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Why Last Year's Defensive Record Might Be Deceiving


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32 minutes ago, Casey D said:

Totally agree.  If you look at the Board comments after the Philly game last year, they read much like current comments on the defense.  Front is too small, big lines will run it down our throat, etc.  But they fixed it last year.  I'm pretty sure they will fix it again.  In the meantime instead of getting blown out when the defense is down, the offense is picking the team up and getting the win.  I think that is the step the team is taking from being a good team in 2019 to being really good in 2020.

My worry is that they "fixed it" by playing crappy QBs - at least in part. Hope you are right.

Edited by Last Guy on the Bench
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I'm willing to concede that our weak schedule in 2019 played some factor.

But not to the level we are seeing so far this season.

 

Great offenses make plays, regardless of how good a Defense is.

But we had no answers for them yesterday.  We couldn't stop the run.  We couldn't stop the pass.  We couldn't get pressure.  We couldn't tackle.  We were leaving guys wide open all over the field.

 

Something isn't right, and McDermott needs to figure it out.

 

 

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1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

And this is what I don't get about the "we miss Star" arguments. When the Eagles ran for 218 against us what was the excuse? What about the 147 we gave up to the Browns? Run defense has been a consistent thorn in the McDermott era and most of it actually is not dline related. It is the fact our linebackers are not downhill thumpers and are not always, especially Edmunds, the most gap disciplined. We don't fit the gaps well. The couple of plays where Edmunds hit his right gap early yesterday they stopped the Rams pretty much right at the line. Am I saying Star wouldn't help at all? No. But players seem to become better when they are not out there. Star isn't the silver bullet now anymore than he was when the Eagles had him on skates a year ago.

I don’t think they necessarily miss Star. However, Edmunds plays his best when the NT in front of him is playing well. It’s a combination on not having a dominant DT and the limitations/skill sets of our linebackers. I doubt there’s a real fix to our run defense outside of FA or the draft.... just bandaids 

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7 minutes ago, Buffalo Junction said:

I don’t think they necessarily miss Star. However, Edmunds plays his best when the NT in front of him is playing well. It’s a combination on not having a dominant DT and the limitations/skill sets of our linebackers. I doubt there’s a real fix to our run defense outside of FA or the draft.... just bandaids 

 

Star was never dominant anyway. He was solid and yes, he would help. But he was never dominant against the run here. Our main issue remains linebacker gap discipline IMO. But you are right we do lack a defensive tackle that helps to mitigate at least some of that.

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1 hour ago, Last Guy on the Bench said:

 

 

Quite a difference. We survived Goff thanks to our now truly delightful offense. Hopefully the Defense will improve, but I'm feeling very skeptical, since they seem to struggle against good QBs, especially in the 2nd halves once those QBs are able to make adjustments to our carefully schemed out 1st halves.

 

I think we struggled against the run last year too.  If they don't fix the run game (both offense and defense) we will be in trouble.

10 minutes ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

I’m not sure it was deceiving, it was their performance against who they played. as Micah said, Not apologizing for playing their schedule. 
 

Other than Brady and Lamar, the Bills faced a bunch of middling to awful QBs. 

 

Star and Lorax contributed more than folks realize. 

And Shaq Lawson was stout against the run

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part of it is holding not getting called, part of it is the d is rusty and out of shape (see that all over the nfl), but part of it is poor play.

 

im starting to agree w the people who said edmunds isn't a MLB.  maybe ship him to strong side and get a real MLB, cuz i dont want to give up on his talent level.

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It's well-known that offenses typically take more time to round into form.  There's a certain level of coordination that goes into offense which defense doesn't require. 

 

It's also not as if most of these guys on defense haven't played together.  The secondary, LBs, and most of the DL are all veterans of the McD scheme, so it's not a new unit that's playing.

 

I think the weak schedule last season is a factor, but it's also other teams seeing weaknesses on Buffalo's defense.  Particularly up the middle with Edmunds.  He's not a MLB in the NFL and still has meh instincts. 

 

Teams had an entire off-season to review other teams.  Either McD and Frazier adapt or this will continue to happen.  Yesterday a better HC almost beat McD's defense because he adapted better.  Same thing happened during the WC game in January.

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1 hour ago, ProcessTruster said:

D is not that important in the NFL anymore.  great offense is.   I'll trade in a great for a good defense to get a great offense in today's NFL everyday.   If you are not scoring 30+ most games , the rules have you going nowhere in today's NFL.   so I am good.  go Bills.  Davis and Diggs huge additions this year.  

 

I respectfully disagree.   D will always be important.

 

To win you have to score more than the other team.  So you have to find ways to score a lot and to prevent the other team from scoring a lot.  Defense will always be exactly equal to offense in terms of importance.  

 

 

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1 hour ago, mannc said:

We’ve jumped out to big leads in all three games...Maybe the problem is with the style of prevent defense we’re playing.  Also, the offense is scoring much faster this year, resulting in more possessions for the other team.  Things to think about...

 

There's something to this as the D was obviously winded in the 4th quarter.  I get it, was sunny and hot-ish, but they looked strait up out of shape and getting shoved around.   I just looked, and ToP was 32-28 in favor of the Rams.  It felt worse than that though

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39 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Star was never dominant anyway. He was solid and yes, he would help. But he was never dominant against the run here. Our main issue remains linebacker gap discipline IMO. But you are right we do lack a defensive tackle that helps to mitigate at least some of that.

Sorry if I wasn’t being clear. I didn’t mean to insinuate that Star is a dominant DT. He is however to have the occasional game where he eats two blockers and flashes (Dallas). He’s also average enough to get his ass handed to him by probowl level offensive linemen. 
 

My primary point was that this team needs to either procure a top 5-10 NT/1T or LBers that are more instinctive and disciplined against the run. The latter will likely have a negative impact on the passing defense. Upgrading the 1T is likely the cheapest and simplest “fix” considering it’s generally a value position. 

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23 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

I can't believe I had to argue with a few during the week that our defense is not elite.... it's far from it. 

 

They had had absolutely no answer in the 2nd half. 

I think your take about the second half yesterday has been a little too simplistic. Here is my view: I felt like McDermott went into the game with a really good plan—do not give up longish passing tds by getting tricked by play-action. Basically, through the first rams’ series of the third quarter, the rams had their way running the ball, but that was by design. The Bills were not going to give in and bring their safeties up to stop the run. Hence when Goff did do play action, he was looking downfield and the plays weren’t there, particularly when the rams were on the bills’ side of the field. After starting 5 for 5 (with most of his completions occurring in their own end of the field), he went 5 for 12 with a pick, no tds, and a failed fourth down attempt. The Bills had the answers in the passing game, and basically the strategy of allowing them to run and maintaining focus on the intermediate to intermediate-long passing game completely bottled up the Rams in the sense that they couldn’t score.  
 

So it was a good plan, and normally it would have been enough to win the game. However, there was a problem: McVay is a really, really good offensive mind and a great playcaller. The Rams basically continued to run, which was fine, but they completely changed their approach to the passing game, relying primarily on very short throws off of play action where the Bills’ secondary was playing much deeper back in coverage. That led to a lot of chunk plays. The combination of the still-effective run game and the radically altered passing game approach (which negated their pass rush too) meant that the Bills D was screwed. Plus they were clearly tired. 
 

Finally, Jared Goff is a very good QB. He is really accurate, and he knows how to run that offense well. He is not the best QB in the league, but he is upper echelon. This league right now is built to support excellent QB play. 

Edited by dave mcbride
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18 minutes ago, BillsVet said:

It's well-known that offenses typically take more time to round into form.  There's a certain level of coordination that goes into offense which defense doesn't require. 

 

 

While that is definitely normally the case. It has not been that way league wide in 2020. I don't have an explanation other than offensive holding has basically been legalised.

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Side note, though, is that we have had a top 10 defense for the previous 3 years and right now we are sitting at 20th.

 

I agree with what was said by someone on GR this morning, we may be missing Star a bit.  EJ Gaines' experience wouldn't hurt, either.  Not all of the woe are due to some of these guys out, but it doesn't help.

 

I truly respect the guys who made the tough decision to opt out.  There reasons are there own, and I get it.  Family first, amen.

 

...but if you didn't hate COVID enough in 2020...

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53 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

While that is definitely normally the case. It has not been that way league wide in 2020. I don't have an explanation other than offensive holding has basically been legalised.

 

And that could be.  Someone mentioned, I (think it was @Simon) that Morse was getting away with holding all day.  

 

The NFL is always evolving, but rules changes over the past 10-15 years have significantly favored offense.  I'm not sure if that'll ever change and teams are taking advantage, hence the high-scoring to begin this season.   

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