The Patriots did this to us for 20 years

[NewEra]

12 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

I know this will sound hollow after the game but I never once thought we were losing that. We were always a break of serve up IMO. 

I felt the same up until the inception drive.  I was worried that they would run the clock down to seconds left, score and go for 2- leaving Josh no time.  

[Wayne Cubed]

It never felt like we were going to lose last night. Any type of disappointment is only because I wanted them to Mortal Kombat style 'Finish Them', which I thought they were well on there way to, until the missed field goal. There was a point where I thought just score 1 more TD and their heads will drop.

 

Plenty to work on, just keep winning.

[stevewin]

7 minutes ago, NewEra said:

I felt the same up until the inception drive.  I was worried that they would run the clock down to seconds left, score and go for 2- leaving Josh no time.  

I felt this exactly - score and go for 2 bc they had nothing to lose.  Would have been an extremely stressful ending glad we didn't have to find out

[Fan in Chicago]

12 hours ago, Einstein said:

I know that some of you may be feeling a little bit down about the way we played in this game tonight.

 

But just remember all of those Bills versus Patriots matchups, where we were very close to beating them, or played tight with them for most of the game, and just could never pull through and beat them.

 

The Patriots won six Super Bowls doing that to us.

 

We will be fine. The fact that we played so poorly at several points tonight, and shanked a kick, and still came away with a 10 point victory … speaks volume.

I said this after the Ravens game and yesterday the point got reinforced - we are playing very similar to the Patriots in their Superbowl era. Keep playing sound football, stay calm under pressure, make no mistakes and let the other poor saps make errors at critical times. The Henry forced fumble, the roughing the kicker penalty, the Walker pressure - Bernard INT.... 

Steady coaching, a controlled QB performance, no turnovers will result in many Ws. 

Edited September 19 by Fan in Chicago

[Jauronimo]

12 hours ago, Einstein said:

Only one small caveat I will add to my original post… I am slightly concerned about Tre

White.

 

He was essentially playing his own personal prevent defense the entire game. I felt like the Dolphins could just throw at his direction whenever they wanted and he would give up 5 to 10 yards and just push the his receiver out of bounds.

 

3rd downs, particularly 3rd and long, remain a real problem.

[34-78-83]

12 hours ago, Einstein said:

Only one small caveat I will add to my original post… I am slightly concerned about Tre

White.

 

He was essentially playing his own personal prevent defense the entire game. I felt like the Dolphins could just throw at his direction whenever they wanted and he would give up 5 to 10 yards and just push the his receiver out of bounds.

 

Tre giveth and Tre take away... He had 4 or 5 excellent plays including 2 pass breakups and a few run stuffs to go with his getting torched in single coverage on the outside vs. speedsters 4 or 5 times. Far superior to what we had in Elam and even Douglas last year, but a solution is definitely needed for when teams scheme at him through formation and motion to single him out vs. speed.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

43 minutes ago, NewEra said:

I felt the same up until the inception drive.  I was worried that they would run the clock down to seconds left, score and go for 2- leaving Josh no time.  

I think they were a bit too close to the end zone at that point to really kill off all the clock…if they scored with like 1:20 left I wonder if they woulda gone for two.  If we disappeared Bernard on that INT play I think they would’ve been on the 13-14 ish yard line with 3 minutes left and the bills had  two timeouts and the 2 minute warning 

Edited September 19 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[BigAl2526]

12 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

I know this will sound hollow after the game but I never once thought we were losing that. We were always a break of serve up IMO. 

It did feel like the Bills were in control.  I have a philosophical difference with Brady.  His philosophy seems to be to call plays conservatively as long as you can.  That philosophy allows apparently weaker opponents to hang around longer.   I would prefer that he have his offense playing "pedal to the metal" until the Bills are up by three or four scores.  Then you can back off and call the rest of the game conservatively. 

[GunnerBill]

39 minutes ago, BigAl2526 said:

It did feel like the Bills were in control.  I have a philosophical difference with Brady.  His philosophy seems to be to call plays conservatively as long as you can.  That philosophy allows apparently weaker opponents to hang around longer.   I would prefer that he have his offense playing "pedal to the metal" until the Bills are up by three or four scores.  Then you can back off and call the rest of the game conservatively. 

 

The Bills were up 14-7 and lookong for 21-7 and the Fins made two plays in the redzone. It's hard for me to say that is the OC being too conservative. I think you can criticise some of the playcalling 2nd half, but I don't see conservatism as the issue with the play calling. I don't think they adjusted to the Dolphins run blitzing the entire second half. If they'd run some of those tunnel screens they normally like they'd have had a ton of success.

[dave mcbride]

13 hours ago, Einstein said:

Only one small caveat I will add to my original post… I am slightly concerned about Tre

White.

 

He was essentially playing his own personal prevent defense the entire game. I felt like the Dolphins could just throw at his direction whenever they wanted and he would give up 5 to 10 yards and just push the his receiver out of bounds.

 

I think part of that is simply Miami. Waddle and Hill are SO fast, and no other team has a pair like them (Tee Higgins is good but not blazing). The basic philosophy, it seemed to me, was to never let them get behind the D, and they didn't. On the deep shot to Hill, two defenders were behind him and ready to make a play. They figured that making Miami march slowly down the field would result in a lot of completions but also a couple of crushing mistakes, and it usually has worked out that way in the past. But Miami played well and McDaniel outschemed Babich on third down: 10-15 on third and 1-1 on fourth, so essentially 11-15; that's inexcusably bad. The other thing is that on the three times Miami moved the ball, they got TDs as opposed to FGs. On the fourth try, they finally made the mistake that matched up with the Bills expectations, and it was game over.  

14 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

The Bills were up 14-7 and lookong for 21-7 and the Fins made two plays in the redzone. It's hard for me to say that is the OC being too conservative. I think you can criticise some of the playcalling 2nd half, but I don't see conservatism as the issue with the play calling. I don't think they adjusted to the Dolphins run blitzing the entire second half. If they'd run some of those tunnel screens they normally like they'd have had a ton of success.

I'm going to push back a little with regard to one instance: When they were up 14-7 and in the red zone, on second down and long they ran the ball despite Miami being down almost all of their CBs for that particular play. When you're up against non-NFL level talent in an opposing secondary, you have to exploit it immediately. They didn't, unfortunately, and I thought it was a very, very bad play call. There were of course a ton of play calls, but in that instance, you have to throw the script/gameplan to the wind and exploit the extreme weakness that had just manifested. 

Edited September 19 by dave mcbride

[Steptide]

Ya, people tend to forget even during our worst drought years with Edwards or Losman or whoever, we had games that were pretty close with the Patriots. At the end of the day though, the Patriots were just always the better team 

[dave mcbride]

6 minutes ago, Steptide said:

Ya, people tend to forget even during our worst drought years with Edwards or Losman or whoever, we had games that were pretty close with the Patriots. At the end of the day though, the Patriots were just always the better team 

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201309080buf.htm

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201211110nwe.htm

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201509200buf.htm

 

Scroll down for the final plays and series in these ones. 

[GunnerBill]

12 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

 

I'm going to push back a little with regard to one instance: When they were up 14-7 and in the red zone, on second down and long they ran the ball despite Miami being down almost all of their CBs for that particular play. When you're up against non-NFL level talent in an opposing secondary, you have to exploit it immediately. They didn't, unfortunately, and I thought it was a very, very bad play call. There were of course a ton of play calls, but in that instance, you have to throw the script/gameplan to the wind and exploit the extreme weakness that had just manifested. 

 

Yea I didn't mind that play call. Cook was cooking. He is their best player down there  other than Allen. The Dolphins made a play on 2nd down. The other team gets paid too. I don't think that was conservatism. It was putting the ball in the hands of one of your two playmakers when he was in the groove.

[dave mcbride]

Just now, GunnerBill said:

 

Yea I didn't mind that play call. Cook was cooking. He is their best player down there  other than Allen. The Dolphins made a play on 2nd down. The other team gets paid too. I don't think that was conservatism. It was putting the ball in the hands of one of your two playmakers when he was in the groove.

Jackson had gone down and they had basically bad practice squad players plus Rasul Douglas playing corner. Exploit it at the moment. We can agree to disagree here. It's the exact sort of situation that Tom Brady would have attacked. 

[BananaB]

When we start winning Superbowls I’ll start to think of it that way

[Captain Hindsight]

14 hours ago, What a Tuel said:

 

I think everyone is well aware that we haven't won a super bowl.

[SoTier]

14 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

Your point was that this was how the Patriots won games

 

Mine was why fans aren't necessarily going to take comfort in that comparison

 

Speak for yourself, not "fans".

 

2 hours ago, Jauronimo said:

3rd downs, particularly 3rd and long, remain a real problem.

 

The good news is that the Bills have 14 more games to improve their techniques, and they should get some reenforcements in a while on defense ... and hopefully, not lose defenders for the playoffs.

 

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yea I didn't mind that play call. Cook was cooking. He is their best player down there  other than Allen. The Dolphins made a play on 2nd down. The other team gets paid too. I don't think that was conservatism. It was putting the ball in the hands of one of your two playmakers when he was in the groove.

 

I think there were at least two decent runs by Cook where he was just tripped up by a defender or he would have had even more yards.   He can house the ball from anywhere.  

[GoBills808]

4 minutes ago, SoTier said:

 

Speak for yourself, not "fans".

 

 

The good news is that the Bills have 14 more games to improve their techniques, and they should get some reenforcements in a while on defense ... and hopefully, not lose defenders for the playoffs.

 

 

I think there were at least two decent runs by Cook where he was just tripped up by a defender or he would have had even more yards.   He can house the ball from anywhere.  

I am speaking for myself lol I'm a fan

[Dillenger4]

15 hours ago, Einstein said:

Only one small caveat I will add to my original post… I am slightly concerned about Tre

White.

 

He was essentially playing his own personal prevent defense the entire game. I felt like the Dolphins could just throw at his direction whenever they wanted and he would give up 5 to 10 yards and just push the his receiver out of bounds.

 

Yep - he needs to see himself to the bench for good. Good thing we have Max coming back and potentially Strong. Maybe McD saw what the world saw and plays strong next game. Cant be nearly as BAD as Tre. Useless out there.

[Best Williams Available]

16 hours ago, Einstein said:

Only one small caveat I will add to my original post… I am slightly concerned about Tre

White.

 

He was essentially playing his own personal prevent defense the entire game. I felt like the Dolphins could just throw at his direction whenever they wanted and he would give up 5 to 10 yards and just push the his receiver out of bounds.

 

Maybe I’m defending Tre cause I love him but both he and Benford struggled. This could be due to 1) Miami’s 2 WRs being extremely fast and good route runners, 2) a game plan not to get burned deep so maintain distance but control YAC, or 3) all of the above. With such a game plan the goal then requires pressure from the DL, which never materialized. I think if our safeties could safety then we could have had more options for the CBs, but they’re slow and take bad angles. So although the CBs are easy to blame I think they’re covering up greater weaknesses in philosophy, DL and S.