Pretty good summation from Cover1

[finn]

1 hour ago, Gene1973 said:

And Beane went DE crazy in the draft and no whiff of him looking at O-linemen before the trade deadline. That's going to be the story of the season.

This. The evidence is now clear that he messed up royally, possibly to the point of ruining what might have been a Super Bowl year. He also didn't draft a corner until the late rounds, another area that will become a liability if injuries hit. Doubling down, he also declined to trade for these positions. To be fair, it's possible that he's relying on McDermott's judgment that the OL is Super Bowl quality, and maybe McDermott is relying on the OL coach's judgment. But Dawkins appears to be the only excellent lineman we have; Morse seems to hold his own, and Spencer Brown, to judge from the Athletic's All-22 breakdowns, is doing quite well. But Boettger and Ford have to be two of the worst players in the league. This site was screaming for Beane to take Creed Humphrey, a budding all-pro in Kansas City, in the second round. Boogie Basham looks good, but what a blunder not to take Humphrey, just like it was a blunder to take Ford instead of Metcalf in the second round in 2019. He can't hit them all, but if we're going to praise him for his hits, it's fair game to nail him for his blunders, especially when the solution was blindingly obvious at the time, not only in hindsight. Plenty of blame to go around for this awful loss, but in my view the biggest share goes to Beane. 

[Scott7975]

3 minutes ago, finn said:

This. The evidence is now clear that he messed up royally, possibly to the point of ruining what might have been a Super Bowl year. He also didn't draft a corner until the late rounds, another area that will become a liability if injuries hit. Doubling down, he also declined to trade for these positions. To be fair, it's possible that he's relying on McDermott's judgment that the OL is Super Bowl quality, and maybe McDermott is relying on the OL coach's judgment. But Dawkins appears to be the only excellent lineman we have; Morse seems to hold his own, and Spencer Brown, to judge from the Athletic's All-22 breakdowns, is doing quite well. But Boettger and Ford have to be two of the worst players in the league. This site was screaming for Beane to take Creed Humphrey, a budding all-pro in Kansas City, in the second round. Boogie Basham looks good, but what a blunder not to take Humphrey, just like it was a blunder to take Ford instead of Metcalf in the second round in 2019. He can't hit them all, but if we're going to praise him for his hits, it's fair game to nail him for his blunders, especially when the solution was blindingly obvious at the time, not only in hindsight. Plenty of blame to go around for this awful loss, but in my view the biggest share goes to Beane. 

 

Dawkins actually hasn't been playing well either.  I couldn't care less what Joe B said about it.  He may play fairly well over the course of the entire game but he has some really bad moments as well and they are drive killers.  He certainly is not playing like a franchise LT.

[Buffalo Junction]

6 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

Dawkins actually hasn't been playing well either.  I couldn't care less what Joe B said about it.  He may play fairly well over the course of the entire game but he has some really bad moments as well and they are drive killers.  He certainly is not playing like a franchise LT.

I’m wondering how much of that inconsistency in due to Covid and how much is poor communication. Line calls generally come from the inside out, and with shoddy guard play tackles often find themselves on an island or picking up a rusher to their inside. 

[oldmanfan]

Dawkins to me isn’t over Covid.  The other guys are simply weaker than the guys they play against.  Forget scheme, play calls, all that stuff.  The interior line gets destroyed because they don’t have the physical strength to compete.

[Scott7975]

6 minutes ago, Buffalo Junction said:

I’m wondering how much of that inconsistency in due to Covid and how much is poor communication. Line calls generally come from the inside out, and with shoddy guard play tackles often find themselves on an island or picking up a rusher to their inside. 

 

I honestly don't know.  All I do know is that the line is terrible and it doesn't really matter who plays.  I am beginning to wonder if coaching is just that bad.  This line might be the worst group of guys I have ever seen and it just doesn't make sense to have that many bad linemen.  No names fill in across the league just fine all the time.

[Scott7975]

1 minute ago, Gene1973 said:

He's like still having trouble getting over the cooph.

 

Could be.

[Buffalo Junction]

11 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

I honestly don't know.  All I do know is that the line is terrible and it doesn't really matter who plays.  I am beginning to wonder if coaching is just that bad.  This line might be the worst group of guys I have ever seen and it just doesn't make sense to have that many bad linemen.  No names fill in across the league just fine all the time.

Oh, the coaching is definitely not a benefit. Thing is, I’m not sure that Beane is assembling an Oline that has similar scheme ability; ie Morse’s strengths don’t jive with Ford, etc. There’s no actual Oline identity, especially in the run game which is a huge problem. 

[BuffaloRebound]

It’s pretty amazing to me how league wide and even in college that it seems so hard to run the ball in short yardage situations.  That’s not a Bills specific problem.  The world’s gone pass happy and teams have built their OLines accordingly.  Teams that can run the ball when it counts are the teams that are gonna have success in January.  My 2 cents are that teams like the Bills have gone overboard on the analytics. When you’re in a tight game and can’t pick up a yard on the ground, it’s very hard to win.  

[NoSaint]

7 hours ago, Big Turk said:

 

Kind of reminds me back a few years ago when they couldn't pick up stunts or T-E games to save their life

brought it up after Tennessee as a frustration that night. Was not great.

[AlCowlingsTaxiService]

1 hour ago, finn said:

This. The evidence is now clear that he messed up royally, possibly to the point of ruining what might have been a Super Bowl year. He also didn't draft a corner until the late rounds, another area that will become a liability if injuries hit. Doubling down, he also declined to trade for these positions. To be fair, it's possible that he's relying on McDermott's judgment that the OL is Super Bowl quality, and maybe McDermott is relying on the OL coach's judgment. But Dawkins appears to be the only excellent lineman we have; Morse seems to hold his own, and Spencer Brown, to judge from the Athletic's All-22 breakdowns, is doing quite well. But Boettger and Ford have to be two of the worst players in the league. This site was screaming for Beane to take Creed Humphrey, a budding all-pro in Kansas City, in the second round. Boogie Basham looks good, but what a blunder not to take Humphrey, just like it was a blunder to take Ford instead of Metcalf in the second round in 2019. He can't hit them all, but if we're going to praise him for his hits, it's fair game to nail him for his blunders, especially when the solution was blindingly obvious at the time, not only in hindsight. Plenty of blame to go around for this awful loss, but in my view the biggest share goes to Beane. 

He is FAR from excellent 

[SectionC3]

1 hour ago, Scott7975 said:

Article is spot on.  Ive been saying this all season long.  When there are 7 in coverage and the line cant block 4 guys for more than 2-3 seconds then you aren't going to move the ball.  Especially when there is no threat to run whatsoever.  Its astounding how bad the line is at pass blocking that they are even worse at run blocking. 

 

I do think that is at least in part on coaching.  I can't believe that we have so many bad guys.  Other teams plug and play no names all the time and they still do a good job.  Hell half the time our own defense is playing back up line men and they still don't get sacks or run stops.

 

Here's how I see the issue. 

 

1.  Teams will play rope a dope against us moving forward. 

2.  We can't run the ball effectively, making it tedious or maybe even hard to move down long fields against Cover 2. 

3. Our pass blocking is atrocious. 

4.  Hence will see Cover 2 with some press man beneath because the ball has to come out fast. 

5.  Even if we figure all of that out, our red zone efficiency is poor. 

6.  So even if we navigate long fields, we still have the problem of scoring touchdowns. 

7.  Bottom line, there's a lot of problems here.  The Jax loss portends a much bigger issue. 

42 minutes ago, BuffaloRebound said:

It’s pretty amazing to me how league wide and even in college that it seems so hard to run the ball in short yardage situations.  That’s not a Bills specific problem.  The world’s gone pass happy and teams have built their OLines accordingly.  Teams that can run the ball when it counts are the teams that are gonna have success in January.  My 2 cents are that teams like the Bills have gone overboard on the analytics. When you’re in a tight game and can’t pick up a yard on the ground, it’s very hard to win.  

 

I feel the same way about four minute offenses.  Tight game, bad weather, need to grind the clock?  Forget about it with this group. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by SectionC3

[starrymessenger]

1 hour ago, finn said:

This. The evidence is now clear that he messed up royally, possibly to the point of ruining what might have been a Super Bowl year. He also didn't draft a corner until the late rounds, another area that will become a liability if injuries hit. Doubling down, he also declined to trade for these positions. To be fair, it's possible that he's relying on McDermott's judgment that the OL is Super Bowl quality, and maybe McDermott is relying on the OL coach's judgment. But Dawkins appears to be the only excellent lineman we have; Morse seems to hold his own, and Spencer Brown, to judge from the Athletic's All-22 breakdowns, is doing quite well. But Boettger and Ford have to be two of the worst players in the league. This site was screaming for Beane to take Creed Humphrey, a budding all-pro in Kansas City, in the second round. Boogie Basham looks good, but what a blunder not to take Humphrey, just like it was a blunder to take Ford instead of Metcalf in the second round in 2019. He can't hit them all, but if we're going to praise him for his hits, it's fair game to nail him for his blunders, especially when the solution was blindingly obvious at the time, not only in hindsight. Plenty of blame to go around for this awful loss, but in my view the biggest share goes to Beane. 

Dawkins has been terrible. Simmons blew him up and it cost us the Titans game. He was awful yesterday. Many teams passed on Metcalf. Broncos took Risner, a great young guard, a few spots after Ford. 

[Ned Flanders]

10 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Ike Boettger is a favorite of Johnson’s, and he struggled all day and had the critical false start that moved the Bills out of the aforementioned fourth-and-two situation.

This was a big point in the ball game.  The Jags clearly came into the neutral zone and nine times out of ten, that's what's called here.  McDermott was going balistic on the sideline, and for good reason.  The Bills should have gotten the first down on the non-call here.

[vincec]

I don't think the OL is a high priority in the hierarchy of the team. QB and DL are obviously #1 which is totally logical, but it seems like every other position group except RB is a higher priority than OL. I don't think that's a good structure. For example, I don't think I'd be drafting and trading for WRs or TEs before the OL. As you can see from the last two weeks,  if you don't have a good OL then those positions don't mean jack.

[colin]

we need better talent at OL, but the constantly missing blocks (as in not even attempting to block a free runner) and the way we get schooled by games and stunts makes me think our biggest coaching shortfall is OL.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, finn said:

This. The evidence is now clear that he messed up royally, possibly to the point of ruining what might have been a Super Bowl year. He also didn't draft a corner until the late rounds, another area that will become a liability if injuries hit. Doubling down, he also declined to trade for these positions. To be fair, it's possible that he's relying on McDermott's judgment that the OL is Super Bowl quality, and maybe McDermott is relying on the OL coach's judgment. But Dawkins appears to be the only excellent lineman we have; Morse seems to hold his own, and Spencer Brown, to judge from the Athletic's All-22 breakdowns, is doing quite well. But Boettger and Ford have to be two of the worst players in the league. This site was screaming for Beane to take Creed Humphrey, a budding all-pro in Kansas City, in the second round. Boogie Basham looks good, but what a blunder not to take Humphrey, just like it was a blunder to take Ford instead of Metcalf in the second round in 2019. He can't hit them all, but if we're going to praise him for his hits, it's fair game to nail him for his blunders, especially when the solution was blindingly obvious at the time, not only in hindsight. Plenty of blame to go around for this awful loss, but in my view the biggest share goes to Beane. 

 

To be fair, it's not Beane's job to rely upon the judgement of his coaches.  He has made it clear that he and his staff evaluate the players on the team independently of the coaches.  Obviously the coach's judgement factors in, and only Beane/McDermott know how much weight is given to each in the final evaluation.

 

Beane has made mistakes about OL before.  He said after the 2018 season that he regretted "not doing more" on OL.  He said "we were limited by the cap, but I could have done more". 

 

I feel this season is going to go down as another "I should have done more - I was limited by the cap but I could have done more" seasons.  Part if it is missing on their evaluation of Ford and of Feliciano as "able to improve with a full off-season of training".  Far from improving, they appear to have gotten worse.

 

To the bolded, it's not true, and it's a problem.   Dawkins has it in him to be an excellent lineman, but that guy has only shown up sporadically this season.

 

Dawkins played very well in 2019, earning a huge contract where he "got paid" like a franchise LT in 2020.  He played well in 2020.  But in OTAs this season, he showed up sloppy fat.  People were like "if that's not something the Bills asked Dawkins to do, Yikes".  Then he got Covid and missed a month of training camp and looked like a turnstyle when he came back.  He's been "up and down" since, one game good, one game awful.

 

That's symptomatic of the problems the Bills have had across the OL.  Williams played very well at RT last season, again looking like a franchise RT, and Got Paid.  This season, he has NOT been nearly as good at RT, to the point where a relatively raw rookie who is still making some pretty bad errors, has outplayed him.

 

I wanted Creed Humphrey, but Morse is far from the worst problem on OL - we needed a guard, and from everything I've seen, Creed Humphrey has never played guard and there's nothing saying he'd be good at guard.  Do we really think Creed Humphrey playing between Feliciano and Ford or Boettger and Feliciano would be an improvement, with Dawkins and Williams turnstiling the tackle positions?

 

6 minutes ago, colin said:

we need better talent at OL, but the constantly missing blocks (as in not even attempting to block a free runner) and the way we get schooled by games and stunts makes me think our biggest coaching shortfall is OL.

 

I am reluctantly coming to this opinion.  I think the film is out there on how to confuse and bemuse the Bills OL, and more and more teams are picking up on it.  This is an issue of how protections are designed, coaching, and how protections interact with the various play calls.

3 hours ago, Scott7975 said:

 

I honestly don't know.  All I do know is that the line is terrible and it doesn't really matter who plays.  I am beginning to wonder if coaching is just that bad.  This line might be the worst group of guys I have ever seen and it just doesn't make sense to have that many bad linemen.  No names fill in across the league just fine all the time.

 

Oh my how quickly we forget.  No.  2018 OL was way worse, even given yesterday. 

 

But yesterday was approaching 2018 levels.

[Scott7975]

4 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

To be fair, it's not Beane's job to rely upon the judgement of his coaches.  He has made it clear that he and his staff evaluate the players on the team independently of the coaches.  Obviously the coach's judgement factors in, and only Beane/McDermott know how much weight is given to each in the final evaluation.

 

Beane has made mistakes about OL before.  He said after the 2018 season that he regretted "not doing more" on OL.  He said "we were limited by the cap, but I could have done more". 

 

I feel this season is going to go down as another "I should have done more - I was limited by the cap but I could have done more" seasons.  Part if it is missing on their evaluation of Ford and of Feliciano as "able to improve with a full off-season of training".  Far from improving, they appear to have gotten worse.

 

To the bolded, it's not true, and it's a problem.   Dawkins has it in him to be an excellent lineman, but that guy has only shown up sporadically this season.

 

Dawkins played very well in 2019, earning a huge contract where he "got paid" like a franchise LT in 2020.  He played well in 2020.  But in OTAs this season, he showed up sloppy fat.  People were like "if that's not something the Bills asked Dawkins to do, Yikes".  Then he got Covid and missed a month of training camp and looked like a turnstyle when he came back.  He's been "up and down" since, one game good, one game awful.

 

That's symptomatic of the problems the Bills have had across the OL.  Williams played very well at RT last season, again looking like a franchise RT, and Got Paid.  This season, he has NOT been nearly as good at RT, to the point where a relatively raw rookie who is still making some pretty bad errors, has outplayed him.

 

I wanted Creed Humphrey, but Morse is far from the worst problem on OL - we needed a guard, and from everything I've seen, Creed Humphrey has never played guard and there's nothing saying he'd be good at guard.  Do we really think Creed Humphrey playing between Feliciano and Ford or Boettger and Feliciano would be an improvement, with Dawkins and Williams turnstiling the tackle positions?

 

 

I am reluctantly coming to this opinion.  I think the film is out there on how to confuse and bemuse the Bills OL, and more and more teams are picking up on it.  This is an issue of how protections are designed, coaching, and how protections interact with the various play calls.

 

Oh my how quickly we forget.  No.  2018 OL was way worse, even given yesterday. 

 

But yesterday was approaching 2018 levels.

 

I honestly don't think 2018 was worse than yesterday.  I think yesterday was the worst ever.  Now 2018 was worse than a few weeks go before the Brown injury, but not the crap that showed up yesterday.  Someone needs to light a fire because those guys were asleep.  I don't care if they take some of these guys on the D line that are healthy scratches every week and try them out because these guys are that bad.

5 hours ago, Ned Flanders said:

This was a big point in the ball game.  The Jags clearly came into the neutral zone and nine times out of ten, that's what's called here.  McDermott was going balistic on the sideline, and for good reason.  The Bills should have gotten the first down on the non-call here.

 

They didn't though.  I rewound the DVR.  He flinched well before a D linemen even moved.  He flinched on Allens hard count.  It was the right call.  I thought the same thing you are saying in the moment which is why I went back and looked.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Scott7975

[Scott7975]

4 hours ago, vincec said:

I don't think the OL is a high priority in the hierarchy of the team. QB and DL are obviously #1 which is totally logical, but it seems like every other position group except RB is a higher priority than OL. I don't think that's a good structure. For example, I don't think I'd be drafting and trading for WRs or TEs before the OL. As you can see from the last two weeks,  if you don't have a good OL then those positions don't mean jack.

 

TBF they weren't really all that bad at pass blocking last season.  At least not until towards the end of it.  I don't think teams had figured it out yet.  Run blocking they were still bad but pass blocking they were at least average.

[Maine-iac]

9 hours ago, Beast said:

Not just pass blocking….I’ve never seen a team struggle so mightily to pick up short yardage situations in my life. It feels like a monumental task to pick up a third or fourth and one.  And that’s a team that actually carries a fullback on their roster. You’d think they be one of the better teams.

to this end according the splits from ESPN Singletary has 0 carries on thrird down and Moss only has 7.  Meanwhile Allen has 21 carries on 3rd down.  So our 3rd down back is our QB.

[947]

Spencer Brown has been our best O-Lineman. Sure, he's had some lapses, but far fewer than the other OL. I have no doubt he's our future at RT, or LT if Dawkins can't get back to his old form. Getting Brown back, and kicking Williams back to OG will help, but that isn't enough. If nothing else, Brown's attitude should fire the other guys up. I have no problem kicking Dawkins to Guard, if it gets the OL back on track. Brown looked good at LT in the couple snaps he's gotten.

 

The only possible band-aid currently on the roster is Bates, he's hungry and needs to get a shot somewhere. I'd like to see either of the following OL combos:

 

Dawkins-Bates-Morse-Williams-Brown

 

Brown-Dawkins-Morse-Williams-Bates