Evans was missed today

[GG]

Do you really think Belichick wasn't going to make an adjustment to stop a running game that was torching them at the start? Or that Belichick hasn't coached defense against Lee Evans before and been able to make him disappear? For that matter, wasn't cutting Randy Moss supposed to be a mistake for the Patriots because they wouldn't be able to do anything without a deep threat to stretch the field?

 

Don't get me wrong. I'd rather have Lee out there than Naaman Roosevelt any day of the week. But, I don't see Lee Evans as being our Peyton Manning, the one guy that if he goes down the entire offense necessarily must fall apart. If that were true, then explain last week. The Bills played an extremely well coached defense today, and they were confused and largely ineffective as a unit. Maybe they learned something from the ass kicking they received.

 

Bills actually put up some yards on NE whenever they had a decent complement to Evans, like last year & the first game this year. Having Evans there obviously also impacts Fitz's & Stevie's game. For all the flack that Evans gets as the No. 1 WR, Johnson is no where near a top flight WR, but he's a very effective No. 2 and that's how he's been able to grab 10 TDs.

 

To me this game was lost in 1Q because Fitz couldn't beat the defensive realignment and he didn't have a single WR who could stretch the field. Bills obviously don't have enough talent on O, and when they lost their most talented offensive player to injury eventually it would catch to them. Even when they scored 17 on Miami last week, the offense was definitely skipping a beat.

[Buffalo Barbarian]

Evans was missed today.

 

Plain and simple. Two routes to the endzone, one to Jones, one to Roosevelt are BOTH caught by Evans, of this I'm sure. On Fitz's second pick Roosevelt randomly ran away from his spot just as Fitz pulled back to throw.

 

The young guns made some nice plays today, they're definitely scrappy, but even against a suspect pass D they couldn't get it done, couldn't get the separation deep, and did nothing to spread the D.

 

The middle of the field was an absolute minefield today (any word on Nelson?).

 

They don't seem to be on the same mental page as Fitz, yet. And Lee's veteran presence was sorely missing today.

 

I said last week--quite adamantly--that the young fellas showcased some promise. Today, they took a step back.

 

As of today, we definitely still need Evans on this roster.

 

Yeah, Evans would have helped Johnson catch all those drops.

[The Big Cat]

Yeah, Evans would have helped Johnson catch all those drops.

 

You mean like the drop on fourth down when he got LICKED with all those bodies across the middle?

 

Yeah, hardly had anything to do with any of the tactical aspects being discussed in this thread.

[John from Riverside]

Im going to go with the cat on this one......

 

I will say this....on at least one of those throws the defender interfered with the receiver just enough that he couldnt get to the ball......speed might have really hurt the NE corners in this game.

 

I think that Evans and our superstar 7th rounder actually make a good combo.....what we need is a punishing TE that can catch passes over the middle and DELIVER blows to guys like Mayo.....

 

Doesnt matter at this point....NE is just better

[Meathead]

nice job cat. i concur with everything youve said. its nice to see a fan with rational thought amidst all the hysterical children

[MRM33064]

The fact that the question even supports a thread actually highlights the issue.

 

Evans is a nice player, he seems like a polite, soft-spoken guy (which buys him a lot of extra space in Bills fan land), he would start on most teams ... but he is not a game changer.

 

Was he missed? Sure, he's missed out there - particularly on this team. Would his presence have had a major impact on the result? How often has it?

[BuffaloBillsMagic1]

How would he have stopped all the fumbles and INts??

[TPS]

I think most of the critics are missing the main point, having multiple threats makes it easier for the offense to dictate to the defense and spread them out. This is what Gailey said about trying to defend the Pats O. I think Parish was a big loss too. While Evans' stats don't live up to his salary, he helps spread the D out with his speed more than any other WR. If the Bills can add a TE threat, they will have all the skill tools on O to compete next year with:

RBs--FJ and CJ;

WRs--Evans, Parrish, SJ, and the rest (hoping Easely is in the mix as well).

Yes, I think Fitz can be the man.

[The Big Cat]

How would he have stopped all the fumbles and INts??

 

You really need this spelled out for you?

[Sisyphean Bills]

I think most of the critics are missing the main point, having multiple threats makes it easier for the offense to dictate to the defense and spread them out. This is what Gailey said about trying to defend the Pats O. I think Parish was a big loss too. While Evans' stats don't live up to his salary, he helps spread the D out with his speed more than any other WR. If the Bills can add a TE threat, they will have all the skill tools on O to compete next year with:

RBs--FJ and CJ;

WRs--Evans, Parrish, SJ, and the rest (hoping Easely is in the mix as well).

Yes, I think Fitz can be the man.

Nobody is missing the obvious that more weapons would help an offense. Did not having Evans and Parrish and having Nelson go down and not having a TE and not being able to execute against a heavy front hobble the offense? Obviously, these were all factors along with 7 turnovers, penalties, and a terrible defense.

 

The real contention is simply one of degree. Having one more weapon that can run fly routes may or may not have changed anything the Patriots defense threw at the Bills. Given 7 years to go on wrt Lee Evans, the extreme view that he would have single-handedly had a massive total reversal influence in this game, as his presence has never done so before against the Patriots, is highly dubious. Belichick is a great football coach and he can and will adjust his defense from one series to the next because that's what he does. Do we really have evidence that Lee Evans dictates to Belichick?

 

To Cat's OP, the point was just not to draw too strong a conclusion from this one game and decide that Lee Evans is the "magic bullet" and indispensable to the future of Gailey's offense. He isn't.

[The Big Cat]

Nobody is missing the obvious that more weapons would help an offense. Did not having Evans and Parrish and having Nelson go down and not having a TE and not being able to execute against a heavy front hobble the offense? Obviously, these were all factors along with 7 turnovers, penalties, and a terrible defense.

 

The real contention is simply one of degree. Having one more weapon that can run fly routes may or may not have changed anything the Patriots defense threw at the Bills. Given 7 years to go on wrt Lee Evans, the extreme view that he would have single-handedly had a massive total reversal influence in this game, as his presence has never done so before against the Patriots, is highly dubious. Belichick is a great football coach and he can and will adjust his defense from one series to the next because that's what he does. Do we really have evidence that Lee Evans dictates to Belichick?

 

To Cat's OP, the point was just not to draw too strong a conclusion from this one game and decide that Lee Evans is the "magic bullet" and indispensable to the future of Gailey's offense. He isn't.

 

To be fair, the OP hearkened back to the thread I started last week suggesting that Evans became all that more expendable given our success in his absence. The point of this thread was to say that the tactical response to his absence did indeed suggest that his services--or at least the service he can provide--simply can't be fulfilled by the likes of Roosevelt, Nelson, and Jones.

 

To say that there's no correlation between yesterday's turnovers and the absence of a vertical threat is way off the mark. Remember what it was like watching the Trentative offense--when teams gladly surrendered the deep threat? It felt like we got shades of that yesterday, not because the QB was unwilling or unable to make the throw, but because no receiver was able to be that threat. However, Fitz's throws did nothing to account for that either. CJ had his man beat, and would have walked into the endzone had he received a better pass from Fitz.

 

Fitz had bar none his worst game of the season yesterday, and even Brady looked off on his throws. That leads me to believe the stadium conditions also played a role, but in general, grooming Fitz's deep ball is definitely an off season priority for Chan the QB maker. With a couple of deep connections yesterday (cleaner than the ones we had), the whole scope of that game changes. They came out ready to stop the pass so we ran the ball down their throats. They came back out to stop the run and crowd the middle, and we couldn't maximize with plays to the outside. Not for lack of adjustments on our part, but for lack of execution, both from the quarterback AND the receiver.

[TPS]

Nobody is missing the obvious that more weapons would help an offense. Did not having Evans and Parrish and having Nelson go down and not having a TE and not being able to execute against a heavy front hobble the offense? Obviously, these were all factors along with 7 turnovers, penalties, and a terrible defense.

 

The real contention is simply one of degree. Having one more weapon that can run fly routes may or may not have changed anything the Patriots defense threw at the Bills. Given 7 years to go on wrt Lee Evans, the extreme view that he would have single-handedly had a massive total reversal influence in this game, as his presence has never done so before against the Patriots, is highly dubious. Belichick is a great football coach and he can and will adjust his defense from one series to the next because that's what he does. Do we really have evidence that Lee Evans dictates to Belichick?

 

To Cat's OP, the point was just not to draw too strong a conclusion from this one game and decide that Lee Evans is the "magic bullet" and indispensable to the future of Gailey's offense. He isn't.

It seems the only one taking an extreme view is you. Who said anything about Evans dictating to Belicheck? Who said Evans would've single-handedly changed that game? It's obvious that the Bills offense misses evans--that's the obvious point.

 

Whether it's Evans or someone else, the Bills need an outside speed threat for the "obvious" reason. That person could be Easely, but I wouldn't count on it next year. I'd rather keep Evans and the rest of the WR crew.

[Sisyphean Bills]

It seems the only one taking an extreme view is you.

Right, because no one has ever exaggerated here.

Who said anything about Evans dictating to Belicheck? Who said Evans would've single-handedly changed that game? It's obvious that the Bills offense misses evans--that's the obvious point.

When someone says something like "the Bills offense really missed Evans", it is not as big a stretch as you seem to think to believe that they might be saying that Evans would have made a rather large difference in the game versus the obvious point that Evans is a good player and better than a UDFA rookie with limited playing time against the best team in the NFL. At least to anyone that is a native speaker of English.

 

It was crystal clear when I wrote "the extreme view that he would have single-handedly had a massive total reversal influence in this game" what I meant and that I wasn't quoting someone. When having a conversation with someone about a spectrum of outcomes, setting the extremes is a useful way to delimit the discussion point, but, if you're bent on misconstruing things.

Whether it's Evans or someone else, the Bills need an outside speed threat for the "obvious" reason. That person could be Easely, but I wouldn't count on it next year. I'd rather keep Evans and the rest of the WR crew.

Bully for you. We'll see if Nix and Gailey take your advice. Like I said, I'm not sure he'll be around and it won't surprise me if he's not.