (who played really well over all) from shutting them down. to me, the OC was baited into a trap and ate the cheese with his tail caught for more or less the entire night.

i admit, i thought he was a round earlier. still -- we have holes at CB and S, last year it was DT, this year it seems to be LB and most def WR, but we keep throwing reasonable picks (im not knocking the cook pick, i was a booster then and even more now, talent matters more than position) at a position we already have a platoon at, and one of the easiest to find a replacement level player at, leaving huge depth holes in the roster. being down a single corner (albeit our best one) and a safety basically took us out of the afc chip game, but if we brought in a practice squad guy over davis or whoever at arb, what difference would it make to our O? that's my gripe.

walker is a good bull rush away from being a 5 tool type player, and if we get our ish together and have hoyt and bosa rotate at DE, groot and epenesa at the other, oliver and TJ at 3, and DQ and walker at 1 tech, we might have the best pass rush since shwartz