Why has tackling become a struggle?

[Gambit]

Lordy Epenesa trying to achieve a high score

[LABILLBACKER]

6 hours ago, UKBillFan said:

As much as Leslie Frasier has been criticised for play calling on defense, I think our biggest issue is YAC - we seem to be missing a disproportionate number of tackles this year. Is it a case of reserves struggling to execute? Players on offense knowing how we tackle so being able to skip round them? Players not being coached probably to wrap up and hold? It feels like we’re putting ourselves under additional pressure due to not being able to stop the YAC, and I cannot recall us being so porous in previous years.

That Lions game was the worst tackling of the year. Everyone including Milano missed tackles.

3 minutes ago, Gambit said:

Lordy Epenesa trying to achieve a high score

Careful,  this is Pennstate10's boy. 

[nosejob]

4 hours ago, Eastport bills said:

Frazier and Sean are not coaching up young, inexperienced dbs to wrap up and bring fundamentals and physicality to tackling. These guys are trying to strip and grab and teams like Detroit and the Jets ran for big numbers. Good tackling is a mentality and other than Johnson, White and Elam our secondary is not there yet. When Milano or Edmunds are not on the field, we struggle in the run game.

Thank God A.J. Klein is back. I guarantee he will make a big difference filling in....already has. (9 tackles, 1 for loss and dropping Swift on Lions final drive) I think Bernard and Spector have a good future, but we really should have kept Klein from the get go. It wasn't a huge deal money wise.

 

edit: However I do wish we'd have jumped on Roquain Smith.(sp?)

Edited November 26, 2022 by nosejob

[Eastport bills]

18 minutes ago, nosejob said:

Thank God A.J. Klein is back. I guarantee he will make a big difference filling in....already has. (9 tackles, 1 for loss and dropping Swift on Lions final drive) I think Bernard and Spector have a good future, but we really should have kept Klein from the get go. It wasn't a huge deal money wise.

 

edit: However I do wish we'd have jumped on Roquain Smith.(sp?)

Roquain would have been perfect except it would have been too much for Beane and his reluctance to give up draft capital. AJ looks like he will really help if  Milano or Edmunds have to miss time.

[Marvin]

4 hours ago, Ta111 said:

This thread reminds me of a preseason game between the Bills and Vikings in the early 70’s. OJ had just put a move on middle linebacker Wally Hilgenberg for a big gain. When Hilgenberg came to the sideline, Vikings coach, Bud Grant layed into Hilgenberg and said they were paying him 250k per year to make that tackle (remember this was the early 70’s). Without missing a beat, Hilgenberg responded “but coach they’re paying OJ 650k to make me miss”.

moral is the other guys get paid too.

Thanks for bringing back that memory.  🙂

[nosejob]

28 minutes ago, Eastport bills said:

Roquain would have been perfect except it would have been too much for Beane and his reluctance to give up draft capital. AJ looks like he will really help if  Milano or Edmunds have to miss time.

Yeah I didn't look up Smith's cost salary wise, but IIRC, it was a 4th round pick? I'd have done that in a heartbeat.

[nosejob]

5 hours ago, Ta111 said:

This thread reminds me of a preseason game between the Bills and Vikings in the early 70’s. OJ had just put a move on middle linebacker Wally Hilgenberg for a big gain. When Hilgenberg came to the sideline, Vikings coach, Bud Grant layed into Hilgenberg and said they were paying him 250k per year to make that tackle (remember this was the early 70’s). Without missing a beat, Hilgenberg responded “but coach they’re paying OJ 650k to make me miss”.

moral is the other guys get paid too.

Wow, I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night....although I do remember in the 70's weed was 20 bucks an ounce. I actually became a fan when I was 10 on the day O.J. broke the record.....for rushing by a RB, not homicides.

Edited November 26, 2022 by nosejob

[nedboy7]

For a team that is poor in tackling to be at #8 in points allowed can only mean the coaching is actually good.  Hard to spin it any other way.  But I sense it's coming. 

The real reason is our top 5 players are missing.  Seems pretty obvious why the level has dropped recently. 

Edited November 26, 2022 by nedboy7

[DrDawkinstein]

1 hour ago, Gambit said:

Lordy Epenesa trying to achieve a high score

 

I wonder where Cover1 is pulling that from, because while tackling has been bad, things dont look so dire when sorting by Missed Tackle % here:

 

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2022/defense_advanced.htm

[Eastport bills]

50 minutes ago, nosejob said:

Yeah I didn't look up Smith's cost salary wise, but IIRC, it was a 4th round pick? I'd have done that in a heartbeat.

Me too, but he’s a free agent at the end of the season. I guess with Milano and Edmunds it wasn’t an area of need.

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, nosejob said:

Yeah I didn't look up Smith's cost salary wise, but IIRC, it was a 4th round pick? I'd have done that in a heartbeat.

The Ravens gave up a second. If they don't resign Smith, they will get a third round comp pick.  So they basically got Smith for a swap of a second for a third.  Bears were not going to give up the third round comp pick, so they could get a fourth round pick from anyone. 

[Coach Tuesday]

2 hours ago, Gambit said:

Lordy Epenesa trying to achieve a high score

Baylon Spector exists?

[BADOLBILZ]

5 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

Baylon Spector exists?

 

 

[Big Turk]

Starters trying to cover for backups who aren't in the right positions?

1 hour ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

I wonder where Cover1 is pulling that from, because while tackling has been bad, things dont look so dire when sorting by Missed Tackle % here:

 

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2022/defense_advanced.htm

 

Epenesa is likely due to lack of number of tackle attempts...if he had only 9 attempts but missed 6, it will be 66.7%. 

[Dr.Sack]

The worst tackling I’ve seen is from the secondary players which is understandable given the size advantage. 

[Coach Tuesday]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

I got that.  And enjoyed it.  But how did you find a picture of it?  Amazing.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Coach Tuesday

[nosejob]

57 minutes ago, Dr.Sack said:

The worst tackling I’ve seen is from the secondary players which is understandable given the size advantage. 

Cmon people....the reason this defense has basically sucked is because it's not an attacking defense. It's a zone/ prevent/ rush 4, stale ass defense. For the love of God, everyone will pork Dorsey in a NY minute but put up with the same 1990 defensive game plan and praise it. Great coaches change when trends change.

 

McD I hope has this epiphany sooner than later. He's the head dog and he needs to realize that like now. There is no more scrutinizing coordinators or sub coaches.

That ship has sailed. McD has to take control and be his own man, sink or swim, lose or win. He definitely needs to start by running the defense. We can be feared or we can be predictable.,

[Boatdrinks]

3 hours ago, nosejob said:

Yeah I didn't look up Smith's cost salary wise, but IIRC, it was a 4th round pick? I'd have done that in a heartbeat.

It was a 2nd from Ravens. Bears likely would have taken BAL 2nd over BUF 2nd so what would the cost have been from Bills to get it done ? It’s not as easy as they paid X so I would have matched that. He’d still be heading to Ravens. 

[nosejob]

3 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said:

It was a 2nd from Ravens. Bears likely would have taken BAL 2nd over BUF 2nd so what would the cost have been from Bills to get it done ? It’s not as easy as they paid X so I would have matched that. He’d still be heading to Ravens. 

Whatever, I still would have been asking what would it take?

[BADOLBILZ]

2 hours ago, Coach Tuesday said:

I got that.  And enjoyed it.  But how did you find a picture of it?  Amazing.

 

 

One of my buddies answers to Baler Hayfield so bale jokes are on speed search.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

6 hours ago, Gambit said:

Lordy Epenesa trying to achieve a high score

just look at the names on the list… tells the whole story. 1 excellent player another ok starter and the rest are second and third tire talents, many starting due to injuries 

[NewEra]

1 hour ago, nosejob said:

Whatever, I still would have been asking what would it take?

Whatever, you have no clue what Beane did.  Cry more

[ganesh]

6 hours ago, LABILLBACKER said:

That Lions game was the worst tackling of the year. Everyone including Milano missed tackles.

Careful,  this is Pennstate10's boy. 

Milano missed one tackle albeit a critical one in the 4th quarter.  He could have shut down the game right there and then.

47 minutes ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

just look at the names on the list… tells the whole story. 1 excellent player another ok starter and the rest are second and third tire talents, many starting due to injuries 

Good find! Go Bills!

[DrDawkinstein]

8 hours ago, Big Turk said:

Starters trying to cover for backups who aren't in the right positions?

 

Epenesa is likely due to lack of number of tackle attempts...if he had only 9 attempts but missed 6, it will be 66.7%. 

 

Yeah, his low numbers keep him out of the Sort, but if you drill down you can find him.

 

8 Tackles, 2 Misses. 20% miss rate. Not sure where the 66% is coming from at all. Unless they are counting QB Pressures against him as missed tackles, because he has 8 pressures. That would be 8/18, or 10 misses for 66%. So maybe. But that would be doing AJ dirty.

[hondo in seattle]

17 hours ago, UKBillFan said:

As much as Leslie Frasier has been criticised for play calling on defense, I think our biggest issue is YAC - we seem to be missing a disproportionate number of tackles this year. Is it a case of reserves struggling to execute? Players on offense knowing how we tackle so being able to skip round them? Players not being coached probably to wrap up and hold? It feels like we’re putting ourselves under additional pressure due to not being able to stop the YAC, and I cannot recall us being so porous in previous years.

 

Go back and watch our losses.  Most of the big plays that resulted in scores, or keeping scoring drives alive, involved our backups.   It's not like our starters are perfect, but too often our backups are unable to disengage blocks, make tackles, and/or plays on the ball.  

[LABILLBACKER]

16 hours ago, Lothar said:

We have always been one of the worst tackling teams in the McBeane tenure. It might be the type of linebackers we get or the emphasis we place on scheme and coverage over basics like sound tackling. It's usually hard to find fault with a defense that has been among the top 5 but that is definitely a thing and since the first 2 games this year, it had become a team wide phenomenon.

 

Joe Marino listed the percent missed tackles of every player - he said we should average about 10-12%. Some like Epenesa are over 50% and most of the team is well over that threshold. 

 

 

I would love to compare Epenesa's 66% miss rate to the rest of the league. That's an embarrassing number. We've had games where we tackled poorly but that Lions game was unreal.

[Buffalo ill]

I was disgusted by the weak tackling from this team in the Houston playoff game.  It hasn't improved since.

[ganesh]

2 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

Go back and watch our losses.  Most of the big plays that resulted in scores, or keeping scoring drives alive, involved our backups.   It's not like our starters are perfect, but too often our backups are unable to disengage blocks, make tackles, and/or plays on the ball.  

Our starters including Edmunds couldn't stop a run play on 3rd and Eternity against the Texans a few years ago in the Wild Card.

[John from Riverside]

10 minutes ago, Buffalo ill said:

I was disgusted by the weak tackling from this team in the Houston playoff game.  It hasn't improved since.

I actually think that it has, but it has been inconsistent

[Kenosha2Buffalo]

41 minutes ago, Buffalo ill said:

I was disgusted by the weak tackling from this team in the Houston playoff game.  It hasn't improved since

 

Ridiculous, that ***** was nearly 3 years ago. How tf does that even cross your mind since all the progress this team has made. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

[ExiledInIllinois]

20 hours ago, TH3 said:

when will we run out of things to criticize about an 8-3 team gutting out wins with half its starting defense, half its oline and its possession receiver out? 

Given only 8 points total in all 3 losses... Your answer:  When they should be 11-0. 😏 

 

😉😜 

[Buffalo Barbarian]

Because they don't allow contact anymore in practice

 

 

[Teddy KGB]

Why don’t the backups tackle like starters !

[Thurman#1]

22 hours ago, Eastport bills said:

Frazier and Sean are not coaching up young, inexperienced dbs to wrap up and bring fundamentals and physicality to tackling. These guys are trying to strip and grab and teams like Detroit and the Jets ran for big numbers. Good tackling is a mentality and other than Johnson, White and Elam our secondary is not there yet. When Milano or Edmunds are not on the field, we struggle in the run game.

 

 

You know for sure that it's that the coaches aren't coaching it, and not the players executing badly? Tell me, what's it like to be at all the practices?

 

As for struggling against the run, we're 10th best at defensive YPC, and that's with many starters missing a lot of games. And 9th best at YPA, with the same large number of games missed.

 

We're 5th in points allowed per game, 1.1 PPG behind the best in the league. 12th in yards allowed per game, 19 yards per game behind the #1 team.

 

All against an extremely tough schedule.

 

 

[ganesh]

4 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Given only 8 points total in all 3 losses... Your answer:  When they should be 11-0. 😏 

 

😉😜 

The issue was that they were up by 14 against both the Vikes and Jets and yet managed to find a way to lose the game in the 2nd half.   Both the defense and offense need to take the blame in the 2nd half of both those games.

[K-9]

It’s a league wide issue attributable to the practice rules negotiated in the CBA. 

[BillsFanSD]

I truly don't understand why people expect our defense -- any defense -- to just keep humming along when we are missing half our starters and several depth guys, many of whom are pro bowlers and/or HOFers.  Football is a team sport, especially defense.

[Nitro]

Watch college football.  The bad tackling  is on full display.   Group hug and strip the ball is the norm.  Guys able to win one on one consistently is becoming rare.

[Eastport bills]

12 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

You know for sure that it's that the coaches aren't coaching it, and not the players executing badly? Tell me, what's it like to be at all the practices?

 

As for struggling against the run, we're 10th best at defensive YPC, and that's with many starters missing a lot of games. And 9th best at YPA, with the same large number of games missed.

 

We're 5th in points allowed per game, 1.1 PPG behind the best in the league. 12th in yards allowed per game, 19 yards per game behind the #1 team.

 

All against an extremely tough schedule.

 

 

It’s a reasonable argument to point to injuries, tough schedule and being statistically impressive, but we’re talking about the last 4 games and the depth personnel we’ve put out there. Now I understand you’re reluctant to acknowledge our tackling and pass defense has been substandard and my observations are the knee jerk reaction of some overly critical red hot, but I’ m just a fan like you who has a take on my team.

[Bronxbomber21]

On 11/26/2022 at 7:07 AM, UKBillFan said:

As much as Leslie Frasier has been criticised for play calling on defense, I think our biggest issue is YAC - we seem to be missing a disproportionate number of tackles this year. Is it a case of reserves struggling to execute? Players on offense knowing how we tackle so being able to skip round them? Players not being coached probably to wrap up and hold? It feels like we’re putting ourselves under additional pressure due to not being able to stop the YAC, and I cannot recall us being so porous in previous years.

It is because we are playing with at lest 5 backups as starters every game. It all started when Hyde went down. 

 

No lie I saw a lineup of Elam, Benford, Johnson, Hamlin, Neal, Dodson, Bernard( who is trash at the Moment), Basham, Lawson, Settle & Phillips. I wanted to cry then they brought in Cam (freaking) Lewis and I had to take a Xanax. 

 What happened to that state of the art health center they built? They should  be called the Buffalo walking wounded and now they can add Von, Groot &  Dawkins to that list now. Its a miracle to be 8-3 and to be honest we should still be 11-0 and this is all against a top 3 schedule