colin

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.

LOL. you cheeky kent.

i put him at C, maybe C+. To me he's a EP version of Roman. ton's of formations, a bit overly complicated. his scheme gets individual plays to execute for good gains, but he lacks a feel for the game or adjusting on the fly to the D. with what Miami and NE did to us, just crowding the line of scrimmage and confusing the qb and protection, i think there are some things he needs to figure out to avoid free blitzers getting a hit, which they do way too much. im usually not someone who thinks you call out a coach for playcalling, because you are limited to what you have practiced and are crisp at, but i do think dabo lacks a feel for the game at times. all of the pre snap penalties make em think the team is under prepared for how complicated the O is (remember smoke said it is the most complicated O he's ever seen? I think that's an issue for us)

i agree we are a pass first O, but i don't think we actually have an identity. the penalties and goofy mix up of formations, along with not getting anything going in almost every game until the 4th, tells me we are still a work in progress and dabo needs to figure out how to call plays better, or just prepare the team better.

i was gonna like your post, but you just pointed out it is worse than even i thought. pre snap and holding penalties are just bad offensive design/execution. i really think dabo has the team shuffling around and not getting any kind of identity or rhythm going.

im starting to think the penalties that we have had are really what has been killing us. pre snap stuff along w just enough blunders to keep drives alive. roughing the passer, d holding, o holding, etc.

agreed. they flashed a stat showing that we are like 7th in rushing and 20 something in passing, and i remember seeing on twitter that coming into this week, we passed the 2nd most (% wise) of any team in the NFL. im sure some of the run success comes from how much we pass, but we really have to change the mix a little bit to get some more 3rd and shorts.

they are, but ironically they are just horrible in the 3rd quarter. so it's really all in the 4th quarter where we win games. with the exception of the NE game, where we stank for almost all of it, it's a couple good drives early, some D stops early, and either huge turnovers that let the opponent get back in it, or just a series of idiot penalties. that is followed by a "here we go again" 3rd quarter where we just blow, and then a spectacular 4th quarter come back. i like the results, but i don't know how much longer i can take the excitement.

josh played decently vs miami, i too am wondering where the long ball went. i do agree about dabol and josh tho. not as much that dabol isn't fitting his system to josh as much as i don't think he has a system. he's got so many formations and plays and he seems to dial up plays out of the blue without much feel for the game. i think that leaves us unprepared, as our horrible horrible pre snap penalties show.

i was gonna say that jackson doesn't have much less than allen to work with, but then i realized their cast off WR who was a bit of an after thought is easily our best offensive weapon, so i'm not so sure. The bills are very capable of winning this game or losing this game. it comes down to how many stupid things the bills do. the stat about the bills leading the nfl in pre snap penalties, with 24 in 6 games, was a shocker. that's just not a smart or well executing football team.

my issues w PFF are: their model is not predictive. It just doesn't tell us who is going to play well and lead their team to wins next season. tyrod being ranked high on what in retrospect was a perfectly optimized O for him is a great example. they might have consistently great qbs ranked consistently high, but so does every fan who just watches the games, or just sees the QB stats. they seem to err on the side of "do no harm", tyrod vs josh allen shows us that. tyrod is physically or psychologically incapable of making a play in most circumstances. him never winning when down by like 7 at the half or ever down by 1 point in the 4th is pretty shocking. if you remember the jaxonville playoff game, he contributed basically zero all game. making mistakes hurts, and josh has made just idiotic mistakes, but the ability to make plays while also making mistakes is more important than the absence of mistakes. the models they use require data integrity which isn't possible. these guys with their adjustments for 100% on the mark, and however the rate each individual player at different positions is basically un-falsifiable guesses that they jam in there. If their metrics don't related to how players are bid for in free agency (where they have some OG ranked as like 2nd and he signs a small contract, while some guy they have as 65th gets a big ol wad of cash) over a large number of players, either they are the only people on the planet who actually understand pro football, or the GM's and coaches in the NFL disprove their rankings. im much more interested in team statistics, which are more meaningful and are predictive.

i'd say yes, but not by much. wins over the next 3 games and we have every reason to be high on the team, 2-1 and there could be a few questions, 1-2 big questions, 0-3 and we were totally fake. we need allen to make plays and not turn the ball over, and everything else basically stay the same to be a top tier team.