colin

im a big cover 1 fan. i think they get caught up in the x's and o's (well, that is their job) and give daboll to much love because he's creative in drawing up some plays that get people running around. the play design is just part of it, we need the OL to block well, the QB to read the play right and deliver the ball, and the WR to be precise and come down with it. based on the talent we have at these positions, we just aren't good, and clevland is good at stopping it. the constant pressure was just icing on the cake. a lot of qbs would have had the ball strip sacked w the free runners clevland was getting. not excusing allen, he still makes dumb moves but they are more about missing an open guy or throwing a bad ball rather than insane hero ball turnovers, so that's a plus! singletery should be attempting at least 15 if not 20 rushes vs a garbage run d like cleavland.

the points in here about dictating are on point. for some reason, allen has been hot garbage on big plays this season, but we have been able to run block pretty well. if it is possible, i'd have the bills O throw in wide open shotgun pass plays where allen has the green light to run wild like he did last year, rather than designed runs, and put the ball in the rbs hands much more. the tighter precision pass plays we run w our low talent smurfs out there just are not getting it done. what is super ironic is D's in the nfl tend to be built to stop the pass, so baltimore has a qb who is simply not a good passer, but they just throw over the top and run all over the place and it is producing hard.

honestly, i sometimes marvel at how cheeks are skill position talent is. our best play maker is a tie between brown and singletary (nod to brown, since we actually use him). brown was a cast off from baltimore, and clevland's 4th best skill position player (i'd say that's hunt) is better than anyone baltimore has. our pass d still did a very good job vs the browns, but they were able to run well and of course our O and special teams are horrid.

some zone runs, rpo's, or screens (not a run, but close enough) could have punished the browns for being so aggressive pre snap and made things easier for allen. daboll sucks, he's in love with his goofy play book so much that he runs plays that the team can't successfully execute. an OC that can't figure out a way to run the ball vs a bad run D is not a good one, especially when you have a line that can't block the pass rush and a raw qb on some shakey footing.

i read that post viewing your avi speaking in a voice that can only be described as a cross between mcD and popeye, and i chortled with satisfaction. the only hope i have for dbol is that mcd savagely bullies him into not being ######ed.

ok, so a couple points and a HAWT TAKE incoming. mcd is a bit like dickyJ, IN A GOOD WAY. jauron had a horrible horrible squad, and he had them competitive in games they had no business being in. gaily and mularky weren't better, marone had one decent year but was also kinda crap, and rex ryan got what, 8-8, so one game better with a much much better roster. mcd does coach conservative, and it is sad how we don't sneak in points at the end of the half or bring the hammer down on teams once we have a lead, but that's not just about the coach having determination and telling his players to win rather than tie. it comes down to what you practice and emphasize. you only have so much time during the week to prepare, so mcd emphasizes stopping big plays, taking away the pass without blitzing, and other various sundry that leads to a less than thrilling experience in some ways, but the result is his squad comes out fighting hard and keeping games close. this kinda dull approach has lead to us staying in games and winning games one could argue we shouldn't have won. all the early come backs, being really tight to NE, and such and such. i will say, he really seems like he has little to no clue on OCs tho. what bothers me the most is that since last year, we just can't run the freaking ball. last year our OL and backs were for shiz, this year we can do it, but just don't seem to call run plays. it's just disgusting.

The pass to brown I'm 3rd and 4 was supposed to be back shoulder, but brown read it wrong: he admitted as much in the post game presser. This is the second game the special teams cost us. House was trash. Our o is obviously garbage. Allen throws some bad balls, our wrs don't get much separation, and our online sucks. Tackles not blocking on half the pass plays, and just so many penalties. I'm counting Smith as ol here. Worst of all, our OC is trash. Just stinks. He didn't realize singletery was good until the Redskins game, and just could not figure out a way to get him some advantage touches today. He has got to go.

i don't think he's good, let alone excellent. our O is pretty friggen bad, except in the redzone. it was worse last year. he also had bad results for most of the teams he's worked for. he does some obvious and horrible things w play calling too. our QB is still raw, we don't have much for WR, our oline is like ok to decent, and our TEs are at best un proven, so i cut the guy some slack, but he hasn't shown he's good. him not featuring motor when motor is OBVIOUSLY our best weapon shows me he is too cute and doesn't just do what works enough.

assuming chargers are in london, colts go in west, texans and fins go in south, ravens go in east. that would be the most logical geographic breakdown. the afc north would all be reasonable drives from each other. i know it's new, but i could see insane rivalries brewing there.

dabol is kinda garbage. from the gadget plays that we all see coming that get blown up, to the idiotic gore into the pile failures, it was on full display on Sunday. singletary is our best player on O, and we all saw it week one, but dabol has been hiding him for gore because he's not a good OC. less hero ball by josh is a good thing, but zero wide open stuff is not. we do lack pass catchers on this team, but in going to the run this game (which overall i approve of) we decided to attempt one single pass to bease (a TD no less) and get away from him completely, and kept hitting the fail button on short yardage over and over again. he just has zero feel for the game and cannot call plays.

I'm not in that camp yet, but i've looked around the grounds, seen a couple of spots that seem pretty attractive. i will disagree with you on one thing, he's not shown ability to call a good game. he can call good drives and certainly has dialed up some solid plays, particularly in the redzone, but he seems to call the game like he's playing madden, just rando throwing plays around and if something sticks, keep going rando. except for goofy empty back field stuff and high risk low reward qb sweeps, he's got those hot keyed and mashes em quite often.

i went back over the horrible philly game. the d was pretty solid in the first half, terrible fumble caused it to be a bad result score wise. i was on board thinking we were soft up the middle (and i agree we seem to have more softness there than anywhere else), but after seeing the all 22 on star, looking pretty good, and watching the game again, what blew my mind were two things: Screens and penalties. penalties weren't as killer for the d this game, but we as a team have a real problem with idiotic penalties. a couple of the holding calls were ultra chinsy, but pre snap stuff can and should be eliminated. the screen passes killed us. those aren't on edmunds or star. those are outside defenders and guys not reading their cues. i know edmunds is the board's kicking boy (and he has great games and terrible ones, his consistency is for ish, i agree w that much) but our other two LBs were trash vs screens on sunday too. execution (if we count penalties as execution) is clearly our biggest issue, but in the past two weeks opponents have found a couple of tendencies/players to exploit and they have done so, on both sides of the ball (after NE stole what would have been our biggest win in years after out coaching us on special teams). our coaches need to come up w some adjustments to implement on the fly if our stuff falls apart again.

i know that's a popular opinion, but the results disagree. chan we just destroyed routinely. jauron won more games and his losses were worse. clapper getting torched so often has me concerned, but i hope the ship gets right

the theme of this thread aside: in what way was chan a better corch than jauron? jauron was obviously not good, but chan had more massive blow out losses than wins (by any margin). fitz getting on a hot streak made the team look better than it was. Chan was awful.

i was losing my ish watching the philly game. what i realize now after look back over some stuff, the D really didn't show up for the second half, was solid for the most part in the first half. the O was a tire fire all day. motor might as well not be on the team even tho he's shown ability as our best offensive weapon, and we very seldom fool the d unless we are in the red zone. penalties are our biggest issue tho. pre snap stuff, sloppy holding when it isn't even a big impact on the play, just kills us. i really think we aren't doing things smartly enough as a coaching staff. not being good in the 3rd quarter shows a lack of adjustments, and on O we have everything set up to pass, we are like top 3 in terms of % plays which are passes/drop backs. between qb and WRs (and pass blocking, but less so) we just aren't good enough at it and the results show it. the players need to execute better obviously, but offensively we need to get the ship running right and in the right direction.

brah, point 2 is a good one. the bills seem very low risk on pass D, not blitzing too much, not trying to get too exotic on coverages, but in order to keep that pass d advantage, we seem to roll the dice some on run D. we don't stack up the box as much as the teams we face (altho that has a lot to do w our passing game), and we seem to require the lb's to make a quick read and shoot the gap, sunday showed us what happens when we don't do that. i understand that bad games are gonna happen, but i just feel frustrated that our coaches and players just aren't as smart as the pats, who always seem to have an adjustment or new wrinkle based on who they are playing and conditions. i feel like we woulda been in the exact same formations if our game was in 65 degree sunny no wind conditions, and that's just not smart.

smoke said that this is the most complicated O he's ever been on. I have no reason to doubt him. we are too clever by half, and just generally not productive. we've gotten worse as a team since the bye, and our O just shat the bed in the second half vs philly. at this point, i see no evidence that dabol doesn't suck.

Unless we flipped an OT for a DT after doing this, I don't know how much of an improvement this would bring the team. DT, WR, mayyyyyyyyyyyyybe LB. That's what we need.

dabol has drawn up some clutch plays here and there, but his overall game plans seem to fall apart badly. w the iggles today you saw a really smart game plan that we failed to stop at all. dabol does not seem to have a feel for the flow of the game nor has he established any bread and butter than he can go back too repeatedly. part of that is a lack of a serious WR who can convert 50/50 balls, part of that is our OL just not being consistent, but it feels like he doesn't make things easy for our team.

im starting to wonder about edmunds. he was spectacular vs NE, and since the bye he's just made mistakes. the one play that blew my mind was when there was a qb draw on (i think) like 3rd and 10. edmunds was in great position, no one on him, and wentz did some kind of fake toss out right and edmunds spun around, and they got the first. edmunds had a clean shot and coulda just hammered wentz. that tells me he's not playing with confidence. i do think we need to go and get a wr and a dt. a guy who can play like star is supposed to play (or how phillips was playing) will give the lb's a little extra juice and will set the tone some. the athletic pointed out, as many of us have noted, under mcd we give up jail break rushing totals and get blown out way more often than we should.

https://www.businessinsider.com/star-lotulelei-nfl-draft-2013-11 INCORRECT! now thanks my post for me remembering obscure football articles from over half a decade ago!

I could be wrong (please correct me if i am) but i think the point of the good run D for the bills is that they don't stuff the box or load up on size, so instead of playing rock paper scissors vs the O, they just line up in base or nickle and stuff the run up pretty well.

i thought he was decent last year, clearly was not cheap to sign tho. he does seem to have fallen off some. I remember when this guy was coming out of college, he was considered one of the top two or three players in the draft due to talent. I wonder if something is physically wrong w him this year.

total yards, and yards per play will give you a good idea.

what is really interesting for these kind of takes is that the reviewer is quick to discredit things that did happen but were generally unexpected or unlikely (pick at the 2 yard line, circus catch of an onside kick for a TD), but generally don't credit otherwise likely things that didn't happen (knox drop for a 4 point swing, houghes not bringing fitz down for a sack where he scored, another 4 point swing). this is why handicappers generally look at stats like Yards per play, yards per pass attempt (both on D and O) and broader team stats like that to gauge how good a team is. it's also why people rate O and D based on yards over points, because points are heavily affected by special teams, and where you start with the ball.