Week 9 thread - We’re on to Cincinnati

[Beck Water]

52 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

I can handle the emotions of a football game so I will keep watching.  You after a loss sound like an Alanis Morrissette song.

 

Wait, are you saying he doesn't sound like that Alanis Morrissette song after a win and during the off-season?

[Scott7975]

5 hours ago, NewEra said:

You were happy when we were bad.  Now you’re sad now that we’re good.  Makes sense

 

You're talking to the guy that said he would be happier if we got 300 yards passing in a loss than <300 passing in a win.

1 hour ago, mannc said:

One thing I don't want to see on Sunday night is us winning the coin flip, deferring, and watching Burrow take the Bengals down the field for a touchdown or even a FG.  If we win the flip, we need to get the ball first and take it to these guys.  Show some f**king balls and confidence, McDermott!  

 

Holding a high powered offense to 3 points during their scripted drive is a win in my book.  

[Scott7975]

57 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

Joe Marino has picked the Bengals to win and according to him he's getting a lot of backlash from Bills fans. Go figure...

 

Who tf cares about that?

[newcam2012]

14 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

Who tf cares about that?

Me.

[chongli]

Bulletin board material:

 

And look whom I found in the comments: the Bills' number one fan is giddy about this:

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by chongli

[EmotionallyUnstable]

I generally tend to lean towards the “McDermott’s defense is too conservative” side of the coin. 
 

Surprisingly, the more I think about this match up, the more I hope they keep their defensive game plan relatively vanilla. 

The Bengals offense is not a formidable rushing attack. They are bottom of the league in Y/G and Y/A. Over the past 3 weeks, they’ve been running the ball less. If we can stop their ground game with our base D, I’m all for forcing the dunk and dunk and playing coverage. 
 

Burrows completion percentage during this same time span is 77%, and they aren’t exactly forcing the ball down field (8.2 YPC…#30th in the league) 

 

It seems like Burrow is back to his old ways, and torched the 9ers defense when they went man to man. Luckily for us, I see a much more zone coverage heavy plan. That 9ers pass rush did not get it done. Will our front 4? I’m hopeful McDs alignments presnap, paired with the ability to stop the run, will force them out of their element that they’ve been in the past few weeks.
 

I do believe that McDermot will be comfortable forcing their offense to try to string together long, sustained drives.  And I’m kind of okay with that. 

[Franco_92]

1 minute ago, chongli said:

Bulletin board material:

 

And look whom I found in the comments: the Bills' number one fan is giddy about this:

 

I remember his posts before the Miami game. And then his posts after. And then he got right back on the horse. Through all of this, not receiving one like, comment or share

[Solomon Grundy]

The Bills need to be physical against the Bengals!! I'd like to see the Bills impose their will against their defensive line. Have Reggie Gilliam lead block for Cook. Punk them the way they punked us in playoffs

[newcam2012]

32 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

They might be true, but thats premature af.  They had two good games all year.  One against a bottom feeder team and another against a game manager QB missing a couple stars and on a losing streak.

How many good games have the Bills played? What quality teams have they beaten? What quality QBs have they faced? 

 

Shouldn't we analyze both teams playing? 

[chongli]

One idiot on the Bengals board posted this in the game predictions thread:

 

http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-Bills-vs-Bengals-Predictions?pid=1413510#pid1413510

 

"I predict it will be a heart stopper of a game.... what, too soon?"

 

[And then another poster came along and laughed too.]

Edited November 2, 2023 by chongli

[mannc]

22 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

 

 

Holding a high powered offense to 3 points during their scripted drive is a win in my book.  

I know for sure that if the Bengals win the toss, they’re taking the ball, just like they did last year.  They are confident and aggressive. We need to match that.

[NewEra]

9 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

Me.

He said “who”….

[97bills]

On 10/30/2023 at 6:11 AM, stlbills13 said:

The Bengals match up well against the Bills. Burrow is fine with a 15 play 75 yard drive for a touchdown. He won't force that hero pass. Mixon is a violent runner (person) who can hurt our poor tackling. It's a prime time road game.

 

But the game is more than winnable if the right Bills show up all week.

 

We have the mini bye. We needed it to get healthier and game plan.

 

McD needs to get creative defensively even with a depleted defense. Throw a lot of looks at burrow

 

Von needs to get to burrow. His speed can disrupt that timing. It might not be fair to him to expect that but he has to do it 

 

Floyd AJ GR also have to pressure Burrow. If you can pressure for 4 (or even 3) you will get it done

 

The safeties have to be all over the place

 

Let's see hero Josh. You don't win this one playing conservative offensively 

It would be great if GR would have a great game, the guy is nowhere to be found in most games. 

[Joe Ferguson]

The Bengals fans are beginning to be annoying and obnoxious like the Chiefs fans. Josh Allen will have a career night against these clowns. I cannot wait when I see the stadium empty out early in the 4th quarter 

[GoBills808]

I ***** loathe the Bengals

[Scott7975]

5 hours ago, newcam2012 said:

How many good games have the Bills played? What quality teams have they beaten? What quality QBs have they faced? 

 

Shouldn't we analyze both teams playing? 

the Bills actually had a few good games. We wouldn’t have led the league offensively if we hadn’t. 
 

miami

 

tua

 

Bills have been analyzed to death around here. Why would I need to do it again?

5 hours ago, mannc said:

I know for sure that if the Bengals win the toss, they’re taking the ball, just like they did last year.  They are confident and aggressive. We need to match that.

I hope we do match it. Deferring is the correct move. It allows a double dip which can either recover a team if they are down or go up big in score. It is always the right move. Even more so if you get a stop on the first drive and turn around and score. You instantly take advantage and flip the game favor in your direction if that happens. 

Edited November 2, 2023 by Scott7975

[MikePJ76]

The bummer this week is I think they changed their offense for this game and the chiefs game.  They wanted to be bigger and more physical and now it seems they are back to 11 and 10 sets and they will be inviting blitzes and maybe hanging their defense out to much vs this offense.

 

They really need this one because of the jets and pats losses.

[mannc]

2 hours ago, Scott7975 said:

the Bills actually had a few good games. We wouldn’t have led the league offensively if we hadn’t. 
 

miami

 

tua

 

Bills have been analyzed to death around here. Why would I need to do it again?

I hope we do match it. Deferring is the correct move. It allows a double dip which can either recover a team if they are down or go up big in score. It is always the right move. Even more so if you get a stop on the first drive and turn around and score. You instantly take advantage and flip the game favor in your direction if that happens. 

I’ve heard deferring gives you a very slight advantage from an analalytics standpoint, but it makes no sense and a lot of teams don’t do it.  In a game like this, against a great QB, on the road, it gives the other team an opportunity to get a quick two-touchdown lead (like what happened to the Bills in Cinci last year) and your entire offensive game plan just went out the window.  There might be some games where it makes sense, but not this one.

[Lost]

8 hours ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:

The Bengals offense is not a formidable rushing attack. They are bottom of the league in Y/G and Y/A. Over the past 3 weeks, they’ve been running the ball less. If we can stop their ground game with our base D, I’m all for forcing the dunk and dunk and playing coverage. 
 

Burrows completion percentage during this same time span is 77%, and they aren’t exactly forcing the ball down field (8.2 YPC…#30th in the league) 

 

 

Bills rush defense is bottom of the league too allowing 5.1yds per carry.  The Bengals really have a free choice of how they want to move the ball down the field against our D.   Burrow carved us up last year and I don't expect anything different this time around.   The only question mark for me is if our offense can keep pace this time around or not.     

[Gregg]

Sunday's uniforms.

 

 

[BritBill]

31 minutes ago, Gregg said:

Sunday's uniforms.

 

 

 

Two members of the same family, wearing number 11 going against each other again. Chances of that? 

[Royale with Cheese]

9 hours ago, newcam2012 said:

I'm here to discuss Bills football, express my opinions, and listen to others. I could care less about acceptance. 

 

If I cared about acceptance, I'd write something this:

 

Bills will win a big game in Cincinnati. I think the team is ready to fire on all cylinders. Allen will make some unbelievable plays, play smart, use his legs, and spread the ball around. The Oline will open up holes for Cook and protect Allen enough. 

 

On defense, the Bills will bend but don't break. They will stiffen up in the red zone, make some big third down stops, and get a couple of timely huge turnovers. 

 

Bills 38

Bengals 24

 

You like that? Hugs and kisses for me? 

 

For whatever reason, you just can't grasp this.  Almost every single poster has something negative about the Bills because we know this team has weaknesses.  

Someone like Gunner has been vocal about a few things in particular but you notice he's not met with your same reactions?   It's because has better content and doesn't have the "woe is me" attitude.

 

You made a post that McDermott should apologize to the fans.  That's how fragile you are in this. 

 

Can you tell us again how we can't beat the Titans and Steelers after beating them by 79 points total last year?  

[NyQuil]

Don’t have a good feeling about this game but any given Sunday.

[DuckyBoys]

nfl is week to week  Think Bills fan suffering from recency bias  which goes both ways  Few few weeks ago people were looking past the Bengals  Now its a foregone conclusion we have no shot  All in your perspective

[Low Positive]

I have a question for many of you. Would you rather lose out to get a better draft pick? I think that there are people in here that would. 

[Gregg]

4 minutes ago, FrenchConnection said:

I have a question for many of you. Would you rather lose out to get a better draft pick? I think that there are people in here that would. 

 

No. I want one Super Bowl Championship in my lifetime.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Gregg

[Low Positive]

1 minute ago, Gregg said:

 

No. I want one Super Bowl Championship in my lifetime.

Me too. But people in here are pre-losing games in their minds to avoid impending disappointment. I hope the team doesn't do that. We have Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs. We can beat anyone.

[buffaloboyinATL]

21 minutes ago, NyQuil said:

Don’t have a good feeling about this game but any given Sunday.

Lol. Really? We Bills fans are usually so confident.  
 

By the way, I don’t really think this is an “any given Sunday” scenario for us. We are the better team, we just have to play to our capabilities.  

[newcam2012]

49 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

For whatever reason, you just can't grasp this.  Almost every single poster has something negative about the Bills because we know this team has weaknesses.  

Someone like Gunner has been vocal about a few things in particular but you notice he's not met with your same reactions?   It's because has better content and doesn't have the "woe is me" attitude.

 

You made a post that McDermott should apologize to the fans.  That's how fragile you are in this. 

 

Can you tell us again how we can't beat the Titans and Steelers after beating them by 79 points total last year?  

I'll be the first one to tell you I'm not always correct. I give my opinions based mostly on facts and what I think. Feel free to disagree with anything I say. 

 

I'm not here advocating I'm the smartest football fan or Bills backer. I've never made such a claim. Others are far more knowledge than myself. That's a major reason why I like this avenue. I'm constantly learning new things. 

 

With that said, I will continue to express my feelings and thoughts when it comes to the Bills. I fully realize many of my takes are in the minority because it's largely negative rather than positive. I do feel many posters here do agree to a certain extent with many of my posts. I don't seek validation.

 

My objective isn't to create an Us vs Them atmosphere. Sure seems like some have that agenda. Frankly, I welcome feedback of all kinds as long as it's professional and not rude. The unfounded name calling continues with regularity. No biggie. 

 

I'm anything but a "woe is me" person. I'm pretty humble, compassionate, and pleasant to be around. It's fair to say I'm a frustrated Bills fan. I feel the regime should be doing better. 

 

Just so happens I'm very passionate about the Bills. I've wanted 50 plus years for a Lombardi Trophy. Sometimes the continued failure of the Bills regime gets the best of me. This season thus far amplifies the frustration. Sure seems like the Bills are regressing. That remains to be seen.

 

I will continue to support my team by watching them, purchasing merchandise, praising, and criticizing then. The gambit if you will...

 

Feel free to block or mute me. 

[Low Positive]

1 minute ago, buffaloboyinATL said:

Lol. Really? We Bills fans are usually so confident.  
 

By the way, I don’t really think this is an “any given Sunday” scenario for us. We are the better team, we just have to play to our capabilities.  

I don't think that the Bills are the better team. These are teams built to win in different ways. BTW, this is the last hurrah for the Bengals before the cap comes into play and their fans are in complete denial. Mike Brown said "We can't pay everyone" in response to a question on Tee Higgins in training camp. Interesting factoid: Joe Burrow has never won a football game at the college or pro level without a complete all-star team around him. At LSU he had Jefferson, Chase and CE-H and in Cincinnati he has Higgins, Chase, Boyd, and Mixon. 

[newcam2012]

1 hour ago, Lost said:

 

Bills rush defense is bottom of the league too allowing 5.1yds per carry.  The Bengals really have a free choice of how they want to move the ball down the field against our D.   Burrow carved us up last year and I don't expect anything different this time around.   The only question mark for me is if our offense can keep pace this time around or not.     

Agree 100%. I've yet to hear how the Bills D will be successful in containing the Bengals offense. What's the McD game plan? 

30 minutes ago, DuckyBoys said:

nfl is week to week  Think Bills fan suffering from recency bias  which goes both ways  Few few weeks ago people were looking past the Bengals  Now its a foregone conclusion we have no shot  All in your perspective

I don't think anyone is saying the Bills have "no shot." That's pretty ridiculous. No shot is much different than saying people think they will lose.

33 minutes ago, DuckyBoys said:

nfl is week to week  Think Bills fan suffering from recency bias  which goes both ways  Few few weeks ago people were looking past the Bengals  Now its a foregone conclusion we have no shot  All in your perspective

What's your opinion on the game? Who do you think will win and why? 

[newcam2012]

23 minutes ago, FrenchConnection said:

I have a question for many of you. Would you rather lose out to get a better draft pick? I think that there are people in here that would. 

Absolutely not! The draft pick is an afterthought. You play to win and the Bills are trying to get a playoff birth and advance deep into the playoffs. The draft is the furthest from my mind right now!

[Low Positive]

Just now, newcam2012 said:

Agree 100%. I've yet to hear how the Bills D will be successful in containing the Bengals offense. What's the McD game plan? 

You want McDermott to tell the fans his gameplan? Flip that question on its head. Geno Smith had 326 passing yards on this defense and Brock Purdy had 365. The Bengals should have lost to the Seahawks and could have lost to the 49ers if Purdy could have stopped himself from throwing the ball right to the Bengals inside his own 20. The Bengals D let Geno Smith march down the field not once, but twice, in the 4th quarter with a 4-point lead. Both times Geno turned into a pumpkin again once in the RZ but the game was right there for the taking. We might get stomped like you think, but it's not a foregone conclusion. Games are not played on paper, and we have actual Superman at QB. I'll take our chances. 

[PaattMaann]

Defensive gameplan: starts with the D-line, need to penetrate in the middle on both runs and passes. Need Ed to have a hell of a game SOMEONE else from the DT spot to step up. Cloud coverage on Chase. DBs will be up closer to the line (this has been the case with McD defense compared to Fraziers) and need to be "eyes to the QB" to slow down the quick hitting passes Burrow loves. Vary the pre snap looks both in pass rush and coverage. Id expect we see a decent amount of our newly loved dime packages with both Rapp and Poyer on the field. Force Burrow into as tough throws as possible and take some chances to create turnovers, even if it means giving up a big play. 

 

Offensive gameplan: execute. The gameplans have laregely been fine, we just need to execute. Josh needs to read coverage and live with the underneath/checkdown stuff that WILL be available. Josh also needs to run this game, Bengals give up a lot of rushing to QBs...hope his shoulder is up to it. Would love to see the uptempo stuff again this week, but admittedly will be harder on the road. I'd look for the uptempo to start after a first down on a drive, when the crowd is quietest. Take advantage of red zone opps. 

 

50/50 game...can't make mistakes/turnovers. 

[newcam2012]

18 minutes ago, FrenchConnection said:

Me too. But people in here are pre-losing games in their minds to avoid impending disappointment. I hope the team doesn't do that. We have Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs. We can beat anyone.

I agree but this team can lose to anyone too. Look at who we lost to. Frankly, who have the Bills beat besides their division rival Dolphins? 

 

Wins:

1 Raiders (stink)

2 Wash (stink)

3 Miami (quality win)

4 Giants (stink)

5 Tampa (stink) 

 

Not exactly world beaters 

 

Losses:

1 Jets (no Rodgers/ Hall no healthy)

2 Jags (quality team)

3 NE (stink) 

 

Not impressive to date. 

 

Fans want to talk about who the Dolphins have played and beat. When you take a deep dive at the Bills record it's anything but encouraging. 

 

Sunday night we will should get a pretty firm idea of the direction of the team. How good and or bad they are. 

 

27 minutes ago, buffaloboyinATL said:

Lol. Really? We Bills fans are usually so confident.  
 

By the way, I don’t really think this is an “any given Sunday” scenario for us. We are the better team, we just have to play to our capabilities.  

Are the Bills really the better team? I don't think that's a given. 

[newcam2012]

20 minutes ago, FrenchConnection said:

I don't think that the Bills are the better team. These are teams built to win in different ways. BTW, this is the last hurrah for the Bengals before the cap comes into play and their fans are in complete denial. Mike Brown said "We can't pay everyone" in response to a question on Tee Higgins in training camp. Interesting factoid: Joe Burrow has never won a football game at the college or pro level without a complete all-star team around him. At LSU he had Jefferson, Chase and CE-H and in Cincinnati he has Higgins, Chase, Boyd, and Mixon. 

I think the Bengals will be fine despite their cap issues. Higgins is a very nice player but he can be partially replaced. A little bit of a hit at that position won't hurt them too much. Mixon is replaceable. As long as they have Burrow and Chase they will be hunt year after year. Similar to Allen and Diggs. The sky isn't falling for the Bengals. 

 

I think the Bengals know how to beat the Bills. I can't say the same about the Bills beating Cinci. 

[Maine-iac]

The biggest thing that would help us is if the offense comes out firing on all cylinders.  At one point in the 3rd qtr the score was 17- 10 last year.  If our offense was playing well it's not unthinkable for us to score a lot more than 10 points in a half and then it's a completely different game.  Same goes this year.  I also think shutting them down might be a big ask but if our offense keeps the pressure on them we do have healthy pass rushers and both our safeties this year.  I think a win is totally doable but we are going to have to make some plays.  We have to be the ones catching passes that bounced off someone. 

[newcam2012]

13 minutes ago, PaattMaann said:

Defensive gameplan: starts with the D-line, need to penetrate in the middle on both runs and passes. Need Ed to have a hell of a game SOMEONE else from the DT spot to step up. Cloud coverage on Chase. DBs will be up closer to the line (this has been the case with McD defense compared to Fraziers) and need to be "eyes to the QB" to slow down the quick hitting passes Burrow loves. Vary the pre snap looks both in pass rush and coverage. Id expect we see a decent amount of our newly loved dime packages with both Rapp and Poyer on the field. Force Burrow into as tough throws as possible and take some chances to create turnovers, even if it means giving up a big play. 

 

Offensive gameplan: execute. The gameplans have laregely been fine, we just need to execute. Josh needs to read coverage and live with the underneath/checkdown stuff that WILL be available. Josh also needs to run this game, Bengals give up a lot of rushing to QBs...hope his shoulder is up to it. Would love to see the uptempo stuff again this week, but admittedly will be harder on the road. I'd look for the uptempo to start after a first down on a drive, when the crowd is quietest. Take advantage of red zone opps. 

 

50/50 game...can't make mistakes/turnovers. 

Nice breakdown. I think that's best case scenario here for the Bills. The Bills have been pretty poor at stopping the run and at defending screen passes. A successful run game will open up things for Burrow. Burrow will beat the Bills or at least take advantage of one on one situations. He's proven this in the past. I don't think the Bills can afford to give up big plays. I suspect we see a lot of bend but don't break defense from McD. He simply doesn't have the players to stop the Bengals offense. The Bills defense is not good. At best, they have to be really good in the red zone and hope for a couple of turnovers. 

 

On offensive, the Bills should be able to score. However, Lou A knows how to defend and confuse Allen. He will continually mix up his defenses and bring timely blitzes. I believe Allen will be under lots of duress. Brown will likely be exploited. Nevertheless, Allen should be able to make plays. Need a big game from Cook and another player besides Diggs. 

 

There is a path for the Bills to win. I think it's slim and not a 50 50 game. I give the Bills about a 35% to win. 

[Maine-iac]

13 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

I think the Bengals will be fine despite their cap issues. Higgins is a very nice player but he can be partially replaced. A little bit of a hit at that position won't hurt them too much. Mixon is replaceable. As long as they have Burrow and Chase they will be hunt year after year. Similar to Allen and Diggs. The sky isn't falling for the Bengals. 

 

I think the Bengals know how to beat the Bills. I can't say the same about the Bills beating Cinci. 

That kid they drafted this year from Princeton is a future star.  I was hoping the Bills would take him but they had Shorter in for interviews so I wasn't surprised when they took Shorter.

[newcam2012]

3 minutes ago, Maine-iac said:

That kid they drafted this year from Princeton is a future star.  I was hoping the Bills would take him but they had Shorter in for interviews so I wasn't surprised when they took Shorter.

How is Shorter playing? 

35 minutes ago, FrenchConnection said:

You want McDermott to tell the fans his gameplan? Flip that question on its head. Geno Smith had 326 passing yards on this defense and Brock Purdy had 365. The Bengals should have lost to the Seahawks and could have lost to the 49ers if Purdy could have stopped himself from throwing the ball right to the Bengals inside his own 20. The Bengals D let Geno Smith march down the field not once, but twice, in the 4th quarter with a 4-point lead. Both times Geno turned into a pumpkin again once in the RZ but the game was right there for the taking. We might get stomped like you think, but it's not a foregone conclusion. Games are not played on paper, and we have actual Superman at QB. I'll take our chances. 

No I asked you and others what's the game plan. I don't have a direct connection to McD.