Why we lost.. Big uglies were pimp slapped..

[Boatdrinks]

by the Jets yesterday, it's simple as that. How many years has it been now when the Bills go up against a team that plays a certain brand of physical football, they fold? Everyone wants to blame the rookie QB or the perilously thin secondary for the latest Meadowlands mauling, but this is merely the symptom of the disease. Take our eyes off the guys wearing teens,30's and 80's and focus on the ones with 60's 90's and even 50's. When the big boys get punched in the mouth, nothing will work. Now, Nate Hackett did nothing to help his rookie QB or stop the bleeding up front. No screens, calling runs on 1st down, etc. He absolutely ignored OC 101 on how to get out of jail against a pressure D. Letting EJ actually set his feet and throw to some relatively open guys like his counterpart Geno Smith was able to might have manufactured a few drives. Instead, Hackett relied on WR's to beat lots of man coverage (they didn't) and a mechanically scattershot Manuel was overly cautious with his sideline throws in particular. This seems correctable, however. Watch the Jets sideline routes, and you will see the WR;s weren't hugging the sideline, but were a good 5 or 6 yards from it. This gave Geno tons of room to put the ball out there for his WR's to make plays against overmatched corners. Our WR's pressed up against the boundary giving very little area for the ball to be placed w/out risking an INT.A simple design that can turn a rookie QB loose and not be afraid of making a big mistake, but has more potential for the WR to make the play. The D line fared just as poorly and many of the widebodies (Dareus comes to mind), failed to penetrate the Jets backfield on running plays.They got little push and generally lost the LOS on every play. The pass rush was invisible. Geno had few throws that he had to make under any kind of duress. Big advantage to the Jets. Even pedestrian RB's manage huge days against this soft DL. The real bad news for Bills fans is you can brace yourselves for more of the same, as similar D's are in our near future with Ravens, Bengals and Steelers playing this same physical style. The Steelers may be 0-3, but does anyone doubt they would win easily vs Bills? Until we get tougher and more physical on both lines, nothing will work. It's the nature of football. We all heap too much praise and focus too much on the flashy skill position players. It just starts in the trenches where the REAL football is played and won,or in the Bills case ultimately lost.

[Meatloaf Sandwich]

TLDR version... They shot the Buffalo circling the "Armored" wagons.

[1B4IDie]

by the Jets yesterday, it's simple as that. How many years has it been now when the Bills go up against a team that plays a certain brand of physical football, they fold? Everyone wants to blame the rookie QB or the perilously thin secondary for the latest Meadowlands mauling, but this is merely the symptom of the disease. Take our eyes off the guys wearing teens,30's and 80's and focus on the ones with 60's 90's and even 50's. When the big boys get punched in the mouth, nothing will work. Now, Nate Hackett did nothing to help his rookie QB or stop the bleeding up front. No screens, calling runs on 1st down, etc. He absolutely ignored OC 101 on how to get out of jail against a pressure D. Letting EJ actually set his feet and throw to some relatively open guys like his counterpart Geno Smith was able to might have manufactured a few drives. Instead, Hackett relied on WR's to beat lots of man coverage (they didn't) and a mechanically scattershot Manuel was overly cautious with his sideline throws in particular. This seems correctable, however. Watch the Jets sideline routes, and you will see the WR;s weren't hugging the sideline, but were a good 5 or 6 yards from it. This gave Geno tons of room to put the ball out there for his WR's to make plays against overmatched corners. Our WR's pressed up against the boundary giving very little area for the ball to be placed w/out risking an INT.A simple design that can turn a rookie QB loose and not be afraid of making a big mistake, but has more potential for the WR to make the play. The D line fared just as poorly and many of the widebodies (Dareus comes to mind), failed to penetrate the Jets backfield on running plays.They got little push and generally lost the LOS on every play. The pass rush was invisible. Geno had few throws that he had to make under any kind of duress. Big advantage to the Jets. Even pedestrian RB's manage huge days against this soft DL. The real bad news for Bills fans is you can brace yourselves for more of the same, as similar D's are in our near future with Ravens, Bengals and Steelers playing this same physical style. The Steelers may be 0-3, but does anyone doubt they would win easily vs Bills? Until we get tougher and more physical on both lines, nothing will work. It's the nature of football. We all heap too much praise and focus too much on the flashy skill position players. It just starts in the trenches where the REAL football is played and won,or in the Bills case ultimately lost.

The Steelers will not beat the Bills.

The Sky is still where it was on Saturday.

[JPS]

I agree with your premise. The Bills need a big ugly makeover and need to STOP investing 3rd rounders in WRs who MIGHT touch the ball 5 times a game.....if they improve. I admired the way the Jets played D yesterday...except the penalties.

[Boatdrinks]

The Steelers will not beat the Bills.

The Sky is still where it was on Saturday.

 

No, the sky isn't falling. Just pointing out that the real weakness of this team is on both lines. It's hard to win games with poor line play, and that is worse than our skill position players. The Steelers have their OL issues and took one on the chin last night, albeit to a physical aggressive Bears D that has little similarity to the Bills. At this rate, vs Bills might be Steelers first win of the year.

 

I admired the way the Jets played D yesterday...except the penalties.

Agreed. The Jets D plays the way I think us Bills fans are always hoping our D would play. The idiotic penalties took away from a pretty strong outing for them. These games against the Jets are just a little too similar and after awhile you have to look at the guys upfront that consistently get outplayed and give us no chance to win.

[All_Pro_Bills]

The Bills O-line is dreadfully thin. Wood is solid at center while Glenn and Pears are adaquate at tackle, the guard position is weak. The front office did little to nothing to address this obvious deficiency and specifically ignored the need to replace Levitre when he signed with the Titans. While it could be argued there were few free agent options out there during the offseason doing something like signing some vets to a one or two year deal rather than doing nothing would have been a better way to go here. Using some two TE formations to give the QB a little more time, get another big body on the field, and to balance the formation was something I was waiting for yesterday but this didn't happen.

 

The D-line and LB core is even more puzzling. On paper the front seven looks pretty good. In practice they are not playing up to potential. We all saw it but the most troubling thing to me is how easily relatively slow RB's were able to get to the outside edge of the defense and rip off so many long runs. Rather than scheme that looks to me like a lot of over-pursuit and undisiplined play from the DE, OLB position. The secondary is dreadful and how can you can play man-to-man with safeties up close, to do what I am not clear but it certainly wasn't run support, and leave your #6 corner on their #1 receiver? Its hard to comprehend what other than a bad outcome you'd expect if you're the DC in that situation. Pettine made no adjustments to the scheme to help cover the weakness at corner, which was magnified by McKelvin's injury, and left those guys out there swinging in the breeze.

 

The good news is that its only week three but that might be the bad news too..