Bills have underperformed this year by 2+ wins

[Motorin']

3 hours ago, Big Turk said:

They have not been mentally prepared to take every teams best shot each week and ramp up the intensity. Kelly talked about how that was an issue with the Bills in 1989 after getting to the AFC Championship in 1988. They went from 12-4 to 9-7 and that was a big reason why he said...

 

This Bills team seems to be following suit.

 

Different teams. I think this year it was more about a long season after being 1 game away form the Super Bowl and not being able to get up for boring mid season games against teams they were supposed to beat. 

 

Now that every game is a playoff, it is freaking on. And we seem to be hitting on all cylinders at the right time. 

[LABILLBACKER]

3 hours ago, Big Turk said:

Based on the Expected win/loss totals, the Bills should be 12.2-3.8...obviously can't have a fraction of a win or loss so 12-4 would the rounding points...

 

Which would be good for first overall seed right now...frustrating to be in this position when they had so many winnable games they should have taken care of business in.

Those loses to Pittsburgh and Jacksonville were just stupid. The team and coaches were very unprepared for those 2. 

[JoshAllin]

For me the bills still feel like a 13 win team. Play those teams bills lost to earlier and bills win atleast half of those 9/10 times, at least pits and jags

Edited January 6, 2022 by motorj

[ProcessTruster]

3 hours ago, Big Turk said:

Based on the Expected win/loss totals, the Bills should be 12.2-3.8...obviously can't have a fraction of a win or loss so 12-4 would the rounding points...

 

Which would be good for first overall seed right now...frustrating to be in this position when they had so many winnable games they should have taken care of business in.

 

and it is more than fair to say they overachieved last year certainly by more than 2+ wins (5-0 in one score games, for example). 

 

let it go.  progress is not linear.   Go Bills.  

[Dr. Who]

It's all about the playoffs. Bills have as good a chance as anyone and if they play their A game, they win.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

6 hours ago, billsfan1959 said:

 

I posted this in another thread regarding MVP voting. If you look at one factor this year that goes toward overall success in the performance of Allen and the team, it is close games.

 

If you look at the top 9 QBs this year, every one of them has at least 2 game winning drives - except Allen. Allen has 0 4th quarter comebacks and 0 GWD. Of 28 QBs with at least 11 starts, he is 1 of only 4 who do not have at least 1 GWD (Wentz, Mayfield, and Wilson being the others).

 

Compare that with what he did in his previous 3 years.

 

 

If Allen pulls out just two of them, Tenn and TB (where he was in a great position to do so), and, right now, he would have 2 4QC and 2 GWD, the Bills would have a 12-4 record, they would have won the AFC East, and own the #1 Seed. Even with the performance in the Atlanta game, I believe he would be in the running for MVP. 

 

I'm certainly not putting all the blame for the losses in close games on Allen. I just think this year has been an anomaly for him and, for me, the greatest concern going into the playoffs: They just haven't been able to pull out wins in close games.

 

Kind of a double edged sword though…as the only reason a lot of those were one score games was because of an insanely impressive effort by josh.  If he wasn’t playing close to mvp levels a lot of those one score games become blowout losses.  

[FilthyBeast]

6 hours ago, UKBillFan said:

We can be horribly inconsistent just in single games - in the first half against the Bucs we looked like also fans who would get an early pick in the draft; in the second half we looked like Super Bowl winners. In the first half against the Falcons we were dreadful though improved in the second. I’m not sure if not knowing what we’ll get is annoying or exciting.

 

This is another reason I still have very little faith this team is going to go far in the playoffs.

 

It just seems that they have not played a true complete game for 4 quarters yet in all 3 phases but especially defense/offense. Even in the big win in NE a few weeks the defense seemed determined to let Mac Jones rip them apart and back into the game for a stretch in the 2nd half but obviously we kept scoring so it didn't ultimately matter.

[Big Turk]

2 hours ago, FilthyBeast said:

 

This is another reason I still have very little faith this team is going to go far in the playoffs.

 

It just seems that they have not played a true complete game for 4 quarters yet in all 3 phases but especially defense/offense. Even in the big win in NE a few weeks the defense seemed determined to let Mac Jones rip them apart and back into the game for a stretch in the 2nd half but obviously we kept scoring so it didn't ultimately matter.

 

Almost no team has played a complete game in all phases for 4 quarters. The good is they are so talented even when they don't play well they usually smoke teams. The bad is that when they get in close games they haven't been able to figure out a way to win them even tho they have been inside the opponent 10 yard line 3 times in the final minute. None of those times resulted in a TD.

[Beast]

4 hours ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Kind of a double edged sword though…as the only reason a lot of those were one score games was because of an insanely impressive effort by josh.  If he wasn’t playing close to mvp levels a lot of those one score games become blowout losses.  

And if he played at close to an MVP level, half of those losses would have been wins.

 

It’s all relative. The team needs to play like they did in Foxboro moving forward.

[RaoulDuke79]

Agreed....should have beat the Steelers and the Jags. 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

9 minutes ago, Beast said:

And if he played at close to an MVP level, half of those losses would have been wins.

 

It’s all relative. The team needs to play like they did in Foxboro moving forward.

I don’t know that that’s always true…couldn’t play much better than he did in the titans loss .  That one was entirely on the defense. Games like the jags that is certainly true for though 

[1ManRaid]

11 hours ago, iccrewman112 said:

The league average in one score games is 50% one team wins and the other loses. 

 

I love how Sammy felt the need to downvote this comment, as if you said something outrageous.

 

10 hours ago, dneveu said:

Well the Titans game was a bad qb sneak away from a likely win.  The Jags game was insanely winnable - Davis drop on 2nd and 7, and the whiffed pass pro by daryl williams was the next play which knocked buffalo out of tying field position and resulted in 4th and 16.  Davis catches that pass and its 1st and 10 inside the 30 yard line with 3 timeouts.  

 

Titans game had a blatant uncalled hold that sprung Henry for his long TD run.  Also a return TD called back from a phantom hold.

 

Jags game had about 300 uncalled false starts that kept the Jags in the game, as well as an uncalled Offside that should have given Josh a free play.

[Weatherman]

11 hours ago, iccrewman112 said:

The league average in one score games is 50% one team wins and the other loses. 

You’re forgetting the tie.  So 48/48, almost like roulette betting red/black.  

[RiotAct]

9 hours ago, LABILLBACKER said:

Those loses to Pittsburgh and Jacksonville were just stupid. The team and coaches were very unprepared for those 2. 

I can forgive the Pittsburgh loss… they’re not a terrible team and there’s always wackiness on opening week.

 

The Jacksonville loss, though… w t f

[Southern_Bills]

12 hours ago, Gobills14094 said:

It's the NFL.. we won nearly every one of our one score games last year. Call it luck or whatever but I think this thread is pointless.

 

Not pointless, just shows that "things" happen. Josh gets the score against the Titans, there's one. We get the call or Diggs catches the ball against the Bucs there's 2. We could go on but why?

 

They are in the dance and nothing matters besides what's in front of them. 3 months ago means nothing, or 3 weeks ago. 

 

Win out and no one remembers anything but you winning.

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

9 hours ago, ProcessTruster said:

 

and it is more than fair to say they overachieved last year certainly by more than 2+ wins (5-0 in one score games, for example). 

 

let it go.  progress is not linear.   Go Bills.  

 

Hail Murray?

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

2 hours ago, 1ManRaid said:

 

I love how Sammy felt the need to downvote this comment, as if you said something outrageous.

 

 

I was thinking it might actually be above or below .500  if viewing it as median. But even breaking it out that way it is likely to be .500 or so damn close to .500 I don't think it matters. So yes, the average team does in fact go .500.

 

I took a look at the 2019 season and teams 16, 17, 18 and 19 all went .500 in one score games. There was a slight bias towards more teams going .500 or better vs. going under .500

 

That was the sort of information I was looking for but obviously the results are .500. That was data for 2019. No idea how other years stack up but I would assume very similar. I'm not a math wiz but I'm thinking it's still possible for the median to be less than or greater than .500 any given year. But we would be talking a difference of .1 or .2 wins at most probably.  So yeah, pie in face. 

[GoBills808]

12 hours ago, Joe Mama said:

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

One of the bigger factors in predicting NFL win totals is mean regression in one score game record from the season prior. 
 

It’s likely that a team that goes 0-5 in one score games improves on that the following season. 

[FireChans]

13 hours ago, Joe Mama said:

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Extremely true. This is why I keep betting tons of money on Sam Darnold and betting against Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. Because past performance is not indicative of future results.

 

My wife took my kids.

[BarleyNY]

20 hours ago, Joe Mama said:

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

WTF?  Past performance is not a GUARANTEE of future results, but it’s absolutely indicative of them.  The exception you are thinking of is only valid for purely random events. 

Edited January 7, 2022 by BarleyNY

[RyanC883]

22 hours ago, HamptonBillsfan said:

Why is there condemnation of 2nd year rbs, when the O-line was inept. Motor couldn't do anything for most of the season. Dabol didn't call running plays for entire halves of games(Tampa), yet you inexplicably want to play a guy who they cut a week ago and who hasn't played this year, instead of Moss. If you taped the Atlanta game, Moss ran well with the few carries he had. He ran better against Carolina as well. The O-line is playing better with different blocking schemes, and Motor ran wild for 120.

 

 Motor is much better than Moss, we need an actual 2nd RB.  And Motor and Moss are 3rd year guys.  Yes, the OL has been bad, but Motor seems to have compensated for that more than Moss.  Moss is seemingly less physical in his play than Motor.     

22 hours ago, Big Turk said:

 

And they lead the NFL in net point differential even after the 2nd place team just went +40 in their game last week (NE).

 

Moss had a couple of good runs last week but I agree Motor looks like he has taken over.

 

Now he just needs to not drop easy catches in the playoffs...he has had brutal drops in each of the last 2 years in the playoffs.

 

oh, yes, the brutal drops.  Not sure how that happens.  Hopefully that's fixed.  He could be a 3 down back.  I'd still bring another in during the offseason, as well as tell Daboll to run the ball more.  It helps everyone to be more balanced.  

[Nextmanup]

On 1/6/2022 at 10:33 AM, Big Turk said:

Based on the Expected win/loss totals, the Bills should be 12.2-3.8...obviously can't have a fraction of a win or loss so 12-4 would the rounding points...

 

Which would be good for first overall seed right now...frustrating to be in this position when they had so many winnable games they should have taken care of business in.

Hey!  One less slip by Josh Allen in Nashville and a converted 1st down followed by a TD in the dying seconds of that game, and we are the number 1 seed RIGHT NOW.

 

We didn't miss by much.

 

Also: look at all those 1 score games we lost....combined with all those blowout wins.

 

And the best news of all: A PLUS 177 point differential, good for THE BEST IN THE NFL.

 

Signs like this are arguably better indicators of quality than actual record, even though that may seem counter-intuitive to some fans.

 

As long as the offensive line can find a way to get it done--even if ugly--and Josh can do his thing, the only team in the AFC I see keeping up with us is KC.

 

It's also why I think we will face KC in the championship game again...just as all the pundits predicted pre-season!

 

The more things change, the more they don't change.

 

 

[HamptonBillsfan]

25 minutes ago, RyanC883 said:

 

 Motor is much better than Moss, we need an actual 2nd RB.  And Motor and Moss are 3rd year guys.  Yes, the OL has been bad, but Motor seems to have compensated for that more than Moss.  Moss is seemingly less physical in his play than Motor.     

 

oh, yes, the brutal drops.  Not sure how that happens.  Hopefully that's fixed.  He could be a 3 down back.  I'd still bring another in during the offseason, as well as tell Daboll to run the ball more.  It helps everyone to be more balanced.  

Motor looked timid and soft for most of the season until Tampa. He was not part of the offense. All I'm saying is that now ,in the elements, with the O-line playing better, we can judge Moss as the run will be featured. 

[Maine-iac]

On 1/7/2022 at 11:07 AM, HamptonBillsfan said:

Motor looked timid and soft for most of the season until Tampa. He was not part of the offense. All I'm saying is that now ,in the elements, with the O-line playing better, we can judge Moss as the run will be featured. 

Motor was on pace for 1,000 yards as of week 4.  The problem was never Motor they just went away from him and took way too long to come back.  Now they are running more and getting better at it the more they do it.  Yes Moss will benefit from that also but Moss is the epitome of a one cut runner where as Motor has a lot more wiggle.  As far as us nonperforming by two wins we are were in the red zone and came up short of putting the game away at least 3 times.  We are probably 3 plays in those games from having 3 more wins. 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

On 1/6/2022 at 10:33 AM, Big Turk said:

Based on the Expected win/loss totals, the Bills should be 12.2-3.8...obviously can't have a fraction of a win or loss so 12-4 would the rounding points...

 

Which would be good for first overall seed right now...frustrating to be in this position when they had so many winnable games they should have taken care of business in.

 

Yeah but the Bengals shouldn't have lost to the Bears and Jets and the Titans shouldn't have lost to Jets (hmmm Jets won only 4 games, but beat Titans and Bengals) and Texans so give them each two more wins too then. 

 

That puts Bengals back at 12 wind and Titans at 13

[Cash]

On 1/6/2022 at 3:38 PM, Sammy Watkins' Rib said:

I’m not sure what the league average is in one score games but it’s most certainly not O-5  or anywhere close to that. It’s probably somewhere close to 2-3 or 40%.
 

Yeah if the bills just somehow found a way to win two out of their 51 score games they’d be leading the conference. That’s not asking the world of the team.

 

We can likely view this as a positive going into next season in that it’s unlikely they will duplicate a 0–5 record in the same games.

Every one score game (except ties) has exactly 1 winner and 1 loser. So the league average is inherently .500 every year. 
 

So yeah, we’ve underperformed. The good news is that historically, there’s not much stability in whether a team overperforms or underperforms on this*. So there’s no reason to think the Bills will keep underperforming in one score games. Not in future seasons, and not necessarily the rest of this year either. 

 

*I’ve heard Aaron Schatz say that both Brady’s and Manning’s teams consistently overperformed, but haven’t seen him back that up with real evidence. I’m theoretically an analytics guy, but I’m also a skeptic so I don’t accept anything based only on word of mouth. 

[Evian]

The Bills did underform. They had an extra game and an easy schedule.

 

11 wins should be 13. I think the Jaguars and Steelers are the two we would want back.

 

Does it matter though? Teams win Superbowls from the the #1 seed through the #7 seed. The regular season is  irrelevant come playoff time. Teams win on the road all the time. Ask the Bucs of last year.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Evian

[Man with No Name]

1 hour ago, Cash said:

Every one score game (except ties) has exactly 1 winner and 1 loser. So the league average is inherently .500 every year. 
 

So yeah, we’ve underperformed. The good news is that historically, there’s not much stability in whether a team overperforms or underperforms on this*. So there’s no reason to think the Bills will keep underperforming in one score games. Not in future seasons, and not necessarily the rest of this year either. 

 

*I’ve heard Aaron Schatz say that both Brady’s and Manning’s teams consistently overperformed, but haven’t seen him back that up with real evidence. I’m theoretically an analytics guy, but I’m also a skeptic so I don’t accept anything based only on word of mouth. 

yeah. would love to see qb w-l records in 1 score games

[Man with No Name]

1 hour ago, Cash said:

Every one score game (except ties) has exactly 1 winner and 1 loser. So the league average is inherently .500 every year. 
 

So yeah, we’ve underperformed. The good news is that historically, there’s not much stability in whether a team overperforms or underperforms on this*. So there’s no reason to think the Bills will keep underperforming in one score games. Not in future seasons, and not necessarily the rest of this year either. 

 

*I’ve heard Aaron Schatz say that both Brady’s and Manning’s teams consistently overperformed, but haven’t seen him back that up with real evidence. I’m theoretically an analytics guy, but I’m also a skeptic so I don’t accept anything based only on word of mouth. 

I can't find much, but here's an interesting article showing how teams with several "lucky" wins regress the next season, and teams with several "unlucky" losses end up winning big the next year. 

 

The two exceptions, Manning's colts in 06 and 08 had SEVERAL "lucky" wins, but then outperformed those years the next season anyway. Manning's teams were the only exception to this rule from 06-17. that is going both ways. 

 

http://www.optimumscouting.com/news/nfl-s-close-game-analytics-how-lucky-wins-or-losse

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

4 hours ago, Cash said:

*I’ve heard Aaron Schatz say that both Brady’s and Manning’s teams consistently overperformed, but haven’t seen him back that up with real evidence. I’m theoretically an analytics guy, but I’m also a skeptic so I don’t accept anything based only on word of mouth. 

 

Yeah. For some reason I have found it incredibly difficult to find team win/loss records in one score games. A google search has only come up with complete season data for the 2019 season. Seem like something that would be easier to find.

2 hours ago, Evian said:

 

 

11 wins should be 13. I think the Jaguars and Steelers are the two we would want back.

 

 

 

I'm greedy. I want them all back! 16-1!

[Man with No Name]

4 minutes ago, Sammy Watkins' Rib said:

 

Yeah. For some reason I have found it incredibly difficult to find team win/loss records in one score games. A google search has only come up with complete season data for the 2019 season. Seem like something that would be easier to find.

 

I'm greedy. I want them all back! 16-1!

we do know that both Brady and Manning have a TON of 4th qtr comebacks (top 2 of all-time according to pro-football-reference) and game winning drives, which would typically be 1 score wins. i guess that jives with "overperforming" 

[TBBills]

The only game that really hurt this team was the Jaguars game.

[BillsFanSD]

Anybody who watched this team this year knows we underperformed a bit.  We lost every one-score game were involved in.  Statistically, that's hard to do.  As a ton of other people have noted, we're one Josh-Allen-slip-on-fourth-down away from playing for the #1 seed, which just goes to reinforce a) it's a game of inches and b) this team has been exceptionally unlucky this year.

 

The good news is that this team is good enough that it can take a bunch of tough losses and still win its division and be well-positioned for a deep playoff run.  And next year we can look forward to "regression toward the mean" working in our favor.

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

4 minutes ago, TBBills said:

The only game that really hurt this team was the Jaguars game.

 

Titans is the biggest one. They win that they currently hold the #1 seed.

[BillsFanSD]

4 minutes ago, TBBills said:

The only game that really hurt this team was the Jaguars game.

Nope.  If you could pick one game to flip -- that actually does go the other way about 85% of the time -- it's the Titans game.  The Jags game didn't really matter.

[ArtVandalay]

1 minute ago, BillsFanSD said:

Anybody who watched this team this year knows we underperformed a bit.  We lost every one-score game were involved in.  Statistically, that's hard to do.  As a ton of other people have noted, we're one Josh-Allen-slip-on-fourth-down away from playing for the #1 seed, which just goes to reinforce a) it's a game of inches and b) this team has been exceptionally unlucky this year.

 

The good news is that this team is good enough that it can take a bunch of tough losses and still win its division and be well-positioned for a deep playoff run.  And next year we can look forward to "regression toward the mean" working in our favor.

No offense but I'm tired of the slip narrative.  His guard got thrown in his lap off the snap and they were on the 3 yard line, that play was a horrendous call and blown up of the snap, zero chance to sneak it in from the 3 yardline. Just a baffling call.

[BillsFanSD]

1 minute ago, ArtVandalay said:

No offense but I'm tired of the slip narrative.  His guard got thrown in his lap off the snap and they were on the 3 yard line, that play was a horrendous call and blown up of the snap, zero chance to sneak it in from the 3 yardline. Just a baffling call.

Sorry -- not being critical of Allen here.  Just emphasizing that we were really unfortunate to lose that game.  We were set up really well for a win and picked a bad time to botch a relatively-straightforward play.

[ArtVandalay]

6 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

Sorry -- not being critical of Allen here.  Just emphasizing that we were really unfortunate to lose that game.  We were set up really well for a win and picked a bad time to botch a relatively-straightforward play.

It's not critical of Allen, it's just mischaracterizing a play that has zero chance.  Allen didn't slip he got a lineman thrown into him. 

 

Straightforward play? A QB sneak under center from the 3 yard line? Your chance of scoring is next to 0. Our offensive line was getting manhandled all game too. 

 

I don't mind going for the TD but go for the TD, they were trying for a first down with 20 seconds left and then still needed a TD after that. 

[Dr. Who]

Just now, ArtVandalay said:

It's not critical of Allen, it's just mischaracterizing a play that has zero chance.  Allen didn't slip he got a lineman thrown into him. 

 

Straightforward play? A QB sneak under center from the 3 yard line? Your chance of scoring is next to 0. Our offensive line was getting manhandled all game too. 

 

I don't mind going for the TD but go for the TD, they were trying for a first down with 20 seconds left and then still needed a TD after that. 

Allen is usually very good on the qb sneak, but in that critical situation on the goal line, an RPO gives you more room to diagnose and choose the best option. It wasn't a great call.

[TBBills]

23 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

Nope.  If you could pick one game to flip -- that actually does go the other way about 85% of the time -- it's the Titans game.  The Jags game didn't really matter.

I am talking game they didn't show up for. The Titans game was a banana peel slip.