Questions to ponder during the bye week

[JGMcD2]

53 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

This is one of the biggest misconceptions, I think.

 

Great teams do exactly what the Bills have been doing since last year. Beat everyone they're supposed to beat and 50/50 against good teams.

 

Maybe the ball bounces their way and they end up 75/25 against good teams. Maybe not. 

 

But if they end up 13-4 and lost to some good teams in close games like last night, that's not abnormal or some kind of indication that they're not a real contender. Great teams lose games every year (unless they're the 72 Dolphins or the Cheaters).

Thank you!!!🤝

 

🙏🙏🙏🙏

[ToGoGo]

1 hour ago, FilthyBeast said:

 

My whole point is that as of Ocober 19, 2021 the Bills are not the best team in the league (both record wise and tangible results on the field). Arizona looks like a real powerhouse if anything based on easy blowout wins on the road against the same Titans team, Rams (who many also see as a SB team) and Browns.

 

Both the Browns and Titans are teams that are an obvious bad matchup for the Bills because of their physical style of play and the Cardinals dispatched both easily on the road with the games essentially over by halftime.

 

Yes things can change, but again in a week to week league nobody can sit here and tell me unbiasedly the Bills are the clear cut #1 team in the NFL, or conference for that matter.

 

Are people telling you that?

[Eastport bills]

1 hour ago, FilthyBeast said:

This was a crappy loss but not necessarily unexpected given the nature of this league and this team likely wasn't going 16-1 anyway. With that said there are a lot of questions to ponder in the next few weeks:

 

1) How good is this team? Are they really a SB contender?

My biggest concern with losing against the Titans is the totality of the season as a whole thus far. Yes we dominated 3 lessor teams and beat what we assume is also a playoff team in KC, but there will be critics that now look at the Bills as paper tigers especially if the Chiefs continue to play inconsistent football. By default the Bills are certainly going to be an AFC contender given the weak remaining schedule and clear path to division titale, but after last night I'm really not sure if they are in the same class as a team like the Cardinals who dominated this same Titans team on the road, and several other contenders in similar fashion. Still plenty of time to go but right now I think the Bills are just another good team that's probably in the secondary tier until proven otherwise.

 

2) Speaking of the Chiefs, was this the Bills 'Super Bowl'?

As of right now I would say check back with me in a few months. But no matter what the players say, there's no question there was an extra motivation last week to have a good showing and get a win if anything to exorcise a necessary demon. I keep thinking back to the 2018 Jaguars who ironically started the season 4-1 that year and destroyed the Patriots (who they lost to in the AFCCG) and them completely falling apart the rest of the way after putting all their eggs in the proverbial basket for that specific game. Obviously this bills team is not a one  hit wonder like the 2017 Jags, and they also have a favorable schedule on deck but you can't argue how emotionally drained they were last night against the Titans particularly on defense. And to essentially lose the game on the last play of the game coming up short on 4th down play could foreshadow a similar end to the season come playoff time.

 

3) Can the Bills overcome the glaring flaws that were on full display again last night?

No team is perfect, but the same specific issues that cost this team against the Steelers (and have still lingered to a certain degree during the Bills 4 game win streak) are why this team lost again. Starting with the oline, they are way to inconsistent and simply not built to handle physical teams. John Feliciano in particular continues to show why he's not an NFL starting olinemen and both tackles struggled mightily again including Spencer Brown crashing to earth in a major way. On defense once again the pass rush was non existent against a QB and team that has been among the worst in the league until they played the Bills off course. As a result once again Levi Wallace was exposed as the weak link getting throw at and completed on over and over again. Just not sure the Bills can overcome this even if they attempt to address at the trade deadline and this is why sadly I don't think they ultimately go very far in the playoffs this year especially if they match up against the Titans or a simliar team again.

 

4) Defense owned and exposed?

Piggy backing off the last question, it's really hard to know if this defense simply had a let down or just isn't as good as we thought. Realistically for me it's probably somewhere in between. Yes there is a talent on defense but it's more a collection of really good role players/above average players and no true game changers (at least against other playoff caliber teams). And once again this is why I've always hated this scheme and the whole 'bend but don't break' style because when it works great, but when it breaks it truly breaks as we saw pretty much the entire game after the 1st quarter against the Titans. I'm sure this defense will come out of the bye week and look great again against the likes of the Dolphins, Jets, etc but there are still going to be a lot of question marks until we play a legit team again.  Also no matter what way you spin it,  a defense that some were comparing to the 2000 Ravens has lost to a washed up Big Ben and Ryan Tannenhill so far this year in just 6 games.

 

Anyways, hopefully this team comes out angry and has a similar finish to the season after last years pre bye week debacle.

Just doing your trolling work in a comprehensive manner. Hopefully the team you really root for is doing well. How timely that the Bills threw in a tough loss allowing you to question their viability. Unfortunately you'll be unhappy for a good long time because, like last year after the bye, we're going on a very long roll. So sad for trolls that have to go on message boards of great teams.

[FireChans]

1 hour ago, UKBillFan said:

Yes, the AFCCG. Not the Super Bowl. Not World Champions. Have we improved this year? I can understand why some are saying no.

Beat the chiefs, lost to them twice last year.  Lost by one score by the Titans, got blown out last year. #2 WR is better than last year. TE is better than last year. Defense is better than last year.

Bills 2020 record through first 6 games last year. 4-2

 

Bills record through 6 games this year. 4-2

 

Why would some say no?

 

[Son of a K-Gun]

Hate being cliche, but championships aren't won in October.  Some perspective, the three undefeated teams coming out of week 6 last year (Steelers, Seahawks and Titans) were all knocked out in the WC round.  The eventual SB champios were a "mere" 4-2, including a loss to the Bears where their QB couldn't even keep track of what down it was.

[Wayne Cubed]

2 hours ago, Gugny said:

Question to Ponder:  Are Meltdown Tuesdays better than Meltdown Mondays? 

Results in a shorter week, so I vote yes!

[UKBillFan]

10 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Beat the chiefs, lost to them twice last year.  Lost by one score by the Titans, got blown out last year. #2 WR is better than last year. TE is better than last year. Defense is better than last year.

Bills 2020 record through first 6 games last year. 4-2

 

Bills record through 6 games this year. 4-2

 

Why would some say no?

 

The Defense looks shaky against a reasonable offense and the Chiefs are a shadow of themselves at the moment. I don’t think it’s feasibly possible to play worse against the Titans than we did last year so I guess there is improvement there!

[FireChans]

Just now, UKBillFan said:

The Defense looks shaky against a reasonable offense and the Chiefs are a shadow of themselves at the moment. I don’t think it’s feasibly possible to play worse against the Titans than we did last year so I guess there is improvement there!

The defense didn’t look shaky last week. Or really at all this year until the Titans.

 

All things considered, our defense had a few bad Q’s last night. They got worn out by Derrick Henry. The most physical RB who is having the best couple of years by any RB ever. I wish our defense held him to ten carries for 22 yards but I don’t think there’s a defense in the league that can do that. Sucks. Oh well. I’m not worried.

[Straight Hucklebuck]

Questions to ponder for me:

 

1. Can the Bills make a trade to help this Offensive Line?

 

2. Can the Bills do anything to generate a real pass rush?

 

3. We play the Chiefs and line up 3-yards off their WRs.

 

Yesterday we’re back to playing 8-10 yards off again? Why?

[BringBackFlutie]

2 hours ago, Gen2 said:

I think all of your questions can be answered at the same time.

 

The Bills have built their team over the last few years to be able to consistently beat the Patriots who were a passing offense and run the ball almost as an afterthought kind of team, last year the team realized that they had attained that goal (attributed as much to the Pats decline as our buildup). The team then started to build to be able to consistently beat the Chiefs who are also a pass first team, and IMHO have attained that goal. The problem is that when your team is centered on being a fast strike score a billion points on offense, and a flood the passing lanes to harass the the passing game type of defense, you run into problems with smash mouth run it up the gut bully the opponent kind of teams. I think we will always have problems with the Titians and Ravens of the world, but the majority of teams in todays NFL are the air it out to score on any given play rather than the "I'm going to run it a dozen times a series to march down the field", so I think we'll be just fine.

 

And I'd add that we'll still beat those few others when it counts.  Those teams have to have perfect games or else we will run away with the score. 

[FilthyBeast]

1 hour ago, Jauronimo said:

We have outplayed all 6 opponents.  Red zone efficiency is the difference in our 2 losses.  Also, Buffalo is now 0-2 when not winning the turnover battle. Last night it was 1 each.

 

This is a good point I'm glad you brought up.

 

Truly elite teams (SB caliber) will still find ways to win games when they lose the turnover battle. And no team is going to cruise through the season forcing multiple turnovers each game against their opponent.

 

This is why I still worry about this defense against teams that aren't the likes of the Dolphins, Texans, etc. Yes they played great against the Chiefs that may be an outlier considering Mahomes and the KC offenses struggles thus far this season. But at this point not being able to stop QB's like Big Ben and Ryan Tannenhill is a major red flag going forward.

[Jauronimo]

2 minutes ago, FilthyBeast said:

 

This is a good point I'm glad you brought up.

 

Truly elite teams (SB caliber) will still find ways to win games when they lose the turnover battle. And no team is going to cruise through the season forcing multiple turnovers each game against their opponent.

 

This is why I still worry about this defense against teams that aren't the likes of the Dolphins, Texans, etc. Yes they played great against the Chiefs that may be an outlier considering Mahomes and the KC offenses struggles thus far this season. But at this point not being able to stop QB's like Big Ben and Ryan Tannenhill is a major red flag going forward.

We stopped Big Ben all day.  He was 18/32 for 188 and 1 TD.  Tannehill was 18/29 for 215, 0 TDs, and an INT. 

 

 

[FilthyBeast]

2 minutes ago, Jauronimo said:

We stopped Big Ben all day.  He was 18/32 for 188 and 1 TD.  Tannehill was 18/29 for 215, 0 TDs, and an INT. 

 

 

 

They both made plays when they needed too though, especially Tannenhill last night who through for most of that yardage in the 2nd half.

 

The Titans scored on 6 consecutive drives going back to the 1st half....again there's a reason why McD didn't opt for the easy FG to tie and play for overtime.

[frostbitmic]

3 hours ago, Bangarang said:

Should the league just give the Lombardi to the Cardinals now then? I don’t understand your point with this.

No, no, no ... They're currently getting the trophy all nice and shiny for Tom Terrific*

 

Once he gets to 10 rings he might retire.

[Straight Hucklebuck]

30 minutes ago, FilthyBeast said:

 

They both made plays when they needed too though, especially Tannenhill last night who through for most of that yardage in the 2nd half.

 

The Titans scored on 6 consecutive drives going back to the 1st half....again there's a reason why McD didn't opt for the easy FG to tie and play for overtime.

And it in the end none of that matters if the Bills covert from the 2-yard line or kick a FG to tie and send to OT. 

[WideNine]

We lost to a good team that has the best back in football.

 

We did not get to Tanny, yet he was getting rid of the ball pretty quickly too and seemed to have short routes with open receivers over the middle around the sticks for most of the game.

 

Derrick broke a big one - it happened. If his monster 70 yarder did not, his stats would still have been very good but it would have been a more "normal" Henry game.

 

We had TD's called back, and had 3 trips to the red zone end up as FGs. We had the game in hand at the end with 22 seconds on the clock and 2 yards and change to punch it in having subpar play from our OL and defense.

 

Are there positions that could be upgraded, or areas where they could scheme and execute better - of course there are. With all the things we can find wrong with how our team played, it was still a very winnable game for us - we need to let that sink in.

 

I cannot say that about last year's contest.

[Toyo321]

If we cant figure the these glaring DL & OL problem areas out during the bye week, I hate to say it but there is now way this team is going to win a AFC title game this year.

 

The way the Bills have played against good teams this year might be fixable but they will never beat the likes of Tampa, Dallas or the Cardinals even if they manage to get to a SB.  Not in their current form.

 

This is not bashing.  This is after watching all the other teams mentioned above every week play and seeing what they are doing week in and week out on the field.

 

I absolutely hate the Cowboys but they are truly turning into a scary damn good team. Same too, for the Cardinals.

 

We can only wait and see.  Right now playing the way we are, I don't think we can even sweep the Patriots.  We will lose in Foxborough.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Toyo321

[Success]

3 minutes ago, Toyo321 said:

If we cant figure the these glaring DL & OL problem areas out during the bye week, I hate to say it but there is now way this team is going to win a AFC title game this year.

 

The way the Bills have played against good teams this year might be fixable but they will never beat the likes of Tampa, Dallas or the Cardinals even if they manage to get to a SB.  Not in their current form.

 

This is not bashing.  This is after watching all the other teams mentioned above every week play and seeing what they are doing week in and week out on the field.

 

I absolutely hate the Cowboys but they are truly turning into a scary damn good team. Same too, for the Cardinals.

 

We can only wait and see.  Right now playing the way we are, I don't think we can even sweep the Patriots.  We will lose in Foxborough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I disagree.  There is nothing about Tampa or Dallas that has been any different than the Bills so far. The Pats aren't a good team, and took both of those teams to the wire.

 

A season is an ebb & flow - even a championship season.  Teams that look great in October sometimes aren't the same teams that look great in December and January.  The Bills played great last night despite the loss, and showed resiliency & determination.

 

I think any objective fan would list the Bills in the top 3 of teams no one wants to see in the playoffs.

 

[BADOLBILZ]

23 hours ago, FilthyBeast said:

This was a crappy loss but not necessarily unexpected given the nature of this league and this team likely wasn't going 16-1 anyway. With that said there are a lot of questions to ponder in the next few weeks:

 

1) How good is this team? Are they really a SB contender?

My biggest concern with losing against the Titans is the totality of the season as a whole thus far. Yes we dominated 3 lessor teams and beat what we assume is also a playoff team in KC, but there will be critics that now look at the Bills as paper tigers especially if the Chiefs continue to play inconsistent football. By default the Bills are certainly going to be an AFC contender given the weak remaining schedule and clear path to division titale, but after last night I'm really not sure if they are in the same class as a team like the Cardinals who dominated this same Titans team on the road, and several other contenders in similar fashion. Still plenty of time to go but right now I think the Bills are just another good team that's probably in the secondary tier until proven otherwise.

 

2) Speaking of the Chiefs, was this the Bills 'Super Bowl'?

As of right now I would say check back with me in a few months. But no matter what the players say, there's no question there was an extra motivation last week to have a good showing and get a win if anything to exorcise a necessary demon. I keep thinking back to the 2018 Jaguars who ironically started the season 4-1 that year and destroyed the Patriots (who they lost to in the AFCCG) and them completely falling apart the rest of the way after putting all their eggs in the proverbial basket for that specific game. Obviously this bills team is not a one  hit wonder like the 2017 Jags, and they also have a favorable schedule on deck but you can't argue how emotionally drained they were last night against the Titans particularly on defense. And to essentially lose the game on the last play of the game coming up short on 4th down play could foreshadow a similar end to the season come playoff time.

 

3) Can the Bills overcome the glaring flaws that were on full display again last night?

No team is perfect, but the same specific issues that cost this team against the Steelers (and have still lingered to a certain degree during the Bills 4 game win streak) are why this team lost again. Starting with the oline, they are way to inconsistent and simply not built to handle physical teams. John Feliciano in particular continues to show why he's not an NFL starting olinemen and both tackles struggled mightily again including Spencer Brown crashing to earth in a major way. On defense once again the pass rush was non existent against a QB and team that has been among the worst in the league until they played the Bills off course. As a result once again Levi Wallace was exposed as the weak link getting throw at and completed on over and over again. Just not sure the Bills can overcome this even if they attempt to address at the trade deadline and this is why sadly I don't think they ultimately go very far in the playoffs this year especially if they match up against the Titans or a simliar team again.

 

4) Defense owned and exposed?

Piggy backing off the last question, it's really hard to know if this defense simply had a let down or just isn't as good as we thought. Realistically for me it's probably somewhere in between. Yes there is a talent on defense but it's more a collection of really good role players/above average players and no true game changers (at least against other playoff caliber teams). And once again this is why I've always hated this scheme and the whole 'bend but don't break' style because when it works great, but when it breaks it truly breaks as we saw pretty much the entire game after the 1st quarter against the Titans. I'm sure this defense will come out of the bye week and look great again against the likes of the Dolphins, Jets, etc but there are still going to be a lot of question marks until we play a legit team again.  Also no matter what way you spin it,  a defense that some were comparing to the 2000 Ravens has lost to a washed up Big Ben and Ryan Tannenhill so far this year in just 6 games.

 

Anyways, hopefully this team comes out angry and has a similar finish to the season after last years pre bye week debacle.

 

 

 

Feliciano is most concerning to me.   If I am game planning the Bills that's the man I want my best pass rusher on.   Maybe Beane can pull a rabbit out of his hat and trade for former Panther and current Jaguar Andrew Norwell this week to plug the hole at guard.  It would cost them something and he has $9M or so of salary left due this season but they are in SB contention and that's what you do when you are thisclose.

 

[Chandler#81]

I think it’s just the blue pants..