“Chris Simms: Unbuttoned” a MUST watch IMO

[Big C]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yea completely my point.

 

Lol I'm sorry it seems everyone is arguing with you on this when they actually agree.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

7 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

I enjoy Sims... I don't always agree with him but he has a really engaging style. I think he has been right about Allen a lot too. My only frustration on this video is that people keep referencing how the 49ers shut down the Rams the week before.... and I don't understand why none of the talking heads are quite catching on to why this is..... McVay runs Shanahan's scheme just with a bit more eye candy in terms of jet sweeps. The plays when you strip everything else out are meat and potatoes Shanahan stretch zone concepts. The reason that the 49ers have beaten the Rams 4 times in a row is because Kyle Shanahan understands McVay's playbook better than McVay does.

 

None of which is intended to downplay what the Bills did to the 49ers D, which despite its missing pieces has still been mostly solid this year. But man this "they shut down the Rams that was amazing" narrative really frustrates me. Gruden shut down Oakland in the Superbowl once too. It's easier when you have the other team's playbook.

 
Doesn’t McVay have Shannahan’s playbook too? 

[BuffaloBill]

12 hours ago, Buftex said:

I wonder if the cleaning lady knew her butt was going to be prominantly displayed!  Khakis look great on some people! 

 

Yeah it seemed odd to me they would film with her so hard at work in the background.

[GunnerBill]

43 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Gunner.....the SF 49ers have been a top defense most of the year, still top-10 in ypp, total yards, and a bunch of other metrics.  They play in a division where they play other good teams who do not run Shanahan stretch zone concepts.  I take your point that the Rams are easier meat for the 49'ers slicing because of the Shanahan/McVay connection, but that isn't the only time their D has looked good.  Salah is a good DC and that is a solid D.   I think you have to give him that "nit".

 

I accept this is a petty bug bear of mine but it really freaking irritates me. The 49ers defense is good. I like Saleh too. But "wow they shut down the Rams man that is so impressive" I have heard it about 15 times in the last 2 weeks from the talking heads without any of them ever stopping to say..... to be fair there is a reason.

[Shaw66]

13 hours ago, Stank_Nasty said:

So I’ve grown to love this dudes breakdowns and this is such an interesting one that I thought it deserved its own thread. Simms hasn’t been shy for 2 years now about being high on Allen, McDermott and the Bills. But what I find refreshing is that he pulls no punches with them or anyone else. Perfect evidence of that is him ripping our defense on a weekly basis in the middle of the season. 
 

Anyways... I thought this was just an awesome breakdown of the game and our coaches. I just really love the guys work. I know a couple others like @Hapless Bills Fan enjoy him as well. 

 

-first 15 min he breaks down Allen’s play and a couple of specific plays highlighting Dabolls creativity. 
 

-16:00 mark he starts in about the defense and how much more healthy and aggressive they have looked. Calls McDermott a “Code cracker” when it comes to planning for specific weekly challenges. 
 

-Ends by talking about how he was disappointed with the team by mid season and considered them a one and done but with the emergence of the defense he thinks they are legit Super Bowl threats. 
 

ENJOY! I think there are some fun discussion points in this. 

 

 

Stanky - Thanks for posting this.  I don't go looking for much to watch, but I should look for Simms.   This stuff is so good.   I mean, I get that I like listening to it because he's raving about Allen, but his analysis is right on the money, over and over.   He understands what's making Allen good, and what's making the offense good.  He REALLY understands what's making the defense good.  He gives details.  He talks about in like an ordinary guy, with enthusiasm, but he understands stuff that ordinary guys don't.  It's really good. 

 

He probably gets in trouble occasionally for being as frank as he is.  I thought it was hysterical that he commented on the stat they put up during the game, that in his first 13 starts, Mullen has more yards passing than anyone in the history of the game except Mahomes and Luck.  His comment was "one of those guys isn't even in the same universe with the other two."   How great is that?   And then he backed it up, explaining the Mullen gets the benefit of a genius coach.   

 

Great stuff.  Thanks.

[GunnerBill]

18 minutes ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

 
Doesn’t McVay have Shannahan’s playbook too? 

 

Yes, to an extent. And they generally play close low scoring games. There was one high scorer end of last season but the others... 20-7, 24-16, 23-20.... Both teams have actually legitimate good defenses. They also have an advantage when they play each other. And as good of a coach as McVay is (and I do think he is a good coach though not the genius some labelled him as initially) the advantage when it comes to understanding the stretch zone is with Kyle Shanahan. He might know that scheme even better than his dad at this point.

[Kelly the Dog]

Just now, GunnerBill said:

 

Yes, to an extent. And they generally play close low scoring games. There was one high scorer end of last season but the others... 20-7, 24-16, 23-20.... Both teams have actually legitimate good defenses. They also have an advantage when they play each other. And as good of a coach as McVay is (and I do think he is a good coach though not the genius some labelled him as initially) the advantage when it comes to understanding the stretch zone is with Kyle Shanahan. He might know that scheme even better than his dad at this point.

McVay is also very good IMO at game planning and tweaking his playbook week to week for specific opponents. You know as well as anyone a scheme is not a static thing. Sometimes, maybe often times, the Rams just humiliate teams with plays that have 3-4 guys wide open at the same time. I don't even think Goff is all that good. Middle of the pack at  best. McVay is the good one.

[wjag]

I like Simms because he talks like a normal joe discussing football.  Slips in an occasional swear word.  But when he gets to breaking down plays, he adds a perspective that you don't always here.  For example, showing two fists tapping his head to indicate Sherman was recognizing the uh oh moment and changing the defense.  I certainly didn't pick up on that kind of thing before.  It does of course help to slow down the play and rewatch it in slow motion.  We are slaved to the TV view that only watches the ball.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

15 minutes ago, wjag said:

I like Simms because he talks like a normal joe discussing football.  Slips in an occasional swear word.  But when he gets to breaking down plays, he adds a perspective that you don't always here.  For example, showing two fists tapping his head to indicate Sherman was recognizing the uh oh moment and changing the defense.  I certainly didn't pick up on that kind of thing before.  It does of course help to slow down the play and rewatch it in slow motion.  We are slaved to the TV view that only watches the ball.

 

I agree with you, but Simms point in this case was that Sherman had responded to the defensive playcallers changing the coverage to Palms and was tapping his head with 2 fists after the play to say "WTF, wasn't that what you called?  I played what you told me...", and that others on the defense were not on that same page.  But Simms says he thinks Daboll and Allen were prepared for that coverage and the play would likely have worked anyway.

 

To your point, I just love some of his descriptions.  Like last week against the Chargers he said "it was good to see Josh Allen manage a game a little bit and not just be crazy and play like his ass is on fire and do stupid *****"  😂😂  That was great!

 

34 minutes ago, BuffaloBill said:

 

Yeah it seemed odd to me they would film with her so hard at work in the background.

 

Well, their target audience IS predominantly male football fans, so....

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, Kelly the Dog said:

McVay is also very good IMO at game planning and tweaking his playbook week to week for specific opponents. You know as well as anyone a scheme is not a static thing. Sometimes, maybe often times, the Rams just humiliate teams with plays that have 3-4 guys wide open at the same time. I don't even think Goff is all that good. Middle of the pack at  best. McVay is the good one.

 

I think Goff is a really good Quarterback in that style of offense. I'd take him over Jimmy G and I'd take him over Tannehill as two other guys playing in primarily Shanahan variants of the WCO off the stretch zone. It's a push between him and Kirk Cousins (operating in the Kubiak version of it) in my eyes. They are pretty similar. Obviously Green Bay run a fair bit of that stuff too but needless to say I wouldn't take him over Rodgers. I am not sure you could take Goff and put him in a lot of other schemes and have the same success, I think that is fair, but I think you could give him to LeFleur, or Shanahan, or Kubiak or Arthur Smith (who I expect to be a HC somewhere next year) and he would be successful. I don't think he needs McVay but I do think he needs that style of offense.

 

I gave McVay a ton of blame of their O falling off the cliff last year because I actually think he did a really bad job of week to week planning. He stubbornly kept doing what he had done for two years even when it was clear he didn't have a running back and his offensive line couldn't execute. It took until the Ravens humiliated them in prime time for him to say "okay, I have to adjust here." I give him a ton of credit this year because he definitely has adjusted and he as mixed up their run game a little bit. Previously pretty much every run was a standard stretch zone cutback concept (other than when it was a receiver run on a Jet sweep). This year they are a bit more multiple in the run game and it has really helped. Their D has also taken a big step forward under a new coordinator. I picked them to win the NFCW at the start and I stick by that.

 

I think McVay is good. He has great energy, you can tell his players love playing for him, he didn't duck the difficult decisions in the offseason when he moved off long time coordinators and he is a good playcaller as a rule. But I think the sort of "boy genius" label he was given early on when the NFL hadn't really worked out what he was doing was just the Shanahan offense with window dressing was a bit over the top. Matt Patricia was the one who put the blueprint out there. Ignore all the window dressing. Just play it like you'd play an old school Mike Shanahan team (which was exactly what McDermott and Frazier went straight to after the first drive on Monday Night as well by the way). 5 and 6 man fronts 1 linebacker, stifle the run, restrict the play action and make them dropback pass on you. After Patricia put out the blueprint Fangio used it to beat them with Chicago's D and then Belichick killed them with it in the Superbowl. I suppose I have always kind of felt that style of offense is a good way of maximising average to above average talent. But when you have got top end talent it feels a bit like a straight jacket

[Kelly the Dog]

5 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I think Goff is a really good Quarterback in that style of offense. I'd take him over Jimmy G and I'd take him over Tannehill as two other guys playing in primarily Shanahan variants of the WCO off the stretch zone. It's a push between him and Kirk Cousins (operating in the Kubiak version of it) in my eyes. They are pretty similar. Obviously Green Bay run a fair bit of that stuff too but needless to say I wouldn't take him over Rodgers. I am not sure you could take Goff and put him in a lot of other schemes and have the same success, I think that is fair, but I think you could give him to LeFleur, or Shanahan, or Kubiak or Arthur Smith (who I expect to be a HC somewhere next year) and he would be successful. I don't think he needs McVay but I do think he needs that style of offense.

 

I agree with all of that, but I don't think Jimmy G, or even Tannehill or Cousins are all that good. Tannehill is sometimes very good. I think JG and KC are average guys who put up big numbers in systems but I dont want any of them as my franchise QB.

 

Agree that Goff is pretty good in that system, but most of the time he is throwing to open, good WR and TE.

[Doc]

The 49'ers held the Rams' offense to just 13 points.  The other 7 were from a fumble return for a TD.

[The BLUES Brothers]

Who else takes pride when national respected sports guys talk great about The Bills?!?!

 

That was a great watch!

 

Thank you OP aka Mr. S, Nasty!

[GunnerBill]

2 minutes ago, Doc said:

The 49'ers held the Rams' offense to just 13 points.  The other 7 were from a fumble return for a TD.

 

And the 9ers scored a pick 6. Points actually scored on each other's defenses it was a 16-13 ball game. Again.... when it becomes like facing your own offense in practice it gives a defense the advantage. 

[Doc]

Just now, GunnerBill said:

And the 9ers scored a pick 6. Points actually scored on each other's defenses it was a 16-13 ball game. Again.... when it becomes like facing your own offense in practice it gives a defense the advantage. 

 

Yup.  My point was that the 49'ers' defense did pretty much shut down the Rams' offense.

[GunnerBill]

7 minutes ago, Doc said:

 

Yup.  My point was that the 49'ers' defense did pretty much shut down the Rams' offense.

 

Yep. They did. Nobody is disputing that. I just don't think it should surprise anyone that those two teams shut each other down. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

SO......stat I had not realized that Chris Simms brought up, and that just shows how much can get hidden by these "bulk stats".

 

We gave up 86 yards rushing to the 49ers.

 

44 of them were on the first drive.  Forty-four.  (I verified this myself, by the way)

 

For those who say McD and Frazier don't make in game adjustments....42 rush yards the rest of the game.  51% of the rush yards on the first drive.

Rest of the game....relative *crickets*

[DrDawkinstein]

7 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

SO......stat I had not realized that Chris Simms brought up, and that just shows how much can get hidden by these "bulk stats".

 

We gave up 86 yards rushing to the 49ers.

 

44 of them were on the first drive.  Forty-four.  (I verified this myself, by the way)

 

For those who say McD and Frazier don't make in game adjustments....42 rush yards the rest of the game.  51% of the rush yards on the first drive.

Rest of the game....relative *crickets*

 

One of Baldy's Breakdown tweets showed that adjustment. We basically moved from playing a 4 man front to a 5 man front. Took away a couple of gaps. Shut them down.

 

Great job by our coaches.

[Shaw66]

9 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

One of Baldy's Breakdown tweets showed that adjustment. We basically moved from playing a 4 man front to a 5 man front. Took away a couple of gaps. Shut them down.

 

Great job by our coaches.

That means that during in game prep during the week they asked and answered the question "what are we going to if we cant stop the run with four?  

[GunnerBill]

22 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

SO......stat I had not realized that Chris Simms brought up, and that just shows how much can get hidden by these "bulk stats".

 

We gave up 86 yards rushing to the 49ers.

 

44 of them were on the first drive.  Forty-four.  (I verified this myself, by the way)

 

For those who say McD and Frazier don't make in game adjustments....42 rush yards the rest of the game.  51% of the rush yards on the first drive.

Rest of the game....relative *crickets*

 

They made a huge adjustment. They wen to essentially a 5-1-5 defense on early downs. Played a lot of Tremaine as an OLB, Klein as a single linebacker.... it is kinda the consensus way to shut down the Shanahan scheme. It looks like a 3-4 but your 3 are in so tight it isn't really a traditional 3-4. Was what Belichick did to McVay's Rams in the Superbowl. 

 

What I thought was interesting was the Bills didn't start that way. Was almost as though on that first drive it was like "okay we are gonna see if we can just play our D and stop you" it didn't work and they just straight away switched it up. Didn't wait until halftime they just made the call there and then. 

 

The Bills make adjustments plenty from what I see. The last two weeks we have seen them make significant adjustments during first halves. On offense against LAC and on defense against SF. Our coaching staff is really good.

8 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

That means that during in game prep during the week they asked and answered the question "what are we going to if we cant stop the run with four?  

 

Yea and decided it was worth trying to stop them with 4 first but they were not gonna stick with that if it didn't work.

[Stank_Nasty]

32 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

SO......stat I had not realized that Chris Simms brought up, and that just shows how much can get hidden by these "bulk stats".

 

We gave up 86 yards rushing to the 49ers.

 

44 of them were on the first drive.  Forty-four.  (I verified this myself, by the way)

 

For those who say McD and Frazier don't make in game adjustments....42 rush yards the rest of the game.  51% of the rush yards on the first drive.

Rest of the game....relative *crickets*

It was a real good game by the d. The stats are skewed due to the prevent that went into play in the final minutes. 
 

I think that goes hand in hand when he says McDermott is a “code cracker” type of coach on defense. Week to week he has shown the ability to stifle what a team wants to do. It doesn’t always happen but he definitely has a knack 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

2 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yes, to an extent. And they generally play close low scoring games. There was one high scorer end of last season but the others... 20-7, 24-16, 23-20.... Both teams have actually legitimate good defenses. They also have an advantage when they play each other. And as good of a coach as McVay is (and I do think he is a good coach though not the genius some labelled him as initially) the advantage when it comes to understanding the stretch zone is with Kyle Shanahan. He might know that scheme even better than his dad at this point.

Kubiak is the other one that knows it inside and out, but yeah.... Kyle was running stretch zone in pee wee football with his red faced pops shouting from the sidelines. 

[Shaw66]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

They made a huge adjustment. They wen to essentially a 5-1-5 defense on early downs. Played a lot of Tremaine as an OLB, Klein as a single linebacker.... it is kinda the consensus way to shut down the Shanahan scheme. It looks like a 3-4 but your 3 are in so tight it isn't really a traditional 3-4. Was what Belichick did to McVay's Rams in the Superbowl. 

 

What I thought was interesting was the Bills didn't start that way. Was almost as though on that first drive it was like "okay we are gonna see if we can just play our D and stop you" it didn't work and they just straight away switched it up. Didn't wait until halftime they just made the call there and then. 

 

The Bills make adjustments plenty from what I see. The last two weeks we have seen them make significant adjustments during first halves. On offense against LAC and on defense against SF. Our coaching staff is really good.

 

Yea and decided it was worth trying to stop them with 4 first but they were not gonna stick with that if it didn't work.

I think that this is what a lot of Bills fans failed to understand about McDermott when he came to Buffalo.  He isn't some kind of one-trick pony.  "His" defense is whatever defense he needs to stop this week's opponent.   That's his philosophy on offense, too.  He's perpetually learning, borrowing ideas, tinkering, pulling old tricks out of a bag he keeps filling endlessly.  I guarantee you that Sunday night or Monday morning, film of the Chiefs' most recent offensive show is must-see for Daboll and McDermott.  What can they borrow? 

 

And McDermott's prepared.   He and his staff and his players spend the time to get ready.  

 

I thought it was funny that the 49ers said they knew exactly what the Bills were doing on offense.   Knowing what's coming is only the first half of being prepared.  Knowing how to stop it is the other half.   What the 49ers really were saying, whether they knew it or not, was "our coaches told us what was coming, but they didn't give us anything to stop it."   McDermott's teams are told "when they do this, we're going to do that.  Then, when they do the other thing, we're going to Plan C."  They get beat sometimes, but it isn't because they were just tackling dummies for the opponent to play with.  

 

There's so much of what Belichick does that makes sense, and it seems few coaches follow his lead.  McDermott does.  Belichick takes away the thing that you do best.  Some game several years ago he was double teaming a star tight end at the line of scrimmage.   The tight end was the their best weapon, and Belichick was prepared to go 9 on 10 against the rest of the offense.  What McDermott did on Sunday (I now realize, listening to this discussion) was the same thing.  "What they do best is run the ball.  We're going to stop that.  If it takes four, fine.  If it takes five, fine.  If it takes six, fine.  Whatever it takes, we're stopping the run.  Whoever is left after we dedicate resources to stop the run, that's who is going to have to stop the pass."

 

Shanahan didn't do that.  What do the Bills do best?  Pass.  Shanahan essentially said "I don't have the horses to play those receivers man-to-man (and I'm lucky Brown isn't playing), so we'll just play zone and do the best we can."  That's giving up.  

 

We haven't seen anything close to the best McDermott yet.   Five years from now, he's going to be every coach's worst nightmare.  He'll still be smiling, clapping his hand, saying all the same stuff he says now, but his teams are going to be so well prepared, it will be amazing.   

 

 

[Chandler#81]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

 

I thought it was funny that the 49ers said they knew exactly what the Bills were doing on offense.   Knowing what's coming is only the first half of being prepared.  Knowing how to stop it is the other half.   What the 49ers really were saying, whether they knew it or not, was "our coaches told us what was coming, but they didn't give us anything to stop it."   McDermott's teams are told "when they do this, we're going to do that.  Then, when they do the other thing, we're going to Plan C."  They get beat sometimes, but it isn't because they were just tackling dummies for the opponent to play with.  

 Then how do explain our weekly 3rd Quarter disappearing act? I fully expected it again Monday as SF raced down the field with the 2nd KO & put up 3. We DID answer it and totaled 10 pts in the 3rd -which I think was a McBeane era record..

 

Through the previous weeks of the season, we got stomped and lost leads by trying to continue doing what we were doing as the opponent made changes. 

 

Anyway, Monday Night was a thrilling reversal of this. I’m convinced our joint decision here to not mess with karma and keep the 1st Half thread going the rest of the game is what did the trick.😉 

[GunnerBill]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I think that this is what a lot of Bills fans failed to understand about McDermott when he came to Buffalo.  He isn't some kind of one-trick pony.  "His" defense is whatever defense he needs to stop this week's opponent.   That's his philosophy on offense, too.  He's perpetually learning, borrowing ideas, tinkering, pulling old tricks out of a bag he keeps filling endlessly.  I guarantee you that Sunday night or Monday morning, film of the Chiefs' most recent offensive show is must-see for Daboll and McDermott.  What can they borrow? 

 

And McDermott's prepared.   He and his staff and his players spend the time to get ready.  

 

I thought it was funny that the 49ers said they knew exactly what the Bills were doing on offense.   Knowing what's coming is only the first half of being prepared.  Knowing how to stop it is the other half.   What the 49ers really were saying, whether they knew it or not, was "our coaches told us what was coming, but they didn't give us anything to stop it."   McDermott's teams are told "when they do this, we're going to do that.  Then, when they do the other thing, we're going to Plan C."  They get beat sometimes, but it isn't because they were just tackling dummies for the opponent to play with.  

 

There's so much of what Belichick does that makes sense, and it seems few coaches follow his lead.  McDermott does.  Belichick takes away the thing that you do best.  Some game several years ago he was double teaming a star tight end at the line of scrimmage.   The tight end was the their best weapon, and Belichick was prepared to go 9 on 10 against the rest of the offense.  What McDermott did on Sunday (I now realize, listening to this discussion) was the same thing.  "What they do best is run the ball.  We're going to stop that.  If it takes four, fine.  If it takes five, fine.  If it takes six, fine.  Whatever it takes, we're stopping the run.  Whoever is left after we dedicate resources to stop the run, that's who is going to have to stop the pass."

 

Shanahan didn't do that.  What do the Bills do best?  Pass.  Shanahan essentially said "I don't have the horses to play those receivers man-to-man (and I'm lucky Brown isn't playing), so we'll just play zone and do the best we can."  That's giving up.  

 

We haven't seen anything close to the best McDermott yet.   Five years from now, he's going to be every coach's worst nightmare.  He'll still be smiling, clapping his hand, saying all the same stuff he says now, but his teams are going to be so well prepared, it will be amazing.   

 

 

 

I don't think Shanahan and Saleh gave up. They tried to play some man. They were in man on the McKenzie TD and they were in man on one of the big first down conversions Diggs had. I just don't know what they could have done. I said before the game if they can't get to Josh with 4 they have no way of stopping us and so it proved. It is fair to say 4 of their best defensive players are missing, 3 of their Dline for the year. Their nickel is the best nickel in the league and was out as was his backup. Now we might have beaten them anyway but those guys might at least have given them a shot. With what they had I am not sure what else they could do. They played man and Stef beat them 1 on 1. They played zone and Josh picked it apart. They sent 4 and the Bills oline handled it. They sent 5 and Josh escaped and threw a dart. They made some mistakes in coverage for sure but ultimately they were just beaten by talent IMO. 

[Shaw66]

11 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I don't think Shanahan and Saleh gave up. They tried to play some man. They were in man on the McKenzie TD and they were in man on one of the big first down conversions Diggs had. I just don't know what they could have done. I said before the game if they can't get to Josh with 4 they have no way of stopping us and so it proved. It is fair to say 4 of their best defensive players are missing, 3 of their Dline for the year. Their nickel is the best nickel in the league and was out as was his backup. Now we might have beaten them anyway but those guys might at least have given them a shot. With what they had I am not sure what else they could do. They played man and Stef beat them 1 on 1. They played zone and Josh picked it apart. They sent 4 and the Bills oline handled it. They sent 5 and Josh escaped and threw a dart. They made some mistakes in coverage for sure but ultimately they were just beaten by talent IMO. 

What I meant is that they gave up trying other solutions.  Rush 3, heck, rush 2 guys and blanket Diggs and Beasley with receivers.   

 

I don't know what actually goes on when the coaches talk about this, but my point was that I get the sense that Belichick declares, absolutely, that the opponent is not going to beat him with their best guy.   He does whatever is necessary to stop the best guy.   So rush two guys and double Diggs and Scripps all day if you have, absolutely dare the Bills to run or to throw all day to Knox.   As people have been talking about it here, my sense is that Saleh said to himself, "I can't play man, so I'll play zone, and if they beat my zone, there's nothing I can do."   McDermott says, "If they're going to beat my zone, what can I do to stop that?"  

 

And, for sure, sometimes your talent is just so much better than theirs that there's nothing they can do.   I'm not sure that was the case on Sunday.  

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, Shaw66 said:

What I meant is that they gave up trying other solutions.  Rush 3, heck, rush 2 guys and blanket Diggs and Beasley with receivers.   

 

I don't know what actually goes on when the coaches talk about this, but my point was that I get the sense that Belichick declares, absolutely, that the opponent is not going to beat him with their best guy.   He does whatever is necessary to stop the best guy.   So rush two guys and double Diggs and Scripps all day if you have, absolutely dare the Bills to run or to throw all day to Knox.   As people have been talking about it here, my sense is that Saleh said to himself, "I can't play man, so I'll play zone, and if they beat my zone, there's nothing I can do."   McDermott says, "If they're going to beat my zone, what can I do to stop that?"  

 

And, for sure, sometimes your talent is just so much better than theirs that there's nothing they can do.   I'm not sure that was the case on Sunday.  

 

I think that is really harsh on Robert Saleh. He is a good football coach and he tried lots of different solutions on Monday. Yes - Daboll outcoached him and was a step ahead but he also just had better talent at his disposal than Saleh did. I think Robert Saleh is an excellent young defensive mind. This is his 4th year as a coordinator. McDermott just for an example was a DC for 8 years before he got a Head Coaching job. He isn't Belichick and he isn't McDermott but there you are talking the best defensive mind ever and a guy in McDermott who is a top 5 defensive coach in this league. 

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I think that is really harsh on Robert Saleh. He is a good football coach and he tried lots of different solutions on Monday. Yes - Daboll outcoached him and was a step ahead but he also just had better talent at his disposal than Saleh did. I think Robert Saleh is an excellent young defensive mind. This is his 4th year as a coordinator. McDermott just for an example was a DC for 8 years before he got a Head Coaching job. He isn't Belichick and he isn't McDermott but there you are talking the best defensive mind ever and a guy in McDermott who is a top 5 defensive coach in this league. 

I wasn't trying to be harsh.  I like your point about Saleh's relative youth - it's a point I make all the time - these guys improve with age.  They improve a lot.  Belichick was a great defensive coordinator, but I have no doubt that he's much better know than when he beat the Bills in the Super Bowl with the Giants.   

 

Part of it is that, as I've said often, I think this game is very much about coaching and not so much about talent.   The difference in total talent around the league just isn't that great.   I think Belichick has been proving that for years.  Last night they posted an incredible collection of stats about Patriots receivers.   All of the receivers drafted by the Pats since 2010 (about ten receivers) have, combined, something like 114 career receptions.  Their drafting of wideouts has been abysmal, and their free agent signings of receivers hasn't been much better.  Other than Moss, those efforts have included Antonio Brown (failed), Ocho Cinco (failed), Chris Hogan, etc.  And yet, in those ten years, the Pats won three Super Bowls.   How can they possibly win Super Bowls with zero talent?  Well, they had a good QB, the perfect guy for the system, and they had Welker and Edelman and Gronk, but I believe they won the Super Bowls because of coaching.   

 

Look at the Bills' offensive line.   As far as I'm concerned, those guys are journeymen - they're not Hall of Famers, they aren't even first-team Pro Bowl guys.   What they are is good NFL-level talent well coached.  When one of them goes down, there's good NFL talent to replace them - not quite as talented, but pretty close.   

 

My point was that Belichick will take his mediocre talent and he will find a way to stop the opponents' best.  Whatever it takes, he will take the best out of the game.  Saleh apparently didn't do that.   Listening to the players say "we knew what was coming," and then recognizing that they couldn't stop it certainly gives the impression that Saleh's response was simply to say "we're going to do what we do."  Belichick and McDermott have a different response.  Their response is "we're going to do something different."   Now, maybe that's what Saleh did, too, but I doubt it.  Maybe it's just that he's young and has to learn to be more creative.   I don't know.   What I do know is that with very mediocre talent, Belichick will NOT let the Bills throw the ball like that against the Pats.   He'll do SOMETHING.   

[Hapless Bills Fan]

2 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

I think that is really harsh on Robert Saleh. He is a good football coach and he tried lots of different solutions on Monday. Yes - Daboll outcoached him and was a step ahead but he also just had better talent at his disposal than Saleh did. I think Robert Saleh is an excellent young defensive mind. This is his 4th year as a coordinator. McDermott just for an example was a DC for 8 years before he got a Head Coaching job. He isn't Belichick and he isn't McDermott but there you are talking the best defensive mind ever and a guy in McDermott who is a top 5 defensive coach in this league. 

 

Just an added thought.  I have had the niggling idea in my mind that Daboll has been calling the offense very strategically, not just within the game, but week-to-week.

 

I think he has some gouge about coaching tendencies.  Maybe he knows that the NFC West coaches tend to put their horses into division and conference rivals, and focus more heavily on the most recent game from an opponent.  Yes, it was true that a run-heavy game was the best option to attack the NE.  Is it a coincidence that he took it to such an extreme where we hardly passed, and that we played the Seahawks the following week whose coach had a "nice little plan to stop the run", he expressed surprise that we put on a laser light show against him?  Maybe. 

 

Now we just played the Chargers with a very run heavy game including a bunch of designed QB runs, and a pass game that had the Cover1 guys exclaiming about how "Vanilla" it was.  They thought it was "Vanilla" because we were trying to keep track of Joey Bosa (memo: if so, need to do better job next time).  Saleh in his presser is talking about how surprised he is that we run up the gut so much with Allen and call designed runs for him. 

 

So what do the 49ers get?  The season's best Laser Light Show from Allen with nary a designed QB run to be seen.

 

Hmmmmmmm.