NFL Live on ESPN disses Bills D

[87168]

Wait, a national sports outlet suggests that the defending SB champs, who’ve controlled the division for almost 2 decades, has a better defense than the Bills...? Wow. What schmucks. 

 

Since the turn of the century, the Pats have more rings than the Bills have playoff appearances. 

[Dablitzkrieg]

12 hours ago, Tatonka68 said:

NFL live on ESPN just said that the New England Patriots are the best and most complete defense in the AFC East. What a joke. They even said they have the best line-backing core. Did you here that Edmunds,  Lo  and Milano ?  I am so tired of this, the Bills need to shut up these jerks up and SHUT OUT the Patriots in week 4. I am calling it. 31-0 whoop-ass on the CHEATS.

Couple things...

 

1.  Didn't know people still use the word "diss"

2.  Do you like the D or no?

[Gisele]

Who cares.  Watch games and form your own opinions.  Don't let someone else's opinions ruin your day.

[Rc2catch]

The bills defense doesn’t deserve the credit. 

They played well last year but they were not a top defense. Teams ran all over us. They ranked well against the pass because in the blowouts and some other games the other teams didn’t need to throw, just run the ball and kill clock for multiple quarters. 

Week one Flacco just abused poor edmunds over and over hitting his tight ends non stop in the middle of the field. 

We watched the games guys, that was not a top 5 or dominant defense. 

I expect better this year although I don’t expect the national media to pay any attention to buffalo unless they start like 6-2 or something great

[thebandit27]

10 minutes ago, Dablitzkrieg said:

Couple things...

 

1.  Didn't know people still use the word "diss"

2.  Do you like the D or no?

 

Isn't that a bit of a personal question?

[thebandit27]

2 minutes ago, Rc2catch said:

The bills defense doesn’t deserve the credit. 

They played well last year but they were not a top defense. Teams ran all over us. They ranked well against the pass because in the blowouts and some other games the other teams didn’t need to throw, just run the ball and kill clock for multiple quarters. 

Week one Flacco just abused poor edmunds over and over hitting his tight ends non stop in the middle of the field. 

We watched the games guys, that was not a top 5 or dominant defense. 

I expect better this year although I don’t expect the national media to pay any attention to buffalo unless they start like 6-2 or something great

 

There's a few misconceptions in your work here:

 

1) They did not rank well against the pass due to the blowout effect. They were just plain good against the pass, as evidenced by the fact that they allowed a league-best 6.3 yards per attempt to opposing QBs. They were also 3rd in the league in passer rating allowed to opposing QBs with a rating of just 82.6.

2) The run defense was middling, not leaking like a sieve as you've implied. They allowed just over 114 ypg, which ranked 17th, and allowed only 4.2 yards/carry, which actually ranked 9th in the NFL.

3) Flacco didn't hit his TEs all day in week 1. Yes, 9 of his 25 completions went to TEs, but 6 of those came in the 1st quarter. Also, it's a bit disingenuous to characterize an entire season's worth of performance based upon what was clearly a total bust of a game in week 1. In fact, when it comes to TEs, the Bills had the best pass defense in the NFL. They allowed the fewest yards to opposing TEs (512) on the 2nd-fewest catches (49). https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2018/fantasy-points-against-TE.htm

 

[Element115]

Who would you trust more to build and scheme a better defense, McDermott or Belichick?  I think both defenses are close, but the nod goes to the Pats D due to what has been proven to be superior coaching.

[Bills4Ever4Life]

TL;DR; the rest of the comments. However, I would like to say that I HAVE been impressed by the Patriots starting defense. They ARE going to be good and they are going to need to be as the offense has been slowly unraveling over the last few years. They did the smart thing and heavily invested in their defense over the years as Brady declined so that as their offense starts stagnating they would have their Defense start dominating. 

 

I'm not saying that they are better than Buffalo, but you will probably be surprised at how good they are.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Bills4Ever4Life

[teef]

32 minutes ago, thebandit27 said:

 

Isn't that a bit of a personal question?

well now it's out there so...

[Rc2catch]

21 minutes ago, thebandit27 said:

 

There's a few misconceptions in your work here:

 

1) They did not rank well against the pass due to the blowout effect. They were just plain good against the pass, as evidenced by the fact that they allowed a league-best 6.3 yards per attempt to opposing QBs. They were also 3rd in the league in passer rating allowed to opposing QBs with a rating of just 82.6.

2) The run defense was middling, not leaking like a sieve as you've implied. They allowed just over 114 ypg, which ranked 17th, and allowed only 4.2 yards/carry, which actually ranked 9th in the NFL.

3) Flacco didn't hit his TEs all day in week 1. Yes, 9 of his 25 completions went to TEs, but 6 of those came in the 1st quarter. Also, it's a bit disingenuous to characterize an entire season's worth of performance based upon what was clearly a total bust of a game in week 1. In fact, when it comes to TEs, the Bills had the best pass defense in the NFL. They allowed the fewest yards to opposing TEs (512) on the 2nd-fewest catches (49). https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2018/fantasy-points-against-TE.htm

 

Stats don’t always tell the whole story and can be misleading. Each game flow is different. 

What are the stats/ranks for the defense in opponents pass attempts per game? 

Incompletions per game?

Completions? 

How about rushing first downs per game? 

Passing play %? 

Rushing play %? 

 

All of those stats tell a different story for the defense. 

[BigPappy]

13 hours ago, Tatonka68 said:

NFL live on ESPN just said that the New England Patriots are the best and most complete defense in the AFC East. What a joke. They even said they have the best line-backing core. Did you here that Edmunds,  Lo  and Milano ?  I am so tired of this, the Bills need to shut up these jerks up and SHUT OUT the Patriots in week 4. I am calling it. 31-0 whoop-ass on the CHEATS.

Why do this? Calling it a shutout long before the game is even played makes for bad Ju Ju man. 

[thebandit27]

16 minutes ago, Rc2catch said:

Stats don’t always tell the whole story and can be misleading. Each game flow is different. 

What are the stats/ranks for the defense in opponents pass attempts per game? 

Incompletions per game?

Completions? 

How about rushing first downs per game? 

Passing play %? 

Rushing play %? 

 

All of those stats tell a different story for the defense. 

 

No offense here, but if you want to make the point that the pass defense wasn't good, shouldn't those numbers be part of the context that you already know and understand in order to support your viewpoint?

[Matt_In_NH]

Whatever, start winning and ESPN will change their ways.   The Pats D is very good and when you consider that they score a lot of points, teams try and catch up, their low scoring against is impressive.   

 

The Bills D was ""ranked" 2nd in yards against which is the official measure of defense.  But they were 18th in scoring.  Most agree this is flawed for various reasons.  Teams that don't score much tend to give up less yards because the opposition does not have to press.

 

The Pats were 7th in scoring defense and 21st in yards....a very good bend but don't break defense.

 

Both are very good, its not obvious to me which is better so I get the complaint but at the end of the day, winning is what gets respect by ESPN types, the Pats win and the Bills dont and its been that way for a long time.

[Rc2catch]

22 minutes ago, thebandit27 said:

 

No offense here, but if you want to make the point that the pass defense wasn't good, shouldn't those numbers be part of the context that you already know and understand in order to support your viewpoint?

I never said the pass defense wasn’t good. 

Just that teams didn’t pass as much against them because they ran more. And ran successfully. The pass defense better be good when teams are passing against you less than almost every other team. 

I posted my opinions on the defense, you posted stats to counter my opinion, and I just told you to look up the stats you missed. Go look up the stats I listed and then come back and tell me the run defense was middling, even though they were next to last in the league in rushing 3rd down first down  % 

Stats are misleading, and can be used to make almost any point. You found some to make yours, I found some to make mine. 

In the end, the big picture was the 2018 buffalo bills defense was not a top of the league defense. Not a defense to be scared of, and certainly don’t deserve credit from the national media when compared to the super bowl champs. 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by Rc2catch

[wppete]

[thebandit27]

1 hour ago, Rc2catch said:

The bills defense doesn’t deserve the credit. 

They played well last year but they were not a top defense. Teams ran all over us. They ranked well against the pass because in the blowouts and some other games the other teams didn’t need to throw, just run the ball and kill clock for multiple quarters. 

Week one Flacco just abused poor edmunds over and over hitting his tight ends non stop in the middle of the field. 

We watched the games guys, that was not a top 5 or dominant defense. 

I expect better this year although I don’t expect the national media to pay any attention to buffalo unless they start like 6-2 or something great

 

47 minutes ago, Rc2catch said:

Stats don’t always tell the whole story and can be misleading. Each game flow is different. 

What are the stats/ranks for the defense in opponents pass attempts per game? 

Incompletions per game?

Completions? 

How about rushing first downs per game? 

Passing play %? 

Rushing play %? 

 

All of those stats tell a different story for the defense. 

 

7 minutes ago, Rc2catch said:

I never said the pass defense wasn’t good. 

Just that teams didn’t pass as much against them because they ran more. And ran successfully. The pass defense better be good when teams are passing against you less than almost every other team. 

I posted my opinions on the defense, you posted stats to counter my opinion, and I just told you to look up the stats you missed. Go look up the stats I listed and then come back and tell me the run defense was middling, even though they were next to last in the league in rushing 3rd down first down  % 

Stats are misleading, and can be used to make almost any point. You found some to make yours, I found some to make mine. 

In the end, the big picture was the 2018 buffalo bills defense was not a top of the league defense. Not a defense to be scared of, and certainly don’t deserve credit from the national media when compared to the super bowl champs. 

 

 

Teams didn't "run successfully" routinely against the Bills. They ran at an average clip; that's what yards per carry tells you. 4.2 isn't bad, in fact, it's top 10. If you somehow believe that the number of incompletions per game, completions per game, or run/pass percentage changes that, well, I'd like to hear your reasoning.

 

When you actually take the time to delve into the numbers, you see that they were, in fact, quite good.  I could point to Football Outsiders DVOA, which takes every metric you're mentioning into context, but let's look instead at the context provided by drive stats:

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/drivestatsdef/2018

 

Notice that the Buffalo defense ranked:

2nd in yards allowed per drive

10th in points allowed per drive

9th in turnovers forced per drive

12th in INTs forced per drive

9th in fumbles forced per drive

1st in plays run by opposing offenses per drive

3rd in time of possession by opposing offenses per drive

6th in drive success rate

 

Absolutely nothing in there indicates that teams moved the ball well routinely. Not in the raw numbers, not in the weighted numbers; nowhere. In fact, the only place that you can really pick nits with their performance is in the red zone.

 

Now for the real kicker: they did all of this despite having the worst average starting LOS per drive in the league.

 

It sounds like what you really wanted to say was that they weren't an elite unit, which is fine, but let's remember that the original bone that I picked was that the pass defense only looked as good numbers-wise because of blow-outs and them supposedly getting run all over.  That is categorically untrue.

[Rc2catch]

3 minutes ago, thebandit27 said:

 

 

 

Teams didn't "run successfully" routinely against the Bills. They ran at an average clip; that's what yards per carry tells you. 4.2 isn't bad, in fact, it's top 10. If you somehow believe that the number of incompletions per game, completions per game, or run/pass percentage changes that, well, I'd like to hear your reasoning.

 

When you actually take the time to delve into the numbers, you see that they were, in fact, quite good.  I could point to Football Outsiders DVOA, which takes every metric you're mentioning into context, but let's look instead at the context provided by drive stats:

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/drivestatsdef/2018

 

Notice that the Buffalo defense ranked:

2nd in yards allowed per drive

10th in points allowed per drive

9th in turnovers forced per drive

12th in INTs forced per drive

9th in fumbles forced per drive

1st in plays run by opposing offenses per drive

3rd in time of possession by opposing offenses per drive

6th in drive success rate

 

Absolutely nothing in there indicates that teams moved the ball well routinely. Not in the raw numbers, not in the weighted numbers; nowhere. In fact, the only place that you can really pick nits with their performance is in the red zone.

 

Now for the real kicker: they did all of this despite having the worst average starting LOS per drive in the league.

 

It sounds like what you really wanted to say was that they weren't an elite unit, which is fine, but let's remember that the original bone that I picked was that the pass defense only looked as good numbers-wise because of blow-outs and them supposedly getting run all over.  That is categorically untrue.

You win, that is waaaaay too much work and time consumption for me to dive into to make a point. I stand by my statements while they may have been broad side of a barn kind of statements and you make valid points to pick some of that apart. Well done sir ?

[thebandit27]

6 minutes ago, Rc2catch said:

You win, that is waaaaay too much work and time consumption for me to dive into to make a point. I stand by my statements while they may have been broad side of a barn kind of statements and you make valid points to pick some of that apart. Well done sir ?

 

It's not really about winning man; I guess I just figured that--if you're like me--you'd want to know when you're drawing a conclusion that doesn't necessarily mesh with the information.

 

Hope that didn't come off as over-reaching; I tend to like the analysis part of it.

[mrags]

5 hours ago, formerlyofCtown said:

Those stats were blown up by a few games.  Just as our #2 rating was aided by our pass D.  Consistency was the issue.

Teams probably felt fortunate they could run on us because passing wasn't an option.  Some day you will actually watch something other than stats when you break things down.  

 

Age is not a factor in rating a players play on the field.  It could be something that affect their play.  Whether you're 25 and good or 45 and good makes no difference.  Something is wrong with your analysis when your only critique of a guy is that he's old.

 

What they accomplished with how inept the offense was is impressive.

 

Milano was playing at a probowl level before his injury.  One of the problems with our D was Milano wasnt out there.

Lololololololol!!!

 

when I actually watch games huh? We were 6-10 genius. When we really needed to get off the field we couldn’t stop the other team. They ran It down our throats because that’s all they needed to do. And the statistical fact that we gave up a TD over 70% of the time when the opponent was in the red zone is ridiculous. It should tell you everything we need to know about our defense last year. 

 

If if you cannot see that Lorax is old and not as good because of that, then maybe you should watch games. On obvious passing downs they don’t even bother using him in coverage because he’s terrible at it. They either having him blitzing or off the field altogether. 

 

And yes, Milano was solid. But let’s not get too crazy about having a pro bowl year. First of all, the pro bowl is a joke anyway and that’s been argued ad nauseum. Second, he wasn’t that good anyway. I get it, people love him around here but he’s just a starting LB in the league. 

 

If you take the rose colored glasses off maybe you’d realize all this. 

[thebandit27]

2 minutes ago, mrags said:

Lololololololol!!!

 

when I actually watch games huh? We were 6-10 genius. When we really needed to get off the field we couldn’t stop the other team. They ran It down our throats because that’s all they needed to do. And the statistical fact that we gave up a TD over 70% of the time when the opponent was in the red zone is ridiculous. It should tell you everything we need to know about our defense last year. 

 

If if you cannot see that Lorax is old and not as good because of that, then maybe you should watch games. On obvious passing downs they don’t even bother using him in coverage because he’s terrible at it. They either having him blitzing or off the field altogether. 

 

And yes, Milano was solid. But let’s not get too crazy about having a pro bowl year. First of all, the pro bowl is a joke anyway and that’s been argued ad nauseum. Second, he wasn’t that good anyway. I get it, people love him around here but he’s just a starting LB in the league. 

 

If you take the rose colored glasses off maybe you’d realize all this. 

 

https://billswire.usatoday.com/2019/02/06/lorenzo-alexander-did-it-all-pro-football-focus-buffalo-bills/

 

"Just grazing Alexander’s statistics, it’s easy to see he’s still got it, too. In total, Alexander had 74 tackles and 6.5 sacks in 2018, up from only three in 2017. His career-bests come in were in passes defended (9) and interceptions (2)."