colin

baldinger was on bussin w the boys. he dropped some stat, i didn't check it, but something like how the chiefs have no holding calls on offense in teh playoffs, or very very few. 1000+ snaps, mostly vs top defenses in the nfl, and no holding? i mean, we saw groots helmet come off on a play, he must have just pulled it off himself and we are lucky he didn't get flagged. the sort of accepted unwritten rule that the refs put the whistles away in the playoffs is at best negligence. it just opens up room for selective enforcement of rules.

while obviously i want to move on from the entire front office, i now think the only option going forward (as i presume there will not be FO changes) is: 1. Get a top flight outside WR. we have hollins down the field and zero else. he's a sub replacement guy prior to being here, but he got our only two solid deep pass plays. i say keep him cuz he's cheap and a dawg, and get higgins or someone in trade or FA who can ball out down the fild. 2. Look to get an upgrade on the interior OL. if we can draft a guy, who at worse would be depth, who might be able to start over one of our middle three, it could be huge. guard play was awful on some passing downs vs kc. if we get a C we can slide mcgovern back to guard, less ideal than just upgrading G, but i just want a front 5 who are great. right now we are really good, pretty monster in run blocking, but too many breakdowns in pass pro 3. CB. our cb play was just so awful vs kc, we need a real cb. i dunno if you nee a top 5 guy or just a good guy or whatever, but we need another one. 4. fill in every other hole with the draft and free agents who are dirt cheap. we don't need these dq jones and curtis samuel and that guy addison from years back players. replacement level guys who get paid more than replacement to make mcd feel good about having people he likes in back up positions just isn't worth the cap it drains from the rest of the pool. knox and milano are also contracts that hurt us, big contracts in non premium positions. knox is decent but paid like a great one (we even moved up to draft 86 after signing him. milano is a stud (or was) but he hasn't been a game changer in years (even then, an off ball lb can only do so much). for now we need youth and talent and just get guys in places. and sadly, that's it. with mcd we can be certain our d will not be good in the playoffs, so we need to add talent to ensure they don't totally blow, and go hard on the O so allen has weapons and protection to get 39 instead of 29 vs kc.

the defense was one fluke fumble loss from allowing a TD on all four of their first half possessions. the ball was out fast and for a high YPA, they allowed more points than kc has scored all season. they sucked. the bills o had a chance to score with not much time left in the game, sure, but points count for the same in all four quarters. if the d had forced a turnover or made an actual stop in the first quarter, the 7 points that came off the board then would count just the same as in any other.

oh, it certainly was, and better in the 2021 season, and i'd say at least as good if not better in the 2023 season. exact same results every time, historically bad defense in the playoffs. schematically and philosophically we impose almost no difficulty on opposing offenses. honestly, a big part of it is how absolutely scared of deep passes we are. on the qb school recap which was posted on this board (great youtube channel for x and o stuff) they guy was going on a bit about how we had a deep safety in the red zone, about how we had linebackers behind the line and sort of just kinda pre eliminated from getting to whichever edge kc chose to attack. the kc attack vs us was so quick (i think we might have really over keyed on the inside runs, which we shut down but we had zero to the edges when mahomes just waddled in for tubs) that no level of pass rush from the front four would have impacted it very much. we had unblocked ends (by their design) on several pass plays and it didn't even hurry mahomes. our failure was at the back end, both because our talent is azz, and because schematically we are so afraid of a deep pass, seemingly even in the red zone, that we have guys back and can't do much to trick and disguise. mahomes had his highest epa game of the season and the highest success rate of his entire career. he's never once had a game where first downs came easier. in no way, in any world, did the defense make enough plays to win the game. they were horrible.

allen was off on more throws than i would expect, he was yippy and excited. if you replace allen on that team with any other qb in the nfl, including mahomes, you still lose and almost certainly by more.

didn't lewis get a chip as a dc w baltimore? i might have to draft an apology to lewis for the comparison!

lol wat im just saying you can look back and answer the question of what mcds d looks like w a ton of picks and money invested -- it is historically awful come playoff time.

i know you are joking, but i'd hire spaggs and just have him leave the offense alone. he runs the d, gives the O pointers on how easy some of our stuff is to beat, and he knows all about fat andy's tendencies. at his worst he'd have our D allow mahomes his highest epa game of the season and highest success rate game of his career, which would exactly match what we just had (and our prior complete melt downs on D). he'd also hurt the kc d by not being there, and that would be enough for us to have won that game.

sad. i do remember seeing jones and maybe another guy up too tight to the line on the sneak. it's silly that pre snap procedural stuff like that can't be caught on the replay, and that no one spotted it to start. i think kc is like the old ne teams in that they look deep into the details and observe what doesn't really get called, allowing their RT to line up way beyond legal depth all the time and getting called for it only sometimes, and crowding the heck out of the line vs us on the short yardage stuff. between this game and the insane calls last game vs houston, i'm thinking there will be some rules committee action.

was he really? do you have a link, or know what play he was hurt on? tx

can you summarize as this is behind a pay wall?

you don't have to look forward to what our FO can do with a huge investment in the D, you can look back and see their failures. in 2022/2023 we had the number 2 d in points, and the number 2 o as well. we let cinci walk on us, scoring 14 points on their first two drives with their oline being depth players in 2 or 3 spots. we had all of those picks and most of our cap in the D, we had allen on a rookie contract, and diggs was on a cheap contract compared to his re up. given ideal circumstances, the mcd defense did in that year exactly what it has done in every single year in playoff elimination games: start slow, allow touchdowns, and absolutely suck. allen had his break up/scandal the night before so maybe we never had a chance, but with multiple top picks and a crazy % of cap on the D we once again got steamrolled in the playoffs. in elimination games we allow over 4 points per drive, barely have any turnovers or sacks, and we start slow on d even in games we win. we always have our opponents perform above their average in terms of EPA, points scored, success rate, etc. against us in the playoffs. realistically, our best shot given our limitations at coaching is to get one or two studs on d to maybe make a few plays to get some stops occasionally, and to add outside wr talent and perhaps OG talent so that we can score at an even crazier rate than we allow. i trust allen, cook, and our tackles to be able to deliver on this, but it will still take improvement and lots of luck for brady to perform at that level.

I of course meant to type 4 or 5 consecutive 40td seasons, but i was distraught with mcd's defense allowing over 4 points a drive in elimination games and messed up!

Any way you measure a head coach, with the exception of lots of regular season wins over his tenure here, MCD is terrible. He's Marvin Lewis with the goat at QB. Worst d ever into he playoffs, but spends so many picks and cash on it we can't get a better wr than hollins for the only player in NFL history with 4 or 5 consecutive TD seasons.

It would make sense if we have a monster contract to sign for a new talent, say Higgins or Metcalf (I think DK would be much cheaper and cost a pick) or Crosby or Hendricks (dude from Cincy who was in NO before) or whoever. I'd bet his agent would want him to not extend now tho, maybe just restructure for cap games.

I think benford is a great story and a really good player, but he just isn't like a Ramsey or that guy we got out of SC who went to the pats, he doesn't have their overall ability. Being banged up two years in a row doesn't help me expectation of his future either, so ya I don't think we'd be right to give him 20 per. MCDs ds have performed so absolutely terribly in the playoffs it might not matter much. I think best case is we min max it and get one stud Cb this off season and just draft a bunch of high potential guys and hope a few work out on d

Groot and Torrence played poorly on this game (Torrence was straight cheeks) but they both had comments about KC just dialed up the right blitz/changed where pressure was coming from or that KC ran plays they never saw. That tells me they think their coaches don't know what they are doing. Given how utter trash our d has been every playoff exit, and that our HC is a d minded coach, and that our OC has no success of any kind before Allen had the fewest toxic plays per snap of any QB ever, I can't blame them

Tyler Dunn had an article. In our elimination games we have had 40 non-kneeldown drives 22 touchdowns 9 field goals 8 punts 1 missed field goal 2 turnovers 166 points allowed … good for 4.15 points per non-kneeldown drive. On D. That's five games. This doesn't include Baltimore walking on us, or Indy lighting us up, or Skyler what's his name for Miami. This is w Frazier, w him as dc, and with this new loser. We had our top 3 or top 5 ds in some of those years. We had our all pro safeties and prime tre white. We had most of our cap and our picks spent on the defensive side of the ball. We had our league leading turnover production (or too 3 or whatever) on these teams. How the hell does anyone think Sean MCD isn't going to ish himself again in a playoff loss? How can anyone be satisfied with this performance? This is with Allen literally having the best playoff stats of any QB ever on a team that puts its treasure into the d. So yes I think babbich should be canned, his d sucked out loud, but sadly I don't see how it matters.

A few factors. Allen is better at holding for longer, we don't have great WRS for it, and we really don't scheme for it. KC doesn't really have early man beating wrs (worthy seems to have to run a bit to find space), but they scheme the heck out of it and torched us with quick throws. I think a better oc would mix some in to give us new wrinkles

Very true. Ironically, they ran w ty and then passed w Cook in to block. They had our best runner block, and our best blocker run. Once again outsmarting themselves

we need to get some actual talent in the secondary. i kinda have hope for bishop, but he made quite a few mistakes. rapp is what we've seen, hamlin is trash. assuming benford's brain isn't leaking out of his nose, he'll be solid again next season. I say we sign a stud or throw our first at a CB. we need someone who can cover man and zone. we'll need an actual athlete at FS too.

the more breakdowns i watch of the bills d vs baltimore and kc in the playoffs, the more certain i am that our biggest talent hole is in the defensive secondary. mahomes got rid of the ball in 1.7 seconds on average when we played man, and barely over 2 when we played zone. no pass rush is gonna change that consistently. now, obviously i fade our coaches hard, but in the interest of what i think will work best for the team given who will be calling the shots, i agree with OP that the one impact that will give us our best chance is a top flight outside weapon. hollins had two back breaking catches on high leverage downs, one was a td one was like 3 yards shy. if a scrub like that is our best passing weapon vs the champs, then you have to think adding an actual player on the outside will pay dividends. im thinking trade for dk metcalf, sign higgens, or whoever else is a top flight guy we might be able to get. id' also look to add pass rush and dbs, specifically corner. I'd be happy to trade picks for a real impact guy at either position. after that, just fill in the roster with draft picks, we have a bunch of them, and start like 6 or 7 rookies on d if we need to (i don't think it comes to that, we have at least 2 DL, both LBs, one CB and one S on the team, so i could see 4 rookies and one vet). it's not like we aren't already giving mahomes his highest epa game of the season and his highest success rate of his career after dumping tons of cap and oodles of high picks into our DL and defense in general, and we are already dealthy afraid of losing johson, bernard, milano, von (when he didn't suck), oliver, jones, bernard, and both of our safeties, all of whom have been out with injuries multiple times, so build on strenght and get allen a monster. in short, our d sucks balls even after all the over investment, so let's stop doing that like morons and make the O in a class by itself and just throw bodies at the D so we don't have hamlin and elam and whatever street free agent we usually have in high leverage downs on DL.

i think anything should be tried. i saw a video (bussin w the boys) about the game. they pointed out how much the bill suck at running the tush push vs philly. they described it as "allen just shifts to his left and goes straight forward, trying to get it on his own" vs how the philly one has a sort of wedge block upfront, and big strong guys ganging up to push hurts. after that video, i went back and watched some replays, and they are exactly right. our qb is so good they have been converting with basic butt qb sneaks w a tiny wr playing david copafeel on allen as he fights for space. also, our coaches are such clowns they never once changed the direction, the set up, or the players involved. i think mcd judges offense based on what beats his d. given his d is literally the woat in the playoffs, he must love every offensive play ever drawn up.

the sabres don't have josh allen

It's pretty clear Brady blows when it calls to running a passing offense. The quality of the blocking, concepts, success rate, creativity, ability to stress the d, etc is so much better in our run game than in our pass game. We still end up having longer to read plays and higher degree of difficulty stuff than our opponents. Some of that is because of how horrible mcds d is, but too much of it is not playing advantage football on the offensive side. I think our coaches are great at getting guys to get along, getting them motivated and on the same page, getting them to bleed for the team (Hamlin rapp Taron and now benford running into the fire with near certainty of permanent brain injury show that). People love our coaching staff, and our entire front office rewards their guys with generous contracts and a seemingly family type environment. I don't give one flying f*** about that. I want a championship and re racking the same losing formula over and over with feel good stories about small slow dbs turning their brains into pink slime with an aw shucks let's try our best attitude isn't going to get us there. Our prior dc walked away, defensive failures are identical to the same team in the same situation as it was before. Dabill left for an hc job, Dorsey got the same results with another divisional loss. Dorsey got scape goated (I don't feel bad, he sucked anyhow) and Brady came in for the next two playoffs -- losing the same way to the same team. If changing the OC and DC gets you the same results, losing or adding a bunch of talent in different spots gets you the same results, you have to find other variables to change.