A Few Thoughts about the Pats Game - Post yours as well

[TBBills Fan]

I agree with everything you said @Virgil

[Cray51]

I’m confused with all of the defense was bad posts.

 

bills offense gave the patriots the ball inside of our 15, D holds them to a FG

 

Allen has a chance to tie the game at 13, throws a bad pic and now we are on the backfoot

 

defense holds NE to 3 points before the half with some tight coverage (whites PI was a bad play from him, but Milano then does well to force Henry off his line

 

Diggs played well, but the defense shut down every other dimension of the Patriots.

 

The loss is on the offense.  Turning the ball over, bad penalties, and lack of run game hurt them

[JBI$111]

Tre is toast and he shouldn't be on the field, Milano is like fragile glass china, every other game he's hurt and out for half the season, he was great in the past, but he cannot be counted on going forward.

 

And the amount of money and resources that we have spent and tied up on the defensive side of the ball is pathetic based on the results and as I've said this ad nauseam, until we get a fast number one receiver, the offense will have problems. We have a collection of misfit receivers every year that Beane collects on the cheap from the gutter and expects them to be World beaters.

 

And Josh is certainly not above criticism either, especially this game. However, he's not had a lot of talent to work with over the years unfortunately and Beane continues to draft poorly. The head scratching thing though is that Josh still makes poor decisions that he should not be making this many years into his career.

 

Absolutely poor coaching as well on both sides of the ball and I don't have confidence really in any of the coaches, including the GM Beane and his drafting.

[Aussie Joe]

Ray Davis looks like he won’t see out the year … what the hell happened ? I know he supposedly lost weight …. But he has fallen off a cliff

[In Summary]

When Milano is healthy, he contributes. When White is healthy, he's still a liability. However, neither can be counted on.

[H2o]

Admit it or not, the refs had a huge hand in the outcome of this game. Between the noncalls on NE and the nonsense in the first half, they are responsible for the swing in the game. 

 

Our defense continues to be cheeks. They left all the Charmin on the field tonight. The Secondary is especially putrid. Benford getting beat often again as well. Groot makes two plays and goes back to anonymity. Everyone out of position. A ton of missed tackles. Horrible coaching. 

 

The use of Cook was absolutely baffling. Ray Davis never needs to be on the field. We have a bunch of Smurf WR's outside of Coleman, and he's not there mentally half the time. I'd almost welcome Gabe back at this point. Everybody eats is nice and all, but you need guys who can go and s.n.a.t.c.h (really, bleeping that word out?) a plate. We don't have that. Allen made an absolutely boneheaded play on that throw in the red redzone. Just idiotic. 

 

Babich should have been fired immediately post game. He won't be, and we'll see the same crap product until we're staring at giving the division away. 

 

Stefon's middle name is still Summer's Eve. 

Edited 2 hours ago by H2o

[HappyDays]

24 minutes ago, Virgil said:

Replays showed a lot of open guys for either check downs, or guys that got open after Josh bailed from the pocket too quickly.  

 

I'm pretty sure the all-22 will show that some of those open WRs you saw were not actually open. A couple times I saw Allen spot a target and gear up to throw but a Pats defender wisely got into the throwing lane with their arms up which forced Allen to retract the ball. Vrabel had his defense ready for those plays. They were containing Allen whenever he scrambled right and staying disciplined on the back end. When Maye got out of the pocket Diggs was always working himself open, which of course we know he can do at a very high level. Allen doesn't have that guy. Allen doesn't turn down open targets like he did at times when he was younger. The primary issue is that his targets aren't getting open, which has been an issue in every game and this is the first time it really bit us.

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

5 minutes ago, Cray51 said:

I’m confused with all of the defense was bad posts.

 

bills offense gave the patriots the ball inside of our 15, D holds them to a FG

 

Allen has a chance to tie the game at 13, throws a bad pic and now we are on the backfoot

 

defense holds NE to 3 points before the half with some tight coverage (whites PI was a bad play from him, but Milano then does well to force Henry off his line

 

Diggs played well, but the defense shut down every other dimension of the Patriots.

 

The loss is on the offense.  Turning the ball over, bad penalties, and lack of run game hurt them

 

It's recency bias. The DEF was pretty bad in the 2nd half (17 points allowed on 4 drives including game winning FG) and that's what people remember. 

 

DEF was amazing the 1st half and even with the bad 2nd half still out-played the offense. 

[TFBillsfan]

As we continue to see Brady’s playcalling, I believe one thing is for certain. He has zero creativity and is far too predictable. Even last year on the QB sneaks, it was always Josh to the left. 
 

I’m amazed how they’ve yet to call a shotgun jump pass with Josh faking the Qb run. Brady literally has so many plays at his disposal but he sticks to the basics. If you scout the Bills you know exactly what they are going to try to do. Heck, you could even run some option plays with Josh and Cook. 

 

When he does try to get creative, they’ve been massive failures or when he calls them there is no reason to! 
 

[SCBills]

Diggs might be the only guy who can get under Allen’s skin.  
 

Doesnt help that he goes to war against good defenses with butter knives at WR.. so when he starts pressing, it’s very noticeable. 

[jahnyc]

Point #5 is spot on regarding Coleman.  I really want him to succeed but I don't see it happening.  He is a one trick jump ball pony.  Shakir is great in the slot, but we don't have a boundary wide receiver as good as a 30 plus year old Diggs coming off a torn ACL last season.  I know we had limited dollars to acquire a WR for last season and this season, but Samuel and Palmer seem like wasted investments.

 

Secondary has been bad, but I see almost no chance that the Bills try to trade for a CB.  That would be an admission by the front office that signing White and drafting Max and Strong was a poor use of available resources this offseason.

 

Linebacker is a big concern now, particularly if Williams' injury is long term and Milano goes on IR.  We have no depth at this position.

[Buffalo ill]

My thoughts are the Bills have two players who could start on other teams, and neither had a good game tonight.

[LABILLBACKER]

Kincaid is playing great. Coleman on the other hand is slowly drifting toward semi-bust territory. The stupidity of that Knox jet sweep was hilarious. Diggs probably won't do much the rest of this season, this was his SB. McDermott's zone scheme and lack of a game wrecking pass rusher will forever be the downfall of the Bills ever winning a Lombardi. And who knows if we'll ever have an answer to why his defense gets riddled with injuries every f-ing season. Hopefully Hoecht and Hairston can give this defense a boost?

Edited 1 hour ago by LABILLBACKER

[billsfan_34]

10 minutes ago, Aussie Joe said:

Ray Davis looks like he won’t see out the year … what the hell happened ? I know he supposedly lost weight …. But he has fallen off a cliff

Thought the same thing! Time to bring Gore up.

[Simon]

8 minutes ago, H2o said:

Groot makes two plays and goes back to anonymity.

 

You need a bigger TV

[DC Greg]

Great points all around in this thread. It was a fun start, but this team is deeply flawed. The Bills will win the division again and then get bounced in the playoffs again. It’s time for McBeane to go. These guys are never going to get the Bills to a Super Bowl let alone win one. They’ve had more than their fair chance at it. Unfortunately I think Terry is clueless and most of the fanbase is content with the annual dose of their hopeium mixed with Josh Allen’s otherworldly talent. So we’ll probably just run this into the ground, fire McDermott and Beane 2-3 years from now when the Bills finally don’t win the division again and then lose in the wild card round. And by then Josh’s prime will be almost over as they go into a rebuild. Firing Clappy and Beane after 13 seconds or ANY of the subsequent playoff failures may have given it enough time to build the right roster and game plan around Josh. Not sure there will be time once the finally pull that trigger.

 

And I know this type of doom take will get the standard “omg lol it’s one game” eye rolls from the homers, but it’s not one game. It’s history that has run like clockwork for 5 years straight. Glaring holes in roster construction, miss after miss on high round draft picks, horrendously misspent FA contracts, terrible in game coaching from McDermott, coordinators who are in over their heads, etc. It’s the same story year after year because that’s what McDermott and Beane, at their best, are capable of - division titles. Not Super Bowls.

Edited 2 hours ago by DC Greg

[Mikie2times]

We are a really good team and with the power of our run game and Allen, we will beat nearly every .500 type team the league has to offer and occasionally the better teams as well. But outside of those two areas as far as the run game and Allen, we really aren’t elite anywhere else. Maybe average, but we aren’t doing anything else at a Super Bowl level. 
 

Even with out passing game we will have flashes of greatness. A lot being driven by Allen extending. It will be productive, but it won’t be consistent. The consistency comes when WR’s can consistently separate and without Allen extending it just doesn’t happen enough. It’s like we depend on niche players to fill main roles. Shakir is a great slot, but he’s generally not stressing teams downfield. Coleman is now the jump ball master, but can’t separate. Nobody can get vertical. Who is winning with routes and separation? 
 

So when teams play our run game well, as New England did today, it will be hit or miss with production. Which would be fine for 99% of teams, but we will not win games on defense. Which we have shown for some time now. So any inconsistency on offense is under a microscope. 
 

This team could easily be .500. So nothing we saw today was really a surprise. The sky isn’t falling, but the team is showing it really has progressed a heck of a lot, if at all, from last year. So that’s just what this is right now and the talent level from my view just doesn’t get me too hot and bothered that we can see monumental improvements. We came within a a play or two a few years now. Looks like that team. I was hoping we could be a little more definitive in our improvement, but just not seeing a path to that yet. 

[BuffaloRebound]

Bottom line is you can’t play as horrendous as we did on offense in the 1st half and win games.  The defense is the same McDermott crew that you can only ask so much of.  It always comes down to the offense having to score TD’s every time they have ball late in games.  Which eventually makes you ask yourself why keep the head coach around who’s responsible for the defensive side of the ball?  

[davefan66]

Josh had a bad game. Felt heat when it wasn’t there and rushed some passes.  It isn’t totally on him though.

 

Wide receivers were trash. Can’t get downfield. Can’t get open. When Josh saw an opening, receivers didn’t help him out.  Instead they were open a moment and quickly became covered.

 

Coleman made a couple good catches first quarter last week. Floated to the open spot a few times on one drive. Problem is, that is something he doesn’t do on a regular basis. Instead they use him as a guy for “contested catches”. Congested catches should be on your arsenal as a WR once or twice a game…not run purposeful routes to do so because you can’t get open.

 

Maye made Josh passes all day. Sideline, downfield. Had a decent rush on him at times but he easily stepped out of it and completed passes.

 

Defensive backs couldn’t keep coverage all game. As soon as maye got away from pressure, they were open most of the game.

 

Put Milano on IR and see ya. Stop wasting time on the guy. Sorry he’s been hurt, but putting effort into him and not heathy guys is useless.

 

We desperately need help at DB and WR. We are going nowhere if we can’t get plays more than 10 yards downfield. We need a WR that is taken seriously and can stretch the field.

 

If McD doesn’t take the team to a Super Bowl, he can go. We are 4-1 and very easily could of lost a few more games to “bad teams..

[T.E.]

19 minutes ago, Cray51 said:

I’m confused with all of the defense was bad posts.

 

bills offense gave the patriots the ball inside of our 15, D holds them to a FG

 

Allen has a chance to tie the game at 13, throws a bad pic and now we are on the backfoot

 

defense holds NE to 3 points before the half with some tight coverage (whites PI was a bad play from him, but Milano then does well to force Henry off his line

 

Diggs played well, but the defense shut down every other dimension of the Patriots.

 

The loss is on the offense.  Turning the ball over, bad penalties, and lack of run game hurt them

There were three big defensive series where we needed a stop, and they gave up two long TD drives and the game-winning FG on said series. They always, always, fail to step up in big moments.