What the Ravens loss (and many other bad losses) should teach us

[corta765]

8 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

As someone said in the game thread … could the Dolphins go on a run and claim the division?

 

Im trying to get an early start on the bedwetters ..

 

I would say at this point were toast. The Dolphins obviously have all the momentum and the Bills have absolutely NO way of preventing them from catching us

[BigBuff423]

I think the other things the Ravens-Dolphins game was to highlight that the Dolphins Defense was actually pretty decent. Their Offense is putrid, especially without Parker and W. Fuller, not to mention I don't believe in either Tua or Brissett. But the Defense is what caused the Bills the greatest challenge and then some timely throws and Josh Allen doing Josh Allen things, provided the scoring. 

 

I don't know what the next 9 games hold, and playoffs presuming we get there, but I think this is all necessary for the mental part of a true contender to handle and overcome. Bucs last year lost to the Saints in Week 8, 38-3, and turned it on for the rest of the season. I know the Bills can do that as well....but will they? Let's find out.

[BillsFan619]

28 minutes ago, corta765 said:

 

I would say at this point were toast. The Dolphins obviously have all the momentum and the Bills have absolutely NO way of preventing them from catching us

Are you High Football IQ’s cousin?

 

I kid! I kid!

[corta765]

2 minutes ago, BillsFan619 said:

Are you High Football IQ’s cousin?

 

I kid! I kid!

 

As Dunkirk Don would say "follow the money" and you'll find the answer haha

[BillsFan619]

1 minute ago, corta765 said:

 

As Dunkirk Don would say "follow the money" and you'll find the answer haha

Are you admitting that you’re related to him as well? 😜🤣

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

9 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

As someone said in the game thread … could the Dolphins go on a run and claim the division?

 

Im trying to get an early start on the bedwetters ..

 

No - they're worse at running the ball than buffalo, and they don't have a QB to carry the O.  They've scored 20 or fewer points in 7 of 10 games, and they're statistically poor on both sides of the ball.  They're good at taking the ball away, but also good at giving it away.  

 

If their receivers get healthy i can see them making some more noise, but saints titans patriots to end the season likely kills it.  I wouldn't feel particularly confident against NYG or Carolina either.  

34 minutes ago, BigBuff423 said:

I think the other things the Ravens-Dolphins game was to highlight that the Dolphins Defense was actually pretty decent. Their Offense is putrid, especially without Parker and W. Fuller, not to mention I don't believe in either Tua or Brissett. But the Defense is what caused the Bills the greatest challenge and then some timely throws and Josh Allen doing Josh Allen things, provided the scoring. 

 

I don't know what the next 9 games hold, and playoffs presuming we get there, but I think this is all necessary for the mental part of a true contender to handle and overcome. Bucs last year lost to the Saints in Week 8, 38-3, and turned it on for the rest of the season. I know the Bills can do that as well....but will they? Let's find out.

 

They did a good job of crowding the LOS, and daring the ravens to adjust.  The ravens continued to run RPOs and run into a wall.   Kind of the exact opposite of what teams have been doing to buffalo - they were also attacking LJ in his drops with DBs.  

 

Its a smart strategy though - Roman loves to run out of condensed formations which makes crowding the line easier.  They should have spread out more to force them to adjust out of the blitz.

[ColoradoBills]

3 hours ago, Southern_Bills said:

Long season,  enjoy the games. No one knows how it ends regardless of the analytics they cite. They play for a reason. 

 

That's the fact Jack.  Problem is most fans don't want to believe it.

I never predict season records or scores of individual games.  It seems to me that all it does is cause fans to twist themselves to

prove some sort of a point that should never have been made in the first place.

 

Yes, just enjoy the games as they happen and go from there.

[CincyBillsFan]

9 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

There's so much pretzel twisting going on trying to justify the Bills loss that at this pace Ford will be regarded as the best guard in the league by Saturday.

It's not abut justifying the Bills loss but placing it into proper perspective.

 

[Ethan in Cleveland]

I agree with the OP premise

 

But the Bills aren't 7 - 1. They are 5-3 with only one win over a hood opponent.  

 

What we don't know is if the loss to the Jags is the anomaly or if the losses to the Steelers and Titans is the norm.  

 

We won't know until they play better teams. 

[atlbillsfan1975]

Great points @BillsFan619. There are roughly 1,500 men in the world capable of playing this sport any given year. When I started thinking about it that way, it really hit home why “any given Sunday” anyone can win/lose. 

[Brianmoorman4jesus]

If you are one dimensional you can be beat by anyone. That’s why all last year I kept saying….we need balance. I don’t care how great it was. I get it. Our offense scored a lot. I understand. But we are making ourselves one dimensional on purpose. That’s senseless. When a team stops our fastball, we don’t have another pitch. You need BALANCE to be great. You have to at least make a team respect the fact that you can do something else. I’m not asking for a 50/50 split but it can’t be like it is now. There is middle ground. The ravens are the same. If you don’t let Lamar beat you with his legs…you are good.

[Ross Murdock]

The Bills didn't show up. They were lazy, and were believing their press clippings that they were likely headed to SB. They got burned. Yes the O-Line is average at best, same with running backs, but this is essentially the same crew that went to AFC Championship game. I 100% trust coach that the issues will be addressed. I also believe that Josh is a superstar in the making. Were already taking him for granted. Bills likely to lose 5/6 games this year, not get a by which is almost meaningless, and might even be a detrimental in keeping momentum. Tampa never played at home in the playoffs. I see a Bills Titans Matchup once again in Nashville for the AFC. Game will be a tossup. I like our chances. Chill out. Bills are good-to-go.  

[billsfan1959]

1 hour ago, ScottLaw said:

Don’t think it’s any coincidence that offensive struggles the past couple games coincide with the offensive line injuries….. I mean the basically moved the ball at will against the Titans the week before the BYE with a healthy offensive line….. they just can’t afford anymore injuries to an already average AT BEST unit…. It’s a pretty awful unit when any of the starters go down. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope Feliciano gets healthy quickly and he ***** blows….

 

Absolutely right. When healthy and with everyone in the position they should be, the Oline is good enough - not great or even above average - but good enough  with a QB like Allen (and a top 10 defense) to put up enough points to win any game they are in. I also do not think it is any coincidence that their best offensive performances, IMO, have come with Brown starting. This line just does not have the depth to overcome injuries. 

 

I also would say the absence of Knox at the same has hurt as well. Having him as a receiving threat would have been nice while Allen was running for his life on Sunday.

[billsfan1959]

51 minutes ago, Ethan in Portland said:

I agree with the OP premise

 

But the Bills aren't 7 - 1. They are 5-3 with only one win over a hood opponent.  

 

What we don't know is if the loss to the Jags is the anomaly or if the losses to the Steelers and Titans is the norm.  

 

We won't know until they play better teams. 

 

Or, just maybe, the way they played over all in their five wins and the Titans loss (which they probably should have won - but still played well on the road against a team that probably played their best game of the season, and has the best record in the conference) is the norm...

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by billsfan1959

[hondo in seattle]

10 hours ago, BillsFan619 said:

I agree that there are flaws, bro. But every AFC contender has flaws (or in the Titans case an injury to a top player). Even with our flaws, we're still one of the most complete teams, if not the most complete team in the AFC.

 

It's hard for me to call this team "complete" when we can't run, can't block.  

[ngbills]

You have to look at the full picture. Are your wins all very close? Are your wins due to turnovers? Are your wins due to an imbalance - really good O or really good D? Is one player performing on another level? There are so many variables. If the Bills had looked near perfect and then randomly lose to the Jags then I think you cough it up to any given Sunday. But when you have legitimate flaws that have shown up on multiple game days then it is a deficiency that needs to be fixed or you are at risk of losing to any team. Right now the Bills look more like that. There have been games with good numbers. But a lot of that was due to both the schedule and defense helping the offense out a lot with great field position and keeping the other team off the field. But the O has really struggled even in those blow out games. The OL has struggled all season. The running game has not been established. The Allen / Diggs connection has not been there. It needs to be fixed vs just thinking its nothing and all teams lose. 

[prissythecat]

2 hours ago, corta765 said:

 

As Dunkirk Don would say "follow the money" and you'll find the answer haha

wasn’t it “connect the dots” lol

[John from Riverside]

The other team gets paid to play to

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

11 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

So? I didn't think the Ravens were a Super Bowl favorite prior to this game. Coming into the season I thought the Bills were a Super Bowl favorite. Now I am less sure. I thought the Bills were past pitiful offensive performances like that. Just because the Ravens lost to a bad team doesn't mean I feel better about our loss to the Jags.

 

Of course losing to the Jags doesn't mean our Super Bowl chances are zero but it exposed a couple serious flaws with this team. It is by far the worst loss of the McDermott era and the issues that lost us the game have been lurking behind the scenes all year long.

I mean we give the titans a free pass for losing to the jets because of injuries yet we were missing 2 starters on the offensive line and our best cover 2 beater this season Dawson Knox and our only running back that can block left the game with a concussion at halftime.  For a team that’s offensive line has struggled when completely healthy that’s a pretty devastating injury report. Are the issues lurking? We don’t know yet. We were dropping 30+ on everybody when Knox was healthy. If we get some of those guys back and still look bad then we can give up hope but I wouldn’t yet lol

what AFC front runner doesn’t have a terrible loss?

Edited November 12, 2021 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Gen2]

11 hours ago, What a Tuel said:

Bad things that happened this time last year :

 

Got blown out by Titans and Chiefs

Almost lost to the Fitzpatrick led Dolphins

Beat the 2-14 Jets 18-10

Almost lost a 25 point lead to the Rams

Almost lost to the Cam Newton led Patriots if it weren't for a last minute fumble

 

Bad things that happened this year so far:

 

Upset against the Steelers

Tough close loss against the Titans

Upset against the Jaguars

I get what you are trying to say ... but ...

 

Last year, getting blown out by the Titans & Chiefs was bad I agree, but that was only two games, and they're both darn good teams. The next 4 examples were WINS and in my humble opinion, a win is never a bad thing.

 

Now this year had we "almost lost" to the Steelers, and "almost lost" to the Jags and lost a tough close game against the Titans I could see where we improved from last year, but it seems we are turning our "almost losses" to upsets and "almost wins". I can comfortably dismiss the loss to the Steelers as first game of the season yada yada yada, I can easily dismiss the loss to the Titans as we don't match up well yada yada yada, but the #1 scoring team being unable to score a single touchdown against the Jags is just unfathomable.

[stosh64]

11 hours ago, Buffalo Bills Fan said:

Right. On forward McDermott always adjustments. Lots of football left to go. Everyone improves as they grow.  Same issues later on in season worried but not right now. Just wait to see how they respond to all this.

Agreed, what wasn't such a big game against the Jests a few weeks ago suddenly becomes a huge game.  Was last week a fluke and we are seriously a contender, or have we been exposed like some of those slump years and we start making excuses and looking forward to next year.

     Jests week suddenly became an all important game for the McBeane era Bills. 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

2 hours ago, Ethan in Portland said:

I agree with the OP premise

 

But the Bills aren't 7 - 1. They are 5-3 with only one win over a hood opponent.  

 

What we don't know is if the loss to the Jags is the anomaly or if the losses to the Steelers and Titans is the norm.  

 

We won't know until they play better teams. 

yet one can argue 2 plays away from 7-1.  
 

If Josh didn’t slip TD & a W 

 

[zow2]

The Bills losses this year have been close games.  Close games usually come down to 1 huge play.  Pittsburgh, Tennessee and Jacksonville all made the big plays in the 2nd half to close it out.  

 

There will be more close games.  It would be nice to see Buffalo make the big play at the end to flip the game into a W.  

[auburnbillsbacker]

12 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

There's so much pretzel twisting going on trying to justify the Bills loss that at this pace Ford will be regarded as the best guard in the league by Saturday.

There is far more overreacting going on than pretzel twisting.  

[billsfan1959]

For what it is worth, I think the Miami defense has played better in the last two weeks than they have in almost a year. That is more of what I expected from them this year. I thought their offense would be bad, and it certainly has contributed somewhat to the demise of the defense by a drop in possession time and keeping them on the field so much. However, the last couple of weeks is what I thought they would be coming into the season.

[transplantbillsfan]

Agreed.  This is why I generally don't participate in those "predict the score" threads.  It's often like a blind man throwing at a dart board.  Yes, there are absolutely games certain teams should win--Buffalo should have beaten the Jags last week... the Ravens should have beaten the 'Phins last night--but that's why you play the games on Sunday... and that's the beauty of the NFL.

 

(And good god then you have those absolutely moronic threads like how much playing time Trubisky should get against Jacksonville )

 

It's truly any given Sunday and on any given Sunday any given team can win even if it's a superior team playing "one of the worst teams in the league."  There's a mental part of these games that's not played on paper where you get measurables and statistical outputs during the season.

 

That's why I was so disappointed last week.  I thought this team was one of the most mentally tough teams in the NFL.  Last weekend proved they still have a ways to go.

[corta765]

1 hour ago, prissythecat said:

wasn’t it “connect the dots” lol

Crap your own to me

[CincyBillsFan]

1 hour ago, ngbills said:

You have to look at the full picture. Are your wins all very close? Are your wins due to turnovers? Are your wins due to an imbalance - really good O or really good D? Is one player performing on another level? There are so many variables. If the Bills had looked near perfect and then randomly lose to the Jags then I think you cough it up to any given Sunday. But when you have legitimate flaws that have shown up on multiple game days then it is a deficiency that needs to be fixed or you are at risk of losing to any team. Right now the Bills look more like that. There have been games with good numbers. But a lot of that was due to both the schedule and defense helping the offense out a lot with great field position and keeping the other team off the field. But the O has really struggled even in those blow out games. The OL has struggled all season. The running game has not been established. The Allen / Diggs connection has not been there. It needs to be fixed vs just thinking its nothing and all teams lose. 

Looking at the full picture here's what I see:

 

*  Four of the five Bills wins have been blowouts with margins of victory huge by NFL standards (18, 22, 35 & 40 points).

 

*  Their 5th win ended up being by a comfortable 15 point margin against a team that has won back back to games since including a big upset over the Ravens.

 

*  Two of the Bill's losses were by 3 points with the Bill's offense having the ball in their opponents territory with a real chance to tie the game & force OT or win the game outright.

 

*  Their 3rd loss was by one score against a likely playoff team in Pittsburgh.  The difference in this game was a blocked punt TD by the Steelers. The Bills led this game at half by 10 points.

 

*  The Bills have not trailed at halftime in any game this season.  The Bills have out gained their opponents in every game this season.

 

 

 

 

[ngbills]

13 minutes ago, CincyBillsFan said:

Looking at the full picture here's what I see:

 

*  Four of the five Bills wins have been blowouts with margins of victory huge by NFL standards (18, 22, 35 & 40 points).

 

*  Their 5th win ended up being by a comfortable 15 point margin against a team that has won back back to games since including a big upset over the Ravens.

 

*  Two of the Bill's losses were by 3 points with the Bill's offense having the ball in their opponents territory with a real chance to tie the game & force OT or win the game outright.

 

*  Their 3rd loss was by one score against a likely playoff team in Pittsburgh.  The difference in this game was a blocked punt TD by the Steelers. The Bills led this game at half by 10 points.

 

*  The Bills have not trailed at halftime in any game this season.  The Bills have out gained their opponents in every game this season.

 

 

 

 

All good points. And most driven by the dominant defense. I think this is a great team and the loss to the Jags doesnt change that. But if the issues on O cant be resolved it just makes the road much tougher because you cant rely on the D being that dominant all the time and especially come playoff time. 

[CincyBillsFan]

Just now, ngbills said:

All good points. And most driven by the dominant defense. I think this is a great team and the loss to the Jags doesnt change that. But if the issues on O cant be resolved it just makes the road much tougher because you cant rely on the D being that dominant all the time and especially come playoff time. 

I don't understand you saying it was driven by the defense?  Sure they've played great but the Bills are producing huge yardage eclipsing 300 yards in every game so far. 

 

I think the issue is that even when moving the ball at will and rolling up yardage and points the Bills offense seems off.  This IMO is due to a below average O-line that introduces a sense of chaos on a lot of the pass plays and RB's that are not able to make teams pay for how they're defensing us.  That big TD run by Motor on the 2nd play of the Miami game should have been repeated multiple times. Instead, our run game is more apt to lose yardage then gain yardage on any given play.  And let's be honest we all fear 3rd and 1.

 

 

 

[BassToMouth]

It should teach you that the nfl is scripted.

[FilthyBeast]

Despite the Bills personal dominance of the Dolphins, their roster is not bad talent wise. Big issue for them has been coaching and the seemlessly never ending QB carousel the last few seasons. And last nights results wasn't a shocker either considering injuries and slow starts are finally catching up to the Ravens.

 

And as crazy as it sounds if Miami's defense keeps playing at the level it has in recent weeks it's not out of the question they find themselves right back in the playoff picture in the coming weeks given their remaining schedule, especially in an AFC that appears to be wide open beyond the current front runners in TEN.

[JohnNord]

13 hours ago, BillsFan619 said:

Good teams lose to bad teams. Very good teams have very bad losses.

 

The Ravens just lost to the Dolphins. The same Dolphins that lost to the Jags. The same Dolphins that lost seven in a row. The same Dolphins that still have Tua (who's nursing a broken finger).

 

I was just as shocked as you were. I thought we'd steamroll the Jags. It was a gut punch. It was very disappointing. They had no business being on the same field as us. Until they did.

 

Yes, we have problems. Yes, they need to be addressed and McD promised that they are being addressed (he's typically a man of his word and responds well to adversity). Yes, our margin for error just got smaller.

 

That said, we're not out of this thing because of one bad loss. History has shown us this. I remember one year where the Cowboys won one game. It was to their rivals, the no named football team, who ended up winning the Super Bowl that year. Heck, there were four bad losses by good teams last week (us included). The Ravens game is just simply the newest example.

 

Yes, if we pile up a few more bad losses against teams we should beat than it could be over (for this season). But right now, we're still in this thing and we're still contenders. The Steelers, while a tough loss, was a bad matchup. The Titans loss was a heartbreaker. The Jags is our first bad loss of the season. And guess what, every AFC contender that's at the top of their division has a bad loss now. The Titans do. The Ravens do. The Chargers do. And, our awesome Bills do.

 

I'm not even predicting what the Bills will do. They could lose a few more bad games and then many of you can comeback to this post and tell me that the post didn't age well. You have my permission to do so, btw. But that's not even the point of the post. The point is that every team has a REALLY, HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE BAD loss every once in awhile. We just had ours. That said, one bad loss doesn't have to define our team or their season. Everything is still in front of us and we're still contenders at this point.

 

As fans, let's not let one week define us. Let's cheer our hearts out as our Bills continue to fight for it all. Go Bills Mafia! Let's go Buffalo!

Gotta look at the overall sample size.  How many “bad losses” does McDermott have?  I can only think of a couple.  IMO that’s a good sign but it shows that nothing is a given victory in the NFL 

[Buffalo Bills Fan]

Ravens  really struggled with the  blitz 0 d. 

Edited November 12, 2021 by Buffalo Bills Fan

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

someone help an old guy out 

 

 

not that I paid much attention but 

 

I swear to god, I’ve heard 

 

Tua —Tonga Vailoa — on tv 

 

How does one pronounce  Tagovailoa’s

@Gugny @ExiledInIllinois

[ExiledInIllinois]

3 minutes ago, SlimShady'sSpaceForce said:

someone help an old guy out 

 

 

not that I paid much attention but 

 

I swear to god, I’ve heard 

 

Tua —Tonga Vailoa — on tv 

 

How does one pronounce  Tagovailoa’s

@Gugny @ExiledInIllinois

Ask @GoBills808... He's on Big Island. 

 

IIRC... It's "Tung-oh-vi-low-uh"

 

??

 

[GoBills808]

1 minute ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Ask @GoBills808... He's on Big Island. 

 

IIRC... It's "Tung-oh-vi-low-uh"

 

??

 

Tah-go-vai-low-uh

[Gugny]

11 minutes ago, SlimShady'sSpaceForce said:

someone help an old guy out 

 

 

not that I paid much attention but 

 

I swear to god, I’ve heard 

 

Tua —Tonga Vailoa — on tv 

 

How does one pronounce  Tagovailoa’s

@Gugny @ExiledInIllinois

 

TOO-uh

 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

6 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

Tah-go-vai-low-uh

but was I hearing it wrong?

 

how do the announcers say it?

 

 

[Gugny]

10 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

Tah-go-vai-low-uh

 

People in your country have weird names.