Ravens for the opener is perfect

[Rocky Landing]

1 hour ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

Posts like this are what make me want to petition the Mod Squad into giving us the middle finger reaction emoji.

I'd be all for it. (But I hope everyone realizes I was being sarcastic. Basically following @Gugny's train of thought.)

[90sBills]

1 hour ago, 90sBills said:

Check your sarcasm meter before you do that. 

Gotta admit. I whiffed on your sentiment. Especially since you eye rolled that post. 

Edited yesterday at 04:26 PM by 90sBills

[Toyo321]

Be careful for what you wish for.  The Ravens had one of the better drafts this year to add to their D side of the ball as well.  They will be a better team opening day at home then what we played in the playoffs last year.  This game at home will not be a gimmee at all.  I just hope we did enough on D this year...  We are going to need a huge elevation of "D" CB play on this side of the ball this year.  We can only wait and see through mini camp and preseason.  I think the suspensions of DE Hoecht and DT Ogunjobi could cost us in this game, but this game will be a slug fest for sure.

Edited yesterday at 04:55 PM by Toyo321

[DCofNC]

On 5/23/2025 at 8:14 AM, MJS said:

I'd rather face Cincy week 1.

Cincy usually starts off painfully slow, I’m with you.  Once they get clicking it’s hard to stop them.  Regardless of what the numbers from last year say, I don’t trust the Bills to match their point total if it becomes a shoot out.  Their weapons are still far better and Burrow vs Allen is basically a push. 
 

Baltimore is the type of offense that should come out of the gate hitting on most of their cylinders.  They are made in the running game, Jackson gets chunk plays on the most basic routes that are usually a result of busted coverage.  That’s the hardest things for any team to stop early in the year, especially when the Bills are expected to be rolling out a lot of new defensive players.  I don’t like the matchup.  I’d rather see them around week 10 as a little bit of a gauge yourself game.  The rookies would be up to speed, Jackson and Henry will have  taken a few more hits and aren’t quite as dynamic.   The same thing can be said of the Bills I suppose, but the Bills aren’t a power running team aside from Allen and again, aren’t as explosive either.  Allen is the guy I want all day every day, but Jackson is more explosive as a runner and tends to get more big chunks passing because for everything he’s not, he is very good at deep balls, especially when guys are running wide open, which happens a lot because he has to be spied and Henry doesn’t allow you to play a soft zone without getting you run over.   
 

I know I’m in the minority, but I consider Baltimore the biggest hurdle in the AFC.  Jackson hasn’t been great in the playoffs, so there’s that, but KC is on the decline a bit and Buffalo is trending up, I THINK they can get over that hump.  Baltimore is a bad matchup on paper.

[3rdand12]

On 5/23/2025 at 9:25 AM, Ramza86 said:

A win would be lovely but I think they stomp us into the mud.

its still "turf " right ?

 So your whole premise is incorrect  LOL 😋

3 hours ago, Toyo321 said:

Be careful for what you wish for.  The Ravens had one of the better drafts this year to add to their D side of the ball as well.  They will be a better team opening day at home then what we played in the playoffs last year.  This game at home will not be a gimmee at all.  I just hope we did enough on D this year...  We are going to need a huge elevation of "D" CB play on this side of the ball this year.  We can only wait and see through mini camp and preseason.  I think the suspensions of DE Hoecht and DT Ogunjobi could cost us in this game, but this game will be a slug fest for sure.

Why oh why do we think the PED twins not playing matter so much ?

Bills clearly feel they are plenty ready to play ball without them or would've changed course in some way or another

And the O guy was just depth imo anyways , waiting for the two rookies to get up to speed. and very disappointing pick up regardless

[Toyo321]

6 hours ago, 3rdand12 said:

its still "turf " right ?

 So your whole premise is incorrect  LOL 😋

Why oh why do we think the PED twins not playing matter so much ?

Bills clearly feel they are plenty ready to play ball without them or would've changed course in some way or another

And the O guy was just depth imo anyways , waiting for the two rookies to get up to speed. and very disappointing pick up regardless

Because I don't trust Joey Bosa to be answer to our D-Line problems, we still will have Oliver, Epenesa, Groot, all whom did not get any pressure on Lamar.  Last years playoff game Lamar had huge INT's & mistakes and some critically timed dropped footballs by his receivers.  Same thing happened in the regular season game against them when they squashed us and Henry had 199 yards running all over us on the ground against this D line.   Do you really believe just wash, rinse and repeating the cycle this year is going to be the answer for our D-Line pressure problems?  We need new blood and personnel combinations on this D-line this year so hopefully our draft picks and new free agents can make a difference this year.

Edited 16 hours ago by Toyo321

[Mikie2times]

On 5/23/2025 at 6:27 AM, eball said:

I agree that this is a great opener.  There are still a lot of people saying the Bills should have lost the playoff game and were outplayed physically by the Ravens.  I don’t agree.  The Bills led that game almost the entire way (after Baltimore’s opening TD) and Buffalo RBs (not Allen) rushed 26 times for 127 yards against the vaunted Baltimore run defense.  Did Lamar make a couple of mistakes?  Yes.  Did the TE drop a tying 2-pt conversion?  Yes.  But the Bills played mistake-free on offense and drove for two 4th quarter FGs to keep the Ravens at arms length.  If Baltimore had tied it, the Bills still had time to go and get a winning FG of their own.  It was hardly a game Baltimore “dominated” and then bungled away.

 

I’m looking forward to the new pieces on D and how the offense will evolve further under Brady.  It won’t be the end of the world if the Bills lose, and it won’t mean they’re going undefeated if they win.  It will simply be a great opener between two excellent teams.

 

 

They averaged 7.3 yards per play to our 4.6. The first game it was 7.9 to 4.1.  They had more total yards, like the first game. More totals first downs, like the first game. More rushing yards in total, like the first game. More rushing yards by running backs, like the first game. Better EPA offense and defense, like the first game. In two games vs the Ravens last year, they had 843 yards to our 509 and averaged over 7.5 yards per play. They did literally anything they wanted for about 6 out of the 8 quarters we played.

 

We won the turnover battle 3-0, that is why we won that game. Which is nothing to dismiss,  if we played again the odds are with us that we will force more turnovers and likely not give any up. But we were outplayed physically and it wasn't really that close. 

 

This is not the same team as last year. But then again, we just punted on a 1 tech for about the 15th year in a row. So we will see. That is the role that was important to fill for this game. 

Edited 21 hours ago by Mikie2times

[eball]

3 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

They averaged 7.3 yards per play to our 4.6. The first game it was 7.9 to 4.1.  They had more total yards, like the first game. More totals first downs, like the first game. More rushing yards in total, like the first game. More rushing yards by running backs, like the first game. Better EPA offense and defense, like the first game. In two games vs the Ravens last year, they had 843 yards to our 509 and averaged over 7.5 yards per play. They did literally anything they wanted for about 6 out of the 8 quarters we played.

 

We won the turnover battle 3-0, that is why we won that game. Which is nothing to dismiss,  if we played again the odds are with us that we will force more turnovers and likely not give any up. But we were outplayed physically and it wasn't really that close. 

 

This is not the same team as last year. But then again, we just punted on a 1 tech for about the 15th year in a row. So we will see. That is the role that was important to fill for this game. 

The first game last season bears no relevance to the discussion. But thanks for participating. 
 

[Mikie2times]

39 minutes ago, eball said:

The first game last season bears no relevance to the discussion. But thanks for participating. 
 

You can also choose to defend your take. The Ravens beat us handily in every major statistical category across both games. So why is your take accurate here?

 

We ran the ball well in the 2nd game. We played excellent first half defense. We played about as well as we could have and we still got statistically dominated (talking about the 2nd game).

 

So from my perspective I wouldn’t make us a favorite here. But lines are lines and even Vegas opened us up as favorites. So it’s not like your opinion is THAT novel. We are recognized as one of the league elite and at home. 
 

Regardless of what the line says I see a lot more paths to Baltimore blowing us out than Buffalo blowing them out. As it stands I think they’re ahead of us, but that’s why we added a bunch of pieces which needed to happen. But they likely wont have the best moments of the year Game 1. So in the nature of this thread I think it’s not a good thing to play them early. 

Edited 17 hours ago by Mikie2times

[Sierra Foothills]

Correct me if I'm wrong but we haven't really talked about the absence of Zay Jones?

 

[Doc Brown]

6 hours ago, eball said:

The first game last season bears no relevance to the discussion. But thanks for participating. 
 

Usually I'd agree with this sentiment but how different are the Bills and Ravens different from last year to this year?  The Ravens offense and the Bills offense pretty much ran it back.  We had more turnover on our defense than they had in theirs but we'll have some rookies starting the first games of their career facing the Jackson/Henry combo.  It's absolutely fair to argue they're the better team roster wise.  Our defense had no answer to them in the regular season game or the playoff game.  The major difference in the playoff game was the three turnovers (two of which were wtf is Lamar doing?) and us taking a conservative heavy run game plan where we won the time of possession.  The Mark Andrews drop also helped. 

 

Our coaching staff knows this and hopefully they have a better defensive game plan than hoping the Ravens will make a few bone headed plays. 

[Senth]

On 5/23/2025 at 1:52 AM, 90sBills said:

Get a W against Balt in week 1 and might as well get ring sizes and plan the parade route right?

 

LMAO absolutely.