Why are we so late to adjust defensively?

[HoofHearted]

4 hours ago, BillsFan130 said:

The first drive was baffling. Everyone knew that you can't play soft zone against Cinci as burrow would eat it up, but that's exactly what the Bills did lol.

Good adjustments during the game , but I just don't understand how you come out with that as the defensive game plan

I know a lot of us are in a bubble and mostly only watch Bills football, but this is like this in all of football. Come out in base, run calls you know your guys can execute in their sleep to ease them into the pace and tempo of the game while you see what your opponent is coming out in and what their plan will be to attack you. McDermott's been doing this a long time, he knew we wouldn't be able to sit back and rush 4 all day and be successful. He's also smart enough to have plans of action for different approaches based off what he's seeing from the offense. You need that first series to gather data then adjust from there all while hoping base d is enough to hold them on the first drive.

Edited 1 hour ago by HoofHearted

[nosejob]

7 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

I know a lot of us are in a bubble and mostly only watch Bills football, but this is like this in all of football. Come out in base, run calls you know your guys can execute in their sleep to ease them into the pace and tempo of the game while you see what your opponent is coming out in and what their plan will be to attack you. McDermott's been doing this a long time, he knew we wouldn't be able to sit back and rush 4 all day and be successful. He's also smart enough to have plans of action for different approaches based off what he's seeing from the offense. You need that first series to gather data then adjust from there all while hoping base d is enough to hold them on the first drive.

Gathering Data gets you down 2-3 scores quick....and if you're an analytics guy...or an average fan, you see that coming every single time.

[BillsFan130]

12 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

I know a lot of us are in a bubble and mostly only watch Bills football, but this is like this in all of football. Come out in base, run calls you know your guys can execute in their sleep to ease them into the pace and tempo of the game while you see what your opponent is coming out in and what their plan will be to attack you. McDermott's been doing this a long time, he knew we wouldn't be able to sit back and rush 4 all day and be successful. He's also smart enough to have plans of action for different approaches based off what he's seeing from the offense. You need that first series to gather data then adjust from there all while hoping base d is enough to hold them on the first drive.

Ya I'm not saying you're wrong, but I just don't know if I agree with that logic.

 

Spotting a team 7 points while them taking 8 minutes of clock to open the game, can be the difference of winning or losing a tight game in the playoffs.

 

To your first comment though- Ive never or rarely seen a Spags coached team open the game that passively 

Edited 1 hour ago by BillsFan130

[GunnerBill]

It's hard to keep Burrow down. Play with cushion he stays patient, come up and compete and he will take his chance to throw over the top of you. 

 

I maintain the biggest problem the Bills defense has is tackling. I saw something going back to the week of the Kansas City game saying we had given up the most yards after contact in the NFL and was by a reasonable gap to 2nd. I can't imagine it has got any better. 

 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

4 hours ago, BillsFan130 said:

The first drive was baffling. Everyone knew that you can't play soft zone against Cinci as burrow would eat it up, but that's exactly what the Bills did lol.

Good adjustments during the game , but I just don't understand how you come out with that as the defensive game plan

Obviously zone doesn’t work but idk how you really man them up either…it’s a pretty damned if you do damned if you don’t type scenario.  Their receivers are just so big and physical on top of everything else.  Even with benford doing a fantastic job on Chase you’ve still got Higgins to deal with and even if you man both those guys up you’ve got gesicki high pointing balls and making one handed catches haha wth was that 

 

even Chase brown is developing into a good pass catcher 

 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Generic_Bills_Fan

[nosejob]

3 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

It's hard to keep Burrow down. Play with cushion he stays patient, come up and compete and he will take his chance to throw over the top of you. 

 

I maintain the biggest problem the Bills defense has is tackling. I saw something going back to the week of the Kansas City game saying we had given up the most yards after contact in the NFL and was by a reasonable gap to 2nd. I can't imagine it has got any better. 

 

They have to come out aggressive against the Pats. They are playing Josh McDaniels. He will eat us alive. We need to lay the wood to Maye. Blitz away. Giving up a big play here and there is worse than them going 9-10 on 3rd down and /or constantly moving the chains? We need to attack, results be damned. We need to close out the Ralph with home playoff games! The AFCE title and 1 seed are still in play!

Just now, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Obviously zone doesn’t work but idk how you really man them up either…it’s a pretty damned if you do damned if you don’t type scenario.  Their receivers are just so big and physical on top of everything else.  Even with benford doing a fantastic job on Chase you’ve still got Higgins to deal with and even if you man both those guys up you’ve got gesicki high pointing balls and making one handed catches haha wth was that 

 

 

 

Well ok, but when it becomes an easy pitch and catch routine.....

[billsherd]

Adjusting after a first drive used to be McD /Leslie special when they were together. 

 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

2 minutes ago, nosejob said:

They have to come out aggressive against the Pats. They are playing Josh McDaniels. He will eat us alive. We need to lay the wood to Maye. Blitz away. Giving up a big play here and there is worse than them going 9-10 on 3rd down and /or constantly moving the chains? We need to attack, results be damned. We need to close out the Ralph with home playoff games! The AFCE title and 1 seed are still in play!

Well ok, but when it becomes an easy pitch and catch routine.....

Oh yea the first drive I couldn’t tell ya what happened haha but after that it seemed like defenders were around but the bengals made all the plays anyway 

 

it’s kinda a weird quirk that like 66% of our games against the bengals were in light snow that seems to favor the offense big time too

[nosejob]

14 minutes ago, nosejob said:

They have to come out aggressive against the Pats. They are playing Josh McDaniels. He will eat us alive. We need to lay the wood to Maye. Blitz away. Giving up a big play here and there is worse than them going 9-10 on 3rd down and /or constantly moving the chains? We need to attack, results be damned. We need to close out the Ralph with home playoff games! The AFCE title and 1 seed are still in play!

Well ok, but when it becomes an easy pitch and catch routine.....

I can always count on a response from Gunner to put me in my place. Keeps me humble🤪

Edited 1 hour ago by nosejob

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

5 hours ago, Ramza86 said:

We didnt get a blitz in until the Bengals score 3 TDs back to back to back.

 

The blitz comes and it starts to work.

 

Then we keep blitzing and then Burrow sees it coming and starts to torch us again. We got lucky with drops. 

Then we somehow let WRs get behind our defense up 2 scores at the end of the game and Burrow scores in 30 seconds to make it almost a FG game.

Why are we never ahead of the curve and trying to confuse these good QBs?

My guess is football is a lot like a boxing match. Teams gotta feel eachother out until they expose weaknesses. The Bills found the weak link and exploited it. better later than never.

[nosejob]

2 minutes ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

My guess is football is a lot like a boxing match. Teams gotta feel eachother out until they expose weaknesses. The Bills found the weak link and exploited it. better later than never.

IMO holding back the blitz is missed opportunity. What team blitzes the most? What's their record? They don't have our offense either.

[GunnerBill]

6 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Oh yea the first drive I couldn’t tell ya what happened haha but after that it seemed like defenders were around but the bengals made all the plays anyway 

 

it’s kinda a weird quirk that like 66% of our games against the bengals were in light snow that seems to favor the offense big time too

 

Even the first drive only one of those plays was it soft zone where the receiver caught the ball and made 1st down yardage without being tackled. On at least two others we actually baited Burrow into throwing short exactly to the spot where we had a defender to rally and tackle.... in both cases the defender absolutely whiffed on the tackle... in one case two of them had a shot and both whiffed. And these weren't "that's a tough tackle" whiffs. These are "that is basic ***** football" whiffs. 

1 minute ago, nosejob said:

IMO holding back the blitz is missed opportunity. What team blitzes the most? What's their record? They don't have our offense either.

 

The Vikings. They are 5-8. Second place? The Falcons. 4-9. Third? Chiefs. 6-6. Okay how about fourth? Finally a winning record... the 7-6 Buccs. 

 

You have to get down to 10th and 11th (Bears and Broncos) to find actual good teams.

[nosejob]

2 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Even the first drive only one of those plays was it soft zone where the receiver caught the ball and made 1st down yardage without being tackled. On at least two others we actually baited Burrow into throwing short exactly to the spot where we had a defender to rally and tackle.... in both cases the defender absolutely whiffed on the tackle... in one case two of them had a shot and both whiffed. And these weren't "that's a tough tackle" whiffs. These are "that is basic ***** football" whiffs. 

Two inches of snow and a slick surface. You play off a WR and have to make up a few yards and chase and hopefully wrap him up. What could go wrong? Do you guys get snow there?

[Goin Breakdown]

5 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

What are you going on about - they brought extra guys starting with the very first 3rd down - just 1 minute into the game.  They brought 5 guys including a LB.

 

Then they got burned by Higgins - so they played off to come up and tackle and gave up 2 third downs with guys breaking tackles in the first drive.

 

Then they brought extra guys a couple of times on drive 2 and Cincinnati threw a quick pass out to Chase and hit Gesicki - so again they backed off and Higgins went over the top.

They tried simulating pressure with 5 and 6 guys on the line and people dropping back.  Just like when Allen or Mahomes is on fire - when Burrow is hot there is little you can do and he was pinpointing passes in the first half with defenders all over the WRs and TEs.  His guys were winning everything.

 

They got more aggressive trying different blitz packages when the LBs did not get home and that was leaving Higgins and Gesicki open in the middle.  The CB blitzes helped, but also put Chase on Lewis which was a mismatch.  The difference in the second half was Higgins and the Cincinnati team dropping the ball and not making plays.

 

 

 

In a nutshell. They had options to exploit our defense. That's a high power offense and I can give credit to McD or whoever that there was some timely corner blitzes that worked in a couple big spots. Some costly drops helped us too, but man did they have some great catches as well. Great game all in all. 

[GunnerBill]

26 minutes ago, nosejob said:

Two inches of snow and a slick surface. You play off a WR and have to make up a few yards and chase and hopefully wrap him up. What could go wrong? Do you guys get snow there?

 

We do. Ever seen a rugby game in the snow? 

[RochesterLifer]

1 hour ago, nosejob said:

Gathering Data gets you down 2-3 scores quick....and if you're an analytics guy...or an average fan, you see that coming every single time.

Aahhhh yes, it's the old, "average fan is smarter" post. 

I wish there was an algorithm that would make these diappear.