OCinBuffalo

Yes, but how? Better teams don't just wish overcoming their mistakes into being. They are better at the things that are most likely to happen in a game. We can PFF our way into it, if you want, but the approach doesn't matter. In the end, the teams, players, team on a single play, player on a single play, player executing fundamental within a single play is nice...but if they aren't the best at what is most likely to happen? Silly Example: Kyle Williams could run the ball more. We could examine him, the play, the team, and conclude that he should run the ball more, in general, never mind goal line...because it worked. Is that probable?

I stopped at "straw man". Before I read anything else: I am done with people who don't know what a strawman argument is, using that term. You tell me exactly what a straw man argument is, specifically, now. I'm not going to read anything else of your post, which may be good for all I know, until that happens.

But that's the point: teams get graded on seasons, not on single games. Or worse, single instances of a blocked kick in a single game. For every blocked kick, or INT, or punt flub or whatever, good teams are good, so the outcome of the mistake is almost always mitigated. How? Because 90% of the time after the mistake, the opposing team has to go right back to the probable(running an offense, playing defense) and be successful with it, for the mistake to matter. With this post I am specifically referring to the ST teams changes, combined with the elite punters and kickers of today, that have made ST significantly less relevant. Those rule changes weren't 15 years ago, so WTF? Also, there's a difference between an organization showing a pattern of being unprepared/poorly led, over a set period of time, and, delving into each instance of bad managers/decisions. You can do both. And, pointing to a series of management teams making the same mistake does not equal saying all management teams are the same, nor does it suggest that there hasn't been a series of teams. Nope. What I am saying is: regardless of who is in charge/who holds the power, pretending that it's 1985 is a problem. You do see that you could line up 10 GMs, and if they all approach DBs the same, it wouldn't matter if you only had one for 10 years, or all ten of them, each for one year, over ten years, we'd get the same result. Right?

Exception that proves the rule. Ultimately, it's not about existence, it's about probability. I build a team that is prepared for what is, in order, most probable. I don't worry about covering every single base just so I can say I did. Ultimately, ideally, you want to do it all. Reality says you need to do first things first.

How often, over the course of an entire season, does a kickoff get run back? For real yards? How often does it get kicked into the endzone? What year is it? The mutation of kickoffs into what they now removes at least 50% of the relevance of STs. Oh, because one guy does one return, or even 2? All year? These are overwhelmingly nullified by the sheer # of kicks to nowhere(endzone). So, why am I building a team on worrying if I have the dudes to cover a play that's only going to be real...perhaps 5-10% of the time, on perhaps 4-5 plays out 200? in a game, over the course of a season? Meanwhile, I know lining up against 3 WR and a TE is going to happen 80-85% out of 50-80? defensive plays in a game. Sorry, but look at the numbers correctly and get: irrelevant. What's left? Punt and FG teams. Again: if you F it up it's a big deal, but, mostly? Not that important in today's game. Why? Because punters and kickers are so good now. You can do everything right on a punt return, all that effort from 11 guys....and one guy on the other team can force a fair catch, which makes everything you do meaningless. FGs are even worse. Ask yourself: why is a single blocked kick such a huge deal. Answer: because they are so rare. Rare==irrelevant, when I'm building a team for a 16 game season. The NFL makes ST less and less relevant every year. You don't like it? Fine. But you still have to deal with it, because: reality. My presumption? I think you can get both Bill and I to agree on: if they plan at all, they've done it poorly, for the last 15 years. I've already made my offer to help you out. Demanding the literal, in a situation that is entirely figurative? Yeah, you don't seem to get...much...do you?

Yeah. That's what happened. Buddy, read above(hell read in general). How about page one? Apparently everybody but you has figured out what this thread was about. Ok. Tell you what: I can give you a half hour tomorrow of additional instruction, and by the end of it you will know what's actually going on here. I can do 10 am, 1:30pm and 4:30. What's best for you? Yeah and if saying made it so.... I need to see real movement on this, now. I need to see it attacked on all levels. Yeah we want good DBs, no we don't want to overpay for 1 guy. Yeah, we need to spend more than 1 later round pick on CB, and we need to do that for at least 3 years in a row. Like I said above at least 1 in the top three, and 1 more later, 3 years in a row, and we MIGHT have a chance out of this. If nothing else: that approach lets you make trades, during the season, when you get the most, not during FA, when you get the least.

All true. Which is why I am talking about a program, not one guy, not one signing, not any more of the same old, short-term thinking. Hey, we could do the same thing for O line too. Same thing for QB. Like I said above: I don't really care what has been done. It hasn't worked. Results are not efforts. What I do know is we are in the same place we were last season wrt a complete lack of talent at 4-6 starting positions on this team. It's far past time to move on from treating this as a player by player issue, and start looking at it as a program.

Yeah. So clueless that this thread...worked exactly as intended.

Written like a true scholar. Wow, you and Domdab99 should start a writing club. There's nothing to enjoy about a tank...unless it works. But, whether we tank or not will be completely irrelevant, if we don't use to the resources provided properly, and ensure we don't have street FAs/practice squad covering NFL WRs. Think. We can't get the job done with these guys in the RS against average WRs. What if we do everything to make the best O line possible, such that now we are a "sure" playoff team...and still fail to address DBs? What chance to we have against elite WRs in the playoffs? The tank doesn't matter, nothing matters, until we get serious about a long-term DB program on this team. Not one year, not mass FA signings, not over-investing in one guy. No, an every year commitment to drafting and signing a whole room of guys who are going to be here long term.

Right, because using similar wording to achieve the exact opposite outcome...isn't the textbook definition of literary irony, which, is why I provided you with the textbook definition. You may think you know what it means. The textbook is sure of it.

No. NO RB! IYRC, I hated the Lynch pick. I hated the McGahee pick. What do I have to learn: how many years in a row do YOU want to start Silly McCantTurnHisHips against Brady? How about 3 of them, with 1 good corner? Do you really think offensive line is the reason we lost both games to the Patriots last year? And, no, I didn't call you out. If I wanted to call you out, I would have started a thread like "the top 10 things Bill has been wrong about for the last 10 years". No, this was merely a goof, to make a point. And hey, I don't do drugs. I'm asking as a long time comrade: knock that off. It's a small thing, and if you want to run with it as a troll that's fine, but, I don't give money to assclowns, so they can give it to even worse people. Here's your help

What am I supposed to do? Hit a cop? I could throw some bacon at him(or, I do have some left-over pulled pork), but I suppose even that would get me sent up. EDIT: Actually, I would never throw that pulled pork at anyone, least of all Bill. Huge waste of good food. I would hand it to him, in sandwich form, tell him he's an [], and to shut up and eat his sandwich.

Which...is why 5 DBs + 2 LBs should have been able to cover a bunch of no-name WRs/TEs. That's what we had: no-names vs no-names. I expect that out of the Jets(50 years of no SB). I don't expect that out of the Bills. I don't expect it out of this FO. Moreover, I expect this board to recognize the pattern, and therefore, act accordingly during FA/draft time.

Oh please, cop. Pull that crap on somebody else. You know me, and you know better: it doesn't matter what I've ingested(and drugs? really? come on), you've got 13 years of the same old same old to answer for. You know it, I know it, and this game is just one drop in a sea.

Don't confuse effort with results. Drafting a guy here and there, or even over-drafting/signing FAs is not exemplary of anything...other than highlighting that you are now playing catch-up for what should have been done 3 years ago, 2 years ago, last year. Over-spending on CB in one year is a panic move....because you didn't spend properly every year prior. FA signings? RFKM? Do we need to go all the way back to the Nate Clements fiasco? For both us AND the 49ers? The root of all that error is basing CB/DB thinking on 1-2 guys. Again, we need a swarm. Again, we need to be thinking about building a program of CBs, not filling a single position.

Yeah, because that was the gameplan == make the rookie throw. Do I agree with it? Probably not. I'd rather we rushed. But, I am not the coach. McD did what he thought would work and, just like last game(just like for countless games), for 2.5 quarters it did work. It worked until the Jets got desperate, and started making longer, high-risk throws. Which should work to our advantage...but it didn't, because we have (insert dude here) playing CB, again.

Look, I know this issue so well that I have the best comeback to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Cockrell Yeah, yeah, we used a #4 pick on a guy who couldn't make our team, and ended up starting for the Steelers. Is that good? No. Do I like that? Of course not. The problem: short term thinking. We need a long-term plan to ensure a constant supply of CBs, not one year where we go all out on them and end up wasting resources. And, like I said, it's not like we haven't had 8+ years of reasonable GMs to get this right. It would have changed the 3 other 3rd down plays that had no business being caught with 7 guys back, and, we only needed 1 of them to win the game. That's what this is: %s. I don't expect even 4 all-pro CBs to stop everything. I do expect that I'm not going to have to check the internet to figure out who is playing DB for the Bills, in games 10-16, every damn year for 10 years in a row.

No, I alluded to it in the OP. I specifically said that we can't count on 1 DB to be the answer to all things passing. We can't. The bottom line: opposing QBs have to see a swarm, not a single number to avoid pre-snap.

I do not care. There is no difference between this year, and the last 10 years: we are still starting rookie/street FA/practice squad/random dude players at DB. We are still being burned late in the season routinely because of it. There is literally 0 difference between our pass defense problems last year, and this year. The only difference, which accounts for our record, is that our starting QB played most of last year, and this year he didn't. We can never be a serious playoff contender if we continue to pretend that it is 1985.

Buffalo stopped the run all day. They had a few lucky, un-called holding runs, but that is not why we lost. Special teams is irrelevant if you have a secondary that can cover all 4 guys: at best they get FGs, 8-90% of the time even when the ST gives up plays. We had no pass rush because we did not pass-blitz. Lots of run-blitz. Which means: we knew we were weak in coverage, so, even with trying to help that weakness, and take some away from the rush, we STILL couldn't cover when it counted most. Again, it's always the same lame excuses/delusions. Again: you need 4 good CBs to play a game, and elite ones are a bonus. I'd rather have 4 good than 2 elite, and 2 mediocre.

We rushed 4 almost the entire game, and exclusively in the 4th. Thus, no excuse for 7 guys being unable to cover 3-4. EDIT: Unless? 3 of those 7 don't belong on the field(yet, or ever).

Stand Corrected. Diminishment of Point: 0%

Heh, Bill knows far better than to get himself involved in this thread, today. Both of us have an above-average understanding of the game. Thus, he knows that walking into this thread, with me on the warpath, is a no-win proposition. Nah, he'll start his crap right after FA, when we don't overpay for the G he wanted. (Now, that? That is me...trolling.) Right, you can't put 3 key 3rd down completions in the 4th QTR on the DBs. Ok, can you put one of them on them? 1 was all we needed to win the game.

I have a rep for managing the threads I start. Again, ask anybody. Don't take it any other way than proper thread management.

This is not an Allen thread, nor should it be: Allen did excellent, and given a few mid-level resources expended on the line, in FA, he'll have plenty of time to throw next year. That's not why we lost the last 2 games in a row. We lost them because we had the other team physically beaten, which is the purpose of lines, we could not stop the unlikely/low %/lucky crap/ref provided(however defined) passes that gain huge yards and change the game. Don't forget: we cut EJ Gaines because of 2 PIs that gave away another game. That's just this year. You want me to go over every instance, every year? I can, but you won't like how long that post is. How many times must the lesson be repeated?