“Chris Simms: Unbuttoned” a MUST watch IMO

[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.