Evaulation (of this team) after a quarter of season gone

[MikePJ76]

My biggest takeaways.

 

The run game is still awesome.  

 

Mcdermott's philosophy of allowing teams to have the numbers up front in the running game and challenging opposing offenses to stay with it and prove they can score Touchdowns via the run game is frustrating as hell to watch but has worked again so far this year.  I expect with Milano, Oliver and Hoecht back soon they will play the run a little better.

 

My final opinion so far is that as I thought all offseason the defensive free agents they have signed have not really accounted for much.  The drafted players have been underwhelming though hawes and walker look like players that will help them win games all year.  The rest of the class is hurt/inactive or not playing.  Strong has filled in admirably but I don't think the plan is to have him out there late in the year.

 

Fingers crossed hoecht actually can help the defense.

[PrimeTime101]

20 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

The defense is just bad. Bad fundamentals, bad situationally, inconsistent pass rush. The one thing is HAS done well is splash plays. But that's a tough way to live week to week. It simply has to be better. I'd be willing to consider a coordinator change but I doubt it happens. 

week 1 was week 1... This Defense is way better with Oliver and Milano playing.

[Goin Breakdown]

What constitutes as a fan complaining?  Saying that this defense isn't good enough and needs to get off the field on 3rd down more consistently?  Saying that the pass defense has holes and needs better play from their DBs?  Is it saying that our offense has been stalling out and keeping lesser teams in the game?  

We all know they are winning and scoring 30+ a game. That shows how good the team is. 
 

Some of this is just reality. It really has nothing to do with crying. 

[BuffaloBillyG]

47 minutes ago, Billsfanatic8989 said:

Because we haven't won the SB. It's that simple. Fans would still complain if they had won it. But it wouldn't be a large majority.

 

The biggest fear is that the defense is going to get obliterated by a great team in the postseason. Which has happened more than a few times. Thus far, I've seen nothing to show that will not occur again.

Are you kidding me? 

 

The day the Bills finally get to and win a Super Bowl, this forum will be LITTERED with post that are titled things like "I know we won the Super Bowl....but".

 

People will complain that while they did win, the way they won "isn't sustainable". People will say that winning one is great, but if they don't fire McDermott they will never win one again. This fan base is broken 

[Sweats]

So, i like the O mentality of the dink and dunk and death by a thousand cuts type approach. It's hard for teams to try to limit weapons on our O when they take one away, we have another. I know fans were complaining about not having a speedy WR, but the NFL these days is being geared towards more of scheme play and not having to rely on one mega player. More often than not, the plays are right in the middle of the field, where although it took JA a number of years to be patient with his play style, he has finally learned that you take what the D gives you........sometimes, this creates a boring type of game, but we are seeing that it wins games.

Throw in a heavy dose of Cook and our 3 TE's and it's hard for teams to pick their poison.

 

The D, on the other hand.........

My god, McD is supposed to be a D guru and i'm not confident or convinced that we won't end up in D hell, year after year after year after year.

Like it or not, but D's win championships and i have zero confidence that our FO hasn't learned from their mistakes from years past. It is so hard and frustrating to watch most times and if the fans are seeing this little league play from our D, you know other teams are seeing it and game planning.

Our run D is horrendous and it's not even debatable.........somebody pick a lane, guard a gap, protect the edges, whatever.

 

4-0.......i'll take it at this point, but that D needs to be a cleaned up to make a championship run.

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

No play's that went beyond 20 yards in back to back weeks now.  Hill, Waddle, Achane, Kamara, Shaheed, Cooks, Olave - no explosives. 

 

And even with the poor tackling display against NO - and a pretty one-sided officiating crew... they still managed to force 3 punts, 2 fourth down stops, had a takeaway, 5/13 on 3rd downs, and under 20 points.  

[Big Turk]

3 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

No play's that went beyond 20 yards in back to back weeks now.  Hill, Waddle, Achane, Kamara, Shaheed, Cooks, Olave - no explosives. 

 

And even with the poor tackling display against NO - and a pretty one-sided officiating crew... they still managed to force 3 punts, 2 fourth down stops, had a takeaway, 5/13 on 3rd downs, and under 20 points.  

 

And 3rd week in a row of not allowing 300 yards to an opponent, in which they have averaged 243 yards given up and 16.5 PPG.  People acting like we are giving up 400+ yards and 35 PPG like we are the Ravens D need to get an actual clue.

[eee1776]

58 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

Offense is solid.  Defense needs to execute better especially tackling.  

There is one constant that is bad on defense and that is our DC.. Wake up Bills stop blaming the players when we all know where the problem lies. time to let him go...

[nuklz2594]

DC Babich is nothing special. Hoping if we get healthy, the defense will be better than average

[Coffeesforclosers]

2 hours ago, The Jokeman said:

Would you rather be 1-3 with Lamar?

Keep it real.

 

Baltimore is 1-3 with 2x League MVP Lamar Jackson and seven other Pro Bowlers/All Pros on their roster.

 

Half of TBD would have walked into Lake Erie holding a cinder block if we had that roster and record.

 

 

[PaoloBillsFanFromItaly]

Offense: very good
Defense: bad

[oldmanfan]

8 minutes ago, eee1776 said:

There is one constant that is bad on defense and that is our DC.. Wake up Bills stop blaming the players when we all know where the problem lies. time to let him go...

Wrong.  Watch the game and see how many guys were in a position to make a tackle and didn’t.  How many guys failed assignments.

[Ga boy]

52 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

The defense is just bad. Bad fundamentals, bad situationally, inconsistent pass rush. The one thing is HAS done well is splash plays. But that's a tough way to live week to week. It simply has to be better. I'd be willing to consider a coordinator change but I doubt it happens. 

Isn’t the head coach a defensive expert?

[sunshynman]

44 minutes ago, DallasBillsFan1 said:

This.

If Buffalo were playing Philly yesterday, what would the result have been? That's right.  

You're assuming. Any given Sunday. 

 

43 minutes ago, TheyCallMeAndy said:

Joshua Palmer is a speed receiver?

He's not slow (like Koleman jk), but he get's a step or two. And he is the best router runner on the team. And he primary plays the outside role.

 

39 minutes ago, MikePJ76 said:

My biggest takeaways.

 

The run game is still awesome.  

 

Mcdermott's philosophy of allowing teams to have the numbers up front in the running game and challenging opposing offenses to stay with it and prove they can score Touchdowns via the run game is frustrating as hell to watch but has worked again so far this year.  I expect with Milano, Oliver and Hoecht back soon they will play the run a little better.

 

My final opinion so far is that as I thought all offseason the defensive free agents they have signed have not really accounted for much.  The drafted players have been underwhelming though hawes and walker look like players that will help them win games all year.  The rest of the class is hurt/inactive or not playing.  Strong has filled in admirably but I don't think the plan is to have him out there late in the year.

 

Fingers crossed hoecht actually can help the defense.

To be fair, half the FA pickups haven't played a down yet.

Edited September 29 by sunshynman
space

[TBBills Fan]

The other team gets paid on Tuesdays too

-Jerry Ostrowski

[skibum]

Big picture, the Bills are taking care of business by whatever means necessary. They have many ways to move the chains and score. The D makes big stops at the most important times. They dominate the turnover battle and have above-average special teams play all around. 

 

Everything else is just noise. These guys are winners.

Edited September 29 by skibum

[billsfan89]

17 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

No play's that went beyond 20 yards in back to back weeks now.  Hill, Waddle, Achane, Kamara, Shaheed, Cooks, Olave - no explosives. 

 

And even with the poor tackling display against NO - and a pretty one-sided officiating crew... they still managed to force 3 punts, 2 fourth down stops, had a takeaway, 5/13 on 3rd downs, and under 20 points.  

 

The offense also put the defense on a shorter field a couple of their drives and the defense mostly held up. This game not being a massive blow out was more so on the offense than the defense in my opinion. 

[DapperCam]

Cook is my first quarter MVP. This is the best he’s ever played between the tackles and he doesn’t even have any real home runs yet. And it is very obvious when his backup is in.

 

Honorable mention to Allen who has been totally in control as a game manager (other than like 7 minutes vs the Ravens).

 

Dishonorable mention to our run defense.

[GASabresIUFan]

47 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

Are you kidding me? 

 

The day the Bills finally get to and win a Super Bowl, this forum will be LITTERED with post that are titled things like "I know we won the Super Bowl....but".

 

People will complain that while they did win, the way they won "isn't sustainable". People will say that winning one is great, but if they don't fire McDermott they will never win one again. This fan base is broken 

The board's fanbase certainly has some issues.  Fire McD (highest  win % of any Bills HC).  Trade Cook and install Davis.  Fire Beane because his drafting stinks (I assume that means besides Allen, Cook, Brown, Benford, Bernard, Shakir, Torrence, etc...)

 

The evaluation of this season to date is the Bills are 4-0 with 2 divisional wins and a strong conference win.  The Bills have scored 30+ every game, lead the NFL in rushing yards (654) and TDs with 9.  Our 16 offensive TDs are tied for 1st with Det (Det has a def/ST TD).  The Bills are also 7th in passing yards with 996.

 

On defense the Bills lead the NFL in least amount of passing yards allowed at 564 with an excellent 8.8 yards per reception (3rd best in the league).  We are getting stomped by the run. We have allowed 657 yards on the ground for 6 yards a carry.  The Baltimore game skews the data with their 8.2 yards per rush that game.  Our 290 yards allowed per game is the 10th best in the league.  Our 22.5 pts allowed per game is 17th.  

 

Our winning margin YTD is 10.8 up from 9 last season and ranks 3rd in the NFL.   Basically the defense is mediocre (but surprisingly solid against the pass) and our offense is historically good.  

Edited September 29 by GASabresIUFan

[GunnerBill]

14 minutes ago, Ga boy said:

Isn’t the head coach a defensive expert?

 

Yes, and there is definitely some of it that falls squarely on Sean. But as I've said elsewhere there are elements: 3rd down and pre-snap confusion that are objectively, measurably way worse than under Frazier or indeed Sean himself. That stuff you have to look at Babich. That isn't giving Sean a pass, it's just being realistic.