Game week thread - Bills at Panthers

[blizzardman]

Maybe this has been said but I can’t shake the fact that it’s the Panthers, who McD and Beane have used to add players since year 1 and Andy Dalton leading them. 
 

Scared of the poetic possibilities to send us into to a tailspin. 
 

 

[Sierra Foothills]

2 hours ago, stevewin said:

My son traveled to Buffalo for the NE game and to ATL after that.  He's also going to Charlotte this week - says if they lose he's gonna stop going to games 😛

 

Would you consider asking him not to attend the Panthers game... or any other Bills games for that matter... for the rest of his life?

 

😜

 

[billsfan89]

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

Indy hired Lou Anarumo and went from 24th in PPG to 8th.

 

Atlanta hired Jeff Ulbrich and went from 23rd to 8th (tied with Indy).

 

San Fran hired Robert Saleh and went from 29th to 7th.

 

Yeah it's the coaching. 100%.

 

I think McD has to fire Bobby B if this defense continues its poor performance. Call the defense yourself it looked much better against ATL in the second half. 

[Boatdrinks]

16 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

I think McD has to fire Bobby B if this defense continues its poor performance. Call the defense yourself it looked much better against ATL in the second half. 

What should happen ( at least) is that McDermott should quietly take over the defensive play calling. Any firings can wait until the offseason, but you have to do everything possible to steady the ship in 2025.

[boyst]

24 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

I think McD has to fire Bobby B if this defense continues its poor performance. Call the defense yourself it looked much better against ATL in the second half. 

 

5 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said:

What should happen ( at least) is that McDermott should quietly take over the defensive play calling. Any firings can wait until the offseason, but you have to do everything possible to steady the ship in 2025.

so McDermott fires the only insulation he has to protect him from losing his job?  Babich maybe the DC but it's McDermotts team and his defense with this being his 4th DC.

 

Let him continue to get better at in game coaching and keep him away from play calling and making a debacle like he did in KC for 13 seconds.

 

If McVay or Reid had a bad offense would they lose their job? Reid did in Phili because he couldn't improve the offense, in fact.

[billsfan89]

7 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said:

What should happen ( at least) is that McDermott should quietly take over the defensive play calling. Any firings can wait until the offseason, but you have to do everything possible to steady the ship in 2025.

 

McD is less loyal to coordinators than he used to be. He fired Dorsey mid-season most notably. He also finally fired Frazier after 2022 and then moved on from the ST coordinator after two seasons. He should take over or be "heavily involved" in play calling on defense this team invested far too much in the off-season to have a defense this Mediocre.

[billsherd]

Let's hope no bad surprises on the injury report coming off a bye. 

[fergie's ire]

48 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

I think McD has to fire Bobby B if this defense continues its poor performance. Call the defense yourself it looked much better against ATL in the second half. 

It DID and I think that was the one silver lining of that game.  If not for Tre leaving his man wide open who a desperate Penix was able to hit for a big play, it would've been a very good second half.  They gave the offense plenty of chances to take back the lead.  I hope it also showed that even though the Bills were down to backup corners, they could stick with ATL receivers long enough.  The D Line HAS been getting pressure and have to trust that and risk the corners playing tight.  Sure, the ATL receivers are not the KC receivers...but still.

[billsfan89]

17 minutes ago, fergie's ire said:

It DID and I think that was the one silver lining of that game.  If not for Tre leaving his man wide open who a desperate Penix was able to hit for a big play, it would've been a very good second half.  They gave the offense plenty of chances to take back the lead.  I hope it also showed that even though the Bills were down to backup corners, they could stick with ATL receivers long enough.  The D Line HAS been getting pressure and have to trust that and risk the corners playing tight.  Sure, the ATL receivers are not the KC receivers...but still.

 

4 drives and all ATL got was a pair of field goal attempts. If the offense on those 3 punt drives prior to the final drive scored a field goal they could have had the ball one last time with a chance to tie. Hell the offense did have the ball with the chance to tie on back to back to back possessions and they got zero points...

[DaVinci]

Part of the problem on offense is Allen. He should be calling audible to counter the defensive pressure. Great quarterbacks performance in critical situations. Kelly called all the plays. I know this is not a popular opinion but I believe Allen is just not great at reading defenses and calling good plays.

 

 

 

 

[No_Matter_What]

3 hours ago, Brand J said:

We actually do get pressure, but there’s players running so wide open in the zone that the pressure doesn’t have a chance to affect the QB. The back seven is not complementing the pass rush. I can think of quite a few wins where a defender immediately got in the backfield and the QB found a receiver running wide open to negate the win. The best pass rushers in the league couldn’t help the current scheme. It’s maddening. 

Absolutely this. @TheFunPolice I strongly disagree that there is "zero" pass rush. Our pass rush is very good esp. with Oliver in. Problem is that it doesn't matter if coverage sucks.

 

And that is real problem. Rapp is bad, Bishop inconsistent, Tre old and slow, and as @BearNorth said our two best guys in Taron and Benford regressed a lot. Especially Benford needs to get it together. Taron is getting older, but Benford should be in his prime and something is wrong.

[Pete]

Rapp is the worst player on the field.  I don’t what happened.  Maybe he lost his mojo- he is nowhere the player he was last year.  Get him off the field.  Start Poyer if you have to.  Sure better options would be nice, but Poyer is big improvement over Rapp imo.

 

[That's No Moon]

1 hour ago, billsfan89 said:

 

I think McD has to fire Bobby B if this defense continues its poor performance. Call the defense yourself it looked much better against ATL in the second half. 

He picked Babich over Butler (who was the DB savant) and chose wrong.

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

Panthers are sneaky good. Bryce Young shows flashes of a young Russell Wilson. This game is no longer the automatic W it was when the schedule was released. Rico Dowdle is also one of the leagues top runners as well. Buffalo has their work cut out for them.
 

This win will solidify Buffalo’s standing as a top team and hush the criticism (for now.) So not a division or even conference game, but still seems extremely important. I don’t even want to speculate what a loss would do. McDermott has never lost 3 games in a row. 

[Sojourner]

1 hour ago, billsfan89 said:

 

McD is less loyal to coordinators than he used to be. He fired Dorsey mid-season most notably. He also finally fired Frazier after 2022 and then moved on from the ST coordinator after two seasons. He should take over or be "heavily involved" in play calling on defense this team invested far too much in the off-season to have a defense this Mediocre.

I know some people may not have liked Frazier but there’s a reason he landed an assistant head coach job after that amicable parting of ways after the 13 seconds debacle. 
 

Seattle has had a pretty solid defense without a marquee defender outside of Devon Witherspoon these past 2 seasons, something which he has had to have a hand in.

 

Personally, I would have liked them to hang on to him one more season before the dismissal. That’s just me though, probably wrong and in the minority there lol

[Pete]

7 minutes ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

Panthers are sneaky good. Bryce Young shows flashes of a young Russell Wilson. This game is no longer the automatic W it was when the schedule was released. Rico Dowdle is also one of the leagues top runners as well. Buffalo has their work cut out for them.
 

This win will solidify Buffalo’s standing as a top team and hush the criticism (for now.) So not a division or even conference game, but still seems extremely important. I don’t even want to speculate what a loss would do. McDermott has never lost 3 games in a row. 

Rico is averaging 5.6 yards a carry, which leads the NFL I believe.

 

Bills D has sucked against the run for years, and is particularly weak this year.  Larry O and Hoecht are most welcome additions!

[Sojourner]

48 minutes ago, DaVinci said:

Part of the problem on offense is Allen. He should be calling audible to counter the defensive pressure. Great quarterbacks performance in critical situations. Kelly called all the plays. I know this is not a popular opinion but I believe Allen is just not great at reading defenses and calling good plays.

 

 

 

 

Every game Josh has made plenty of audibles or adjustments at the LOS. He has that choice. 
 

Remember, the botched play to end the playoffs against the Chiefs was one that Josh changed the protection on and allowed Karlaftis to come free at him. Now, he somehow made a ridiculous throw that should have been caught by Kincaid but the problem is still there. 
 

Sometimes it’s the OC, sometimes it’s Josh. Rarely if ever did you see as many breakdowns as we have under Brady as we did under Daboll. Food for thought I guess. 

[billsfan89]

2 minutes ago, Sojourner said:

I know some people may not have liked Frazier but there’s a reason he landed an assistant head coach job after that amicable parting of ways after the 13 seconds debacle. 
 

Seattle has had a pretty solid defense without a marquee defender outside of Devon Witherspoon these past 2 seasons, something which he has had to have a hand in.

 

Personally, I would have liked them to hang on to him one more season before the dismissal. That’s just me though, probably wrong and in the minority there lol

 

My issue with Frazier was that the defense in Frazier's era was inconsistent despite the defense being usually top 5 in terms of cap spending and a lot of picks being thrown onto that side (the teams first draft pick from 2019-2022 were all spent on the defensive side of the ball). For all that was done on the defense the team ranked outside of the top 5 on defense 2 out of 4 years from 2019-2022. Then there was the lackluster 2021 and 2022 playoff performances and I think Frazier despite being a good coach was just done. 

 

I think it was the right call for McD to move on at that point. 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

2 minutes ago, Pete said:

Rico is averaging 5.6 yards a carry, which leads the NFL I believe.

 

Bills D has sucked against the run for years, and is particularly weak this year.  Larry O and Hoecht are most welcome additions!

Agreed. Some fresh blood just might be the antidote to this failing run D. Both offer solid pass rushing ability as well. 

 

Bryce Young is going to be out for several weeks with a high ankle sprain. That really sucks for them because I am a fan other than the week we play them. 

[billsbackto81]

I had no idea the Panthers have 4 wins so far.