We do not do well against teams we are supposed to beat.

[WhiskyBreath]

Two reasons:

 

1. These teams circle games against the Bills  on their calendars.  They prepare well and play their best game of the season against the Bills.  Look at the overall performance of Miami, Atlanta, and Houston in the Bills game compared to other games on their schedule.  The Patriots are simply a better team and they deserved to win.
2. The Bills do the reverse.  They take the outcome for granted and play sloppy with penalties, turnovers, poor tacking, etc, etc..  Their wost performances are against lower-ranked teams.

 

This is both a player and a coaching issue.

[sleeby]

Been this way for a few years now.

[JMM]

That's coaching,  plain and simple. May be unfair, but that comes with the territory. 

[NyQuil]

Been like this for a while. A proper coach would have them prepared.

[nedboy7]

That was the best defense in the NFL.  More so it exposed our inadequacy in offensive scheme.  

[MPL]

This is true this year. This is not true of most other years. 

[Yobogoya!]

There's a good reason for this: we aren't as "good" of a roster as the media and fans think we are. 

 

We are only "supposed to beat" these teams because our MVP QB has made us look dominant, when we clearly are not a dominant-built roster by any stretch. 

 

Josh Allen has been masking the talent and coaching deficiencies on this team for years now. We are only even in the wild card conversation because of him, otherwise we'd be a doormat this year. 

[Haslett_Stomp]

7 minutes ago, NyQuil said:

Been like this for a while. A proper coach would have them prepared.

 

^ this.  McDermott basically said the team had overlooked Miami the week after that game.  That is coaching.

[st pete gogolak]

Bit of revisionist history regarding the New England game.  NE was not “clearly the better team”. We had more yards and certainly could have won that game even though we played a poor game. Horrifically bad calls against us in the first half and three turnovers lost us the game.  
 

Before the season, I thought going into Houston on a short rest would be difficult and counted that as a loss. No excuse for Atlanta or Miami however.

[notpolian]

I think the betting world overvalues the Bills and so the lines are often not realistic.  The causal fan gets excited when Allen goes off and those that were not paying attention thought this was going to be an easy game.  Houston has a darn good defense and excellent defensive coaching.  Our offensive coaching and play calling isn't great and Allen's bad habit of holding onto the ball too long is the exact wrong thing to do against Houston.   

 

I agree the Miami loss was a whole 'nother story, as was the Falcons to a good degree. 

 

This team is tired and lacks talent, it's that simple to me.  I hope they can get something around Allen eventually but I'm not that optimistic.  This year could easily go south with all the road games coming up.

[WhiskyBreath]

Despite turnovers, sloppy tackling, and a lack of teeth in our DL aside, I think what really killed us was the missed extra point (no longer an automatic for us) and the holding calls on kick-off returns that routinely gave us poor field possession on most drives (other than that spectacular run back by Davis).  Barring these goofs, we should have at least been able to tie the game at the end with a FG, instead of having to go for the TD.

 

Oh, forgot the 8 sacks, albeit against a super defense.  What happened to our league-leading OL?

Edited 11 hours ago by WhiskyBreath

[US Egg]

Haven’t seen a defense do that to an Allen led offense in…..ever? Throw in Dawkins was not up to the challenge and Brown playing with one arm and we got a view of something not seen in quite some time.

 

But it was there for the taking at the end. Not saying to dismiss the Bills performance but it was a bit of an anomaly last night.

[Big Turk]

I think you are just seeing that it's very hard year to year to be consistently great in the NFL.

 

The odds are stacked against you in every way possible.

 

What the Bills have done is not common, and while some struggles can be seen as a step back, it's really not much different than in 2023 or even 2021 at this point of the season. 

 

In 2023 we were 6-6.

 

Nothing matters until the playoffs really. I mean sure the 1 seed would have been nice but that's likely not happening now.

Edited 8 hours ago by Big Turk

[TheBrownBear]

2 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

I think you are just seeing that it's very hard year to year to be consistently great in the NFL.

 

The odds are stacked against you in every way possible.

 

What the Bills have done is not common, and while it's a step back, it's really not much different than in 2023 or even 2021 at this point of the season. 

 

In 2023 we were 6-6.

Yes, it may just come down to this. There's a lot of parity in the league and if you aren't ready to play you're not going to skirt by with a half-assed effort, even against the worst teams.  Throw in injuries and a couple of key bad matchups (Dolphins and Falcons running games; Houston's ends and CBs) and you can end up with ugly road games like we've seen over the past six weeks. 

[colin]

i made an effortpoast thread about my view, but this is pretty close to all of it.

 

i'd say its cuz we play bad vs bad teams on the road, and that's done by us turning the ball over.

 

if we had the exact game we just did vs hou and before that miami, but instead we didn't turn the ball over, we win bad looking games vs bad opponents but are sitting at 9-2.  it's a very thin line.

[WhiskyBreath]

It is complacency that leads to some of the players not practicing, making mistakes, and sleep-walking during the game.  The caoching staff needs to get players pumped up for all games, not just games against good teams.

 

[buffblue]

10 hours ago, WhiskyBreath said:

Two reasons:

 

1. These teams circle games against the Bills  on their calendars.  They prepare well and play their best game of the season against the Bills.  Look at the overall performance of Miami, Atlanta, and Houston in the Bills game compared to other games on their schedule.  The Patriots are simply a better team and they deserved to win.
2. The Bills do the reverse.  They take the outcome for granted and play sloppy with penalties, turnovers, poor tacking, etc, etc..  Their wost performances are against lower-ranked teams.

 

This is both a player and a coaching issue.

I'll be honest - I didn't look at the Houston game as one we were supposed to win. Not quite sure why some people seemed to assume it would go our way. It's never easy with Houston, and I thought it was pretty well known at this point how special their defense is. A team that gets shut out after 3 quarters at Miami was never going to have an easy go, especially on a Thursday. That -6 spread was absolutely absurd. 

Edited 40 minutes ago by buffblue

[mjt328]

Inconsistency is often a sign of bad game planning.  When you aren’t adjusting for a specific opponent’s tendencies, it’s like running into a brick wall.

 

The Bills coaching staff likes to do their thing and hope they can just execute better.

 

Did it look like Joe Brady had prepared in the slightest for a team with a strong pass rush?

[finn]

I think the veterans on this team, led by Allen, Dawkins, and few others, are just bored. They're excited only by what they see as real challenges, like Baltimore, KC, and Tampa Bay, but just cannot find motivation to play against the Dolphin-type teams on the schedule. They've seen the regular-season movie too many times and want to skip right to the playoffs. The coaches might do a great job with a young, up and coming team, but that's not what they have. They're probably helpless. (They're helpless with Coleman's attitude, too, but that's a different matter entirely.)

 

So the season could still come together. We might not be seeing a fundamentally flawed or untalented team exposed by mid-level teams but rather a very dangerous team that frankly can't be bothered anymore, even if it means playing an extra playoff game and on the road to boot. In the playoffs, they might finally get their act together and show us something for more than just a game. 

[SinceThe70s]

10 hours ago, US Egg said:

Haven’t seen a defense do that to an Allen led offense in…..ever? Throw in Dawkins was not up to the challenge and Brown playing with one arm and we got a view of something not seen in quite some time.

 

But it was there for the taking at the end. Not saying to dismiss the Bills performance but it was a bit of an anomaly last night.

 

Truth. Reminded me a little of Mahomes/Eagles in the SB last year.