Bills players were done with this year

[Billzgobowlin]

The more I think about it the Bills players wanted to put this year behind them.  Did they play less than their best?  Absolutely not.  But for a team that has faced so much between a missed Christmas, Dawson's brother passing away, to the Tops shooting, to Damar, to Hyde their defensive leader being out this year, to Dane's potential career ender, to Von Miller the other defensive leader being out, to playing 10 away games, to always playing short in the defensive secondary (no Poyer and Hyde for multiple games along with playing rookies at DB), to even Josh's shoulder injury.  I would say they were emotionally spent.  Could they have beat Jacksonville this week?  Maybe but I'll tell you as a fan there is some sort of relief that they finally get to lick their wounds and heal.  They are absolutely done.  The Marv Levy quote states this year perfectly "Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew said. I am hurt, but I am not slain. I'll lay me down and bleed a while, And then I'll rise and fight again."

 

Let's get behind them next year for the best is yet to come.  They get 13-3 this year with all this going on, they will be better for it next year.

[SCBills]

Two games from the Super Bowl and they just decided it’s too much?

 

If that’s the case, they are mentally weaker than I thought .. and we need an even bigger house cleaning. 
 

They got punched in the face by a better coached, tougher team. 
 

Once they got dazed, they had no plan.  No coaches that could help.  Just had to take the beating. 
 

There are no excuses.  It was embarrassing for every single person involved in this organization.  
 

It’s the type of loss, in Year 3 of contending, that precedes change. 

[Billzgobowlin]

Just now, SCBills said:

Two games from the Super Bowl and they just decided it’s too much?

 

If that’s the case, they are mentally weaker than I thought .. and we need an even bigger house cleaning. 
 

They got punched in the face by a better coached, tougher team. 
 

Once they got dazed, they had no plan.  No coaches that could help.  Just had to take the beating. 
 

There are no excuses.  It was embarrassing for every single person involved in this organization.  
 

It’s the type of loss, in Year 3 of contending, that precedes change. 

Don't misunderstand what I said.  They didn't decide it was too much.  I honestly believe they played their hearts out but I think they were emotionally spent.  Might not be something you understand but this team has lived off of passion and yesterday they died because of lack of it. 

[97bills]

Here come the excuses….  We’ve seen this for the last few years… in big games can’t stop the run and can’t get no pressure. CIN knew that … so guess what here comes there run game , and burrow has all day. We got our a$$ kicked hard. And what’s sad is this team has a lot of holes to fill. 

[SCBills]

Just now, Billzgobowlin said:

Don't misunderstand what I said.  They didn't decide it was too much.  I honestly believe they played their hearts out but I think they were emotionally spent.  Might not be something you understand but this team has lived off of passion and yesterday they died because of lack of it. 

Are they really that passionate?  I guess that can come out in different ways.  Josh is .. Diggs is .. Rest of the team come across as front runners and soft sometimes. 
 

The dancing and goofball shtick is fun when they’re winning .. then comes along a team of actual tough guys with grit who talked their ish all week and we get rocked. 

[Billzgobowlin]

2 minutes ago, 97bills said:

Here come the excuses….  We’ve seen this for the last few years… in big games can’t stop the run and can’t get no pressure. CIN knew that … so guess what here comes there run game , and burrow has all day. We got our a$$ kicked hard. And what’s sad is this team has a lot of holes to fill. 

Again no excuses.  They lost and they deserved to lose.  They didn't play with passion.

1 minute ago, SCBills said:

Are they really that passionate?  I guess that can come out in different ways.  Josh is .. Diggs is .. Rest of the team come across as front runners and soft sometimes. 
 

The dancing and goofball shtick is fun when they’re winning .. then comes along a team of actual tough guys with grit who talked their ish all week and we get rocked. 

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that locker room last week.  I bet it just wasn't a focused Josh which generally brings up others around him.  He got shook in Cincy if not before and the team other than Hines against the Patriots didn't show they wanted to play.  I honestly believe the best thing for them this offseason is a mental reset.  No excuses just optimism for the future

[nucci]

Trying to figure out why the Tops shooting would affect their play?

[SCBills]

4 minutes ago, Billzgobowlin said:

Again no excuses.  They lost and they deserved to lose.  They didn't play with passion.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that locker room last week.  I bet it just wasn't a focused Josh which generally brings up others around him.  He got shook in Cincy if not before and the team other than Hines against the Patriots didn't show they wanted to play.  I honestly believe the best thing for them this offseason is a mental reset.  No excuses just optimism for the future

I do agree that the team never got their focus back after the first Cincy game. 
 

People forget how much of a struggle the Pats game was if not for two Hines returns.   
 

The Miami game, we all thought was a one-off, was probably more a function of the team being in trouble.  
 

Then obviously yesterday was an absolute pathetic performance .. worst of the year.  

[mjt328]

The signs of this loss coming were apparent way back in October.  

But anyone in Bills Mafia who suggested this team wasn't Super Bowl caliber was told they were being too critical.

 

Regardless of W-L record or what DVOA says, I've been holding this team to a "Super Bowl or bust" standard since Week 1.  Time and time again, they failed the eye test.  With each passing week, it became painfully clear this team wasn't as good as their record. 

 

I'm upset, but not surprised.  I haven't really enjoyed this season since Minnesota in Week 10, because that was the moment in my heart that I realized it wasn't happening this season.  Every week I hoped they would prove me wrong.  Instead, they just confirmed we were in for a disappointing finish.

 

[Giuseppe Tognarelli]

Oh brother. I knew this kind of crap would come out. "Too much adversity, I'm still proud of this team, Go Bills!"

 

Yesterday was inexcusable and there need to be consequences.

[Lieutenant Aldo Raine]

Well, most posters stated we won our Super Bowl with Hamlin pulling through, and could care less how the season ended. 

[McBean]

30 minutes ago, Billzgobowlin said:

The more I think about it the Bills players wanted to put this year behind them.  Did they play less than their best?  Absolutely not.  But for a team that has faced so much between a missed Christmas, Dawson's brother passing away, to the Tops shooting, to Damar, to Hyde their defensive leader being out this year, to Dane's potential career ender, to Von Miller the other defensive leader being out, to playing 10 away games, to always playing short in the defensive secondary (no Poyer and Hyde for multiple games along with playing rookies at DB), to even Josh's shoulder injury.  I would say they were emotionally spent.  Could they have beat Jacksonville this week?  Maybe but I'll tell you as a fan there is some sort of relief that they finally get to lick their wounds and heal.  They are absolutely done.  The Marv Levy quote states this year perfectly "Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew said. I am hurt, but I am not slain. I'll lay me down and bleed a while, And then I'll rise and fight again."

 

Let's get behind them next year for the best is yet to come.  They get 13-3 this year with all this going on, they will be better for it next year.

They’ll be worse if McDermott is HC and continue to not build around 17. 

The reasons above should’ve been used as fuel to win it all.

 

Weak post.

[Barnaby Wilde]

Excuses. None of this ever dissuaded anybody from ridiculous super bowl talk this year.  Josh just crapped the bed.  I support Diggs.  Josh needs to get off Kyle Brandt and stop wasting time reviewing movies with that loser.

[jamiezzz]

8 minutes ago, nucci said:

Trying to figure out why the Tops shooting would affect their play?

I wonder the same thing.   Sabres players endured the same travesties as the Bills, minus Hamlin.  I see if there was a different outcome for D-Ham, but before the next game, he was on his way to recovery.  Just clean out the coaching staff. Giants won 4 games prior to Daboll going there.  A good coach can turn this talented roster around.

[H2o]

Yesterday was not their day. From that opening drive where Allen missed Diggs for what possibly would have been a TD, that was it. The snow seemed to effect us more than it effected them. The disparity in talent between their complete skill group and ours was evident. The schemes were vanilla on both sides of the ball. It was just a bad game all the way around. Allen's missed throw to Diggs, the Davis drop, the double standards in penalties called by the refs in many instances (no, I'm not saying this was the deciding factor only a reality if you paid attention yesterday), they just looked beaten after the Bengals went up 14-0. They had some chances to get back in it, but would either shoot themselves in the foot or coaching wouldn't sack up to take a chance to swing momentum. The defense had 0 answers yesterday and that falls squarely on BOTH McDermott and Frazier. We've seen this "bend, but don't break" mentality for the last 7 years now. It's not bad during the regular season. Come Playoff time though, it's not getting it done once we get to the best teams in the conference. They need to do some truly deep self reflection this offseason and make some serious changes. 

[McBean]

3 minutes ago, Reverse Meathead said:

Excuses. None of this ever dissuaded anybody from ridiculous super bowl talk this year.  Josh just crapped the bed.  I support Diggs.  Josh needs to get off Kyle Brandt and stop wasting time reviewing movies with that loser.

No, Josh needs to be meeting with the Pegulas today and tell them to choose: him or McClappy. 
 

 

[Ray Stonada]

15 minutes ago, SCBills said:

I do agree that the team never got their focus back after the first Cincy game. 
 

People forget how much of a struggle the Pats game was if not for two Hines returns.   
 

The Miami game, we all thought was a one-off, was probably more a function of the team being in trouble.  
 

Then obviously yesterday was an absolute pathetic performance .. worst of the year.  

 

 

When you go through trauma like seeing what happened to Damar--he dropped dead on the field and was rescuscitated for 9 minutes in front of them!--you need to lean on your older leaders on the field. It didn't help that Micah and Von, the two wisest elders of the bunch, were out for the year by that point.

 

 

 

 

[Barnaby Wilde]

4 minutes ago, H2o said:

Yesterday was not their day. From that opening drive where Allen missed Diggs for what possibly would have been a TD, that was it. The snow seemed to effect us more than it effected them. The disparity in talent between their complete skill group and ours was evident. The schemes were vanilla on both sides of the ball. It was just a bad game all the way around. Allen's missed throw to Diggs, the Davis drop, the double standards in penalties called by the refs in many instances (no, I'm not saying this was the deciding factor only a reality if you paid attention yesterday), they just looked beaten after the Bengals went up 14-0. They had some chances to get back in it, but would either shoot themselves in the foot or coaching wouldn't sack up to take a chance to swing momentum. The defense had 0 answers yesterday and that falls squarely on BOTH McDermott and Frazier. We've seen this "bend, but don't break" mentality for the last 7 years now. It's not bad during the regular season. Come Playoff time though, it's not getting it done once we get to the best teams in the conference. They need to do some truly deep self reflection this offseason and make some serious changes. 

They won't sack the coaching staff because the Pegulas just don't have the wherewithal to figure it out.

[Dan Darragh]

No excuses necessary.  The defensive coaching staff was awful two straight years in the divisional round.  Whatever else gets fixed, it's the definition of insanity to try the same thing over and over and expect a different result.  The fact that we almost won last year is a testament to the offensive coaching staff that has since moved on to New Jersey.

27 minutes ago, SCBills said:

I do agree that the team never got their focus back after the first Cincy game. 

Let's be honest here.  Except for one game against the worst team in the league, the Bills didn't have a good game since the Pittsburgh game on October 9. That's more than 3 months.  And now we can be sure that if the Damar incident hadn't happened, we'd have been torched by the Bengals on that Monday night.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Dan Darragh

[The Firebaugh Kid]

47 minutes ago, SCBills said:

Two games from the Super Bowl and they just decided it’s too much?

 

If that’s the case, they are mentally weaker than I thought .. and we need an even bigger house cleaning. 
 

They got punched in the face by a better coached, tougher team. 
 

Once they got dazed, they had no plan.  No coaches that could help.  Just had to take the beating. 
 

There are no excuses.  It was embarrassing for every single person involved in this organization.  
 

It’s the type of loss, in Year 3 of contending, that precedes change. 

PREACH. MIC DROP. 

Ya'll seen that schedule next year? 

We aren't good enough, schematically and talent wise. 

Yo can't just ride 17 to the trophy. 

[Barnaby Wilde]

42 minutes ago, 97bills said:

Here come the excuses….  We’ve seen this for the last few years… in big games can’t stop the run and can’t get no pressure. CIN knew that … so guess what here comes there run game , and burrow has all day. We got our a$$ kicked hard. And what’s sad is this team has a lot of holes to fill. 

Exactly.  Bills fans need to be more like Yankee fans.  Ruthless.  If the fan base keeps loving on these guys, which they do, they will never see change.

[colin]

I think this is actually correct Opie, the team was mentally done.

 

just another reason we need some coaching changes.  at the very least let frazer take a walk and have claps take over the d (not ideal, but a change is needed).  

 

i was looking over some stuff, and we had the number 2 d in the nfl in 2018, josh's rookie year.  our o was perhaps the worst, and we had cheeks for wr/te, and o line.  free agent (from the prior year) safeties poyer and hyde were our starters, levi and tre white (before he lost his mojo) at corner,  rookie lb edmunds who had no clue in a lot of games, milano started getting burn, and we had a rag tag of zero stars in a rotation at DL.

 

basically, we got the same friggen results (which were over all awesome at the time given who we had, i will admit) on D that we get now, but we have added 2 2nds, 2 1sts, and big free agent money to the line, a 3rd at lb (riding the pine) a couple late picks at S (stinking when our starter gets hurt) and a 1st and some late picks at corner.  we got trucked by running teams who can pass some then, we get trucked by running teams who can pass some now.  

 

i don't know if it's all on mcd, frazer, or whatever mix, but we simply have not added enough physicality to our D line, and we spend way way too much money on non elite smaller guys who play off of the ball.  

 

as far as cinci balling all over us w ups drivers at OL, its pretty clear our O roster and our O scheme is simply not good enough.

 

we are a front running emotional team, and that can get us down badly, and allen bails out bad coaching and roster moves or else we get crushed by good teams.

[Rebel101]

55 minutes ago, SCBills said:

Two games from the Super Bowl and they just decided it’s too much?

 

If that’s the case, they are mentally weaker than I thought .. and we need an even bigger house cleaning. 
 

They got punched in the face by a better coached, tougher team. 
 

Once they got dazed, they had no plan.  No coaches that could help.  Just had to take the beating. 
 

There are no excuses.  It was embarrassing for every single person involved in this organization.  
 

It’s the type of loss, in Year 3 of contending, that precedes change. 

Yeah, I said all this ***** last year that McDermott was too soft to do anything important and was shunned and had every one of my next posts deleted lol. 

[BeastMaster]

If this was really the mindset of this team, then that is an indictment on the coaching staff.

 

You should value and appreciate every opportunity that you are lucky enough to get, and make the most of each and every chance you get in the NFL.

 

I personally think we are a soft team that has zero creativity on either side of the ball, and it has led to a team that can't dominate up front on either side of the ball. 

 

Any player or coach that wanted this season to be over with should no longer be on this team...simple as that

 

[PayDaBill$]

1 hour ago, nucci said:

Trying to figure out why the Tops shooting would affect their play?

Definitely a tragic event but it’s primarily media fodder as it relates to football & the Bills tanking.

[buffalobillswin]

Whichever player was “done” after the Damar injury should really re-consider his career choice. 

[SoCal Deek]

1 minute ago, buffalobillswin said:

Whichever player was “done” after the Damar injury should really re-consider his career choice. 

Then you’d agree McD has to go. He was most DEFINITELY done. 

[buffalobillswin]

2 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Then you’d agree McD has to go. He was most DEFINITELY done. 

I would have fired him after last years debacle 

[Dan]

1 hour ago, mjt328 said:

The signs of this loss coming were apparent way back in October.  

But anyone in Bills Mafia who suggested this team wasn't Super Bowl caliber was told they were being too critical.

 

Regardless of W-L record or what DVOA says, I've been holding this team to a "Super Bowl or bust" standard since Week 1.  Time and time again, they failed the eye test.  With each passing week, it became painfully clear this team wasn't as good as their record. 

 

I'm upset, but not surprised.  I haven't really enjoyed this season since Minnesota in Week 10, because that was the moment in my heart that I realized it wasn't happening this season.  Every week I hoped they would prove me wrong.  Instead, they just confirmed we were in for a disappointing finish.

 

The worst thing about a loss like this is gives everyone that is pessimistic and critical of every single thing the opportunity to stand up, pound their chest and shout for vindication. 

[finn]

1 hour ago, McBean said:

The reasons above should’ve been used as fuel to win it all.

 

Weak post.

Totally disagree. I think the OP nailed it. The team was emotionally exhausted. They went through shite no other team has been through, and it's not an excuse to point it out. Yes, all flaws are just as relevant, from talent and coaching to individual performances. But they've been running on fumes since the Damar episode, and they finally hit empty. Easy to say they should have used the many traumas as fuel to win it all. Really easy. Have another beer while saying it. 

[klos63]

1 hour ago, nucci said:

Trying to figure out why the Tops shooting would affect their play?

Same with not being home on Christmas morning. There were 3 games on christmas, those players on road games weren't home either.

[SoCal Deek]

29 minutes ago, buffalobillswin said:

I would have fired him after last years debacle 

This isn’t going to be a popular take but he was both the right and wrong coach during and after the Hamlin incident. He was perfect for a day or so, and then he needed to get himself and his team back to football. They were playing on fumes from that point on. 

[Ethan in Cleveland]

4 minutes ago, Dan said:

The worst thing about a loss like this is gives everyone that is pessimistic and critical of every single thing the opportunity to stand up, pound their chest and shout for vindication. 

Its not pessimism.  Its realism. Two years in a row fail to make the AFC Championship.  What was the,story? Just get home field and it will be ok. They just got destroyed at home. 

Yes they had injuries.  Did Cincinnati not have injuries? Did KC not trade away their best WR? 

The reality is we are further from a  Championship today than we were two years ago. That is an indictment on McDermott and Beane. 

[BillsVet]

9 minutes ago, Dan said:

The worst thing about a loss like this is gives everyone that is pessimistic and critical of every single thing the opportunity to stand up, pound their chest and shout for vindication. 

 

No.  The worst thing is seeing the Cincinnati Bengals lap your organization 2 years running.  

[jhh9327]

I think it is a convenient excuse and there may be some truth to it, but when you look back this has been a sloppy team all year whose talent usually could overcome it.  It finally caught up to them in a big way yesterday against a really good team who played a precision game while we didn't (again).   

[Big Turk]

2 hours ago, SCBills said:

Two games from the Super Bowl and they just decided it’s too much?

 

If that’s the case, they are mentally weaker than I thought .. and we need an even bigger house cleaning. 
 

They got punched in the face by a better coached, tougher team. 
 

Once they got dazed, they had no plan.  No coaches that could help.  Just had to take the beating. 
 

There are no excuses.  It was embarrassing for every single person involved in this organization.  
 

It’s the type of loss, in Year 3 of contending, that precedes change. 

 

If you have ever had a series of events that repeatedly cause you to have to "dip into the tank" mentally and emotionally over a long period of time, at some point you simply run out. There is only so much left in there and that tank doesn't get refilled during a season. When it runs out, you see what happened yesterday.  It eventually exerts itself physically.  They had to dip into the tank against the Fins last week again and that seemed like it emptied the tank.  

 

Honestly, the tank was far bigger and deeper than I expected, but even that ran out at some point. I can't even really be mad, these are people, not robots.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Big Turk

[PauleeeWalnuts]

I wish people would stop making excuses for another one of their no-show choke jobs. If they can’t use what happened this year as motivation to win and can’t show up for the biggest game of the season, that shows how mentally weak they are. They can love each other all they want, but the team lacks a killer instinct and it’s more obvious than ever 

[dorquemada]

I'd love to get an insiders perspective as to why they came out so flat yesterday.  That game was over 7 minutes into the first quarter.  I think we all realized it but hoped for Superman Josh to show up.  If I had to hand out game balls for the Bills the list would be:

 

• Hamlin?
• Knox?

Honestly that's the best I can do.  Maybe  Beas?  the bar is pretty low but that was such a low effort performance it was just embarrassing.  Made more so by the fact that they looked like a team from Florida who never saw snow before. 

4 minutes ago, PaulieYayo said:

I wish people would stop making excuses for another one of their no-show choke jobs. If they can’t use what happened this year as motivation to win and can’t show up for the biggest game of the season, that shows how mentally weak they are. They can love each other all they want, but the team lacks a killer instinct and it’s more obvious than ever 

 

Astute observation!  I've worked in Sales organizations where everyone were friends, happy hour after work, attending eachothers kids parties and so on. Great places to work!  But we didnt move many widgets.  Then I've been in others where there was backstabbing, toxic people, and so on, but people got to number and everyone made money.  Counter intuitive but I guess people can get comfortable and lose focus on the reason they are there.

[NewEra]

The gas tank was empty.  The whole team was running on fumes. Especially 17.  He had nothing left to give 

[Lost]

2 hours ago, Billzgobowlin said:

Don't misunderstand what I said.  They didn't decide it was too much.  I honestly believe they played their hearts out but I think they were emotionally spent.  Might not be something you understand but this team has lived off of passion and yesterday they died because of lack of it. 

 

To be fair.  Josh Allen didn't seem to be spitting fire the way he was against the chiefs in last year's divisional round so I will agree with you on that.   Overall though the loss yesterday seemed to fall more on coaching and team building than anything.  Years of misused draft picks is starting to show it's ugly face.  There's no other explanation for such an ugly physical mismatch on both lines.