Game week thread - Bengals at Bills (flexed to 1pm ET)

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

1 hour ago, nosejob said:

Thanks for this. I was thinking about this. Maybe Josh, Gabe, Cooks, Shavers and Palmer? can stretch them out right out the gate and put some points up quick.......

then feed them some rock.

 

DQ was out for the game and the depth couldn't get it done that game. I also don't remember who the corners were but dane Jackson and kaiir elam played a lot in those games which... Explains a lot of the issues with the game plan. 

[Mark Vader]

40 minutes ago, bills742 said:

 

 

Did they say anything about Kincaid playing?

[finn]

5 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

I wish we did add more at WR, I'll make that clear. But I think there HAS to be balance to win championships in the NFL. Even looking back at the kelly bills, when another team was able to run the ball it screws everything up.  Fewer possessions and more of a sense of urgency because of the lack of possession time. I don't think that means we need to run the ball constantly, I just mean I don't want to build a team around 2 WRs and 1QB if that makes any sense?

 

To your 2nd point about what if burrow carves buffalo up? The entire offense would need to play amazing to win in that scenario. If Buffalo puts close to 200 on the ground against you, even incompletions or penalties, or sacks can become game killing plays because a running team squeezes the clock. We'll see how it plays out! I think on the road it's difficult to just say we're going to dictate, not to mention very different personnel on both sides - namely hopefully less playing time for dane Jackson and kaiir elam. 

Agreed on all counts. If ever there was a game we need inclement weather, this is it. Wind, heavy snow, freezing temperatures.... anything to stop the Burrow to Chase/Higgins pitch and catch show and allow us to grind it out. Otherwise, with no pass rush to worry about, Burrow might have a field day, even against an improving secondary.

 

Just checked: Looks like light snow with no wind. Oh, well. 

[Jukester]

 

[YoloinOhio]

23 minutes ago, Mark Vader said:

Did they say anything about Kincaid playing?

His hammy was healthy enough to hurt his knee 

[MDH]

2 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

Man, hope you are right, but I am not seeing it. This dude is turning into Shaq 2.0– good edge setter. I haven’t seen any sort of explosive rushes out of him. 

 

I believe the main culprit in this is McDermott. He wants pressure coming from the middle and the DEs to compress the pocket so QBs can't escape. As such, we get a bunch of big, compressions style DEs and lots of penetrating 3 tech DTs. It's how McD wants to play. He wants the DTs to penetrate and cause havoc in the backfield, not the DEs. The problem is, this rarely happens so we get gashed with the run and very little pass rush from anywhere. The DEs are tasked with maintaining their lanes more so than getting after the QB. That's their 1/11th. If they can get to the QB great, but it's not their number 1 job. It's to compress. 

 

Just look at Bosa, dude was getting pressure in the first half of the season, but he was abdicating his other responsibilities to do it. Consequently we were getting gashed by outside runs, read options and QB scrambles to his side of the field. It was maddening because he was freelancing and nobody was prepared to pick up his missed assignment. Did he get pressure? Yep. Was he an overall positive to the D? No, because the D isn't set up to do what he was doing. Thankfully he's been much better doing his job in the past few games - probably due to his injury limiting him. 

 

I'm fairly certain if Groot just freelanced to get pressure he could do the same or similar. His pressure numbers during his career aren't bad considering what he's tasked with doing. I'm also fairly certain Groot is one of the defenders McD is happiest with because dude does his job more consistently than just about anybody else. He's not flashy, but he's where he's supposed to be, doing what he's supposed to do on most plays. Now, I do think Groot can be a better pass rusher even tasked with doing it in this very specific way. He doesn't use his length to disengage as well as you'd hope. If I had to rank him as an overall DE I'd put him around 15th-20th. He's not nearly as bad as frustrated Bills' fans make him out to be. They're targeting their frustrations at the wrong thing, it's the D philosophy mixed with the inability to get players to make that philosophy work that's maddening.

 

 

[YoloinOhio]

22 minutes ago, Jukester said:

 

“Ben Baby”

[MDH]

18 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

His hammy was healthy enough to hurt his knee 

 

Watching that vid I can't imagine he's going to play this week. Dude just can't stay healthy.

[Mark Vader]

18 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

His hammy was healthy enough to hurt his knee 

Great