Buffalo Bills Buffalo Bills - Week 7: Bye week

[misterchainsaw]

Well that sucked. Get ready to hear about strength of schedule a lot this year.

 

[sabresfan129103]

Went to bed at half time, so I just saw the ending. Kick the damn field goal! JFC.

 

[Rowley Birkin]

Went to bed at half time, so I just saw the ending. Kick the damn field goal! JFC.

As many others have said - going for it there was a no brainer. If they had taken the FG - it would have been such a p***y move - they would have deserved to lose in OT.

Re the OL - Williams needs to move back outside IMO. Find someone else to play inside & replace Ford/Boettger if you don't like either of them.

 

[Waterfowlist]

Well that sucked. Get ready to hear about strength of schedule a lot this year.

If they didn’t beat KC I would agree. They lost by 1 foot to Tennessee man.

bills were the better team and lost. It happens. Tennessee lost to the JETS.

 

[OkimLom]

The better team lost. It happens all the time in the NFL.

They better eat against the next 4 basement dwellers we play.

Our O line is a problem. And what happened to our pass rush??

But at the end of the day, we were a foot away from winning. It isn’t like we got owned.

last note, it has been a while since we have heard and announcer openly rooting for the other team. Man that was painful.

when you’re talking about “a while” since the terrible announcers were openly rooting for the other team, you really mean it’s been over a week, right?

 

[kirby11]

Sheeeesh

Don't like blaming the refs, but man, what a massive blown no-call

 

[TehDoak]

This felt like a trap game from the start. Big win last week, press telling them how great they are, bye week vacation coming up. I cant be mad at the offense. You put up 31 with an elite d you should be fine. Defense needed one stop in the 2nd half and couldn’t get it. Period.

 

[kirby11]

This felt like a trap game from the start. Big win last week, press telling them how great they are, bye week vacation coming up. I cant be mad at the offense. You put up 31 with an elite d you should be fine. Defense needed one stop in the 2nd half and couldn’t get it. Period.

Mostly agree except an elite offense should do better than settling for 6 points on 2 early red zone trips, and Josh picked the worst time to go hero ball/idiot mode when they were up 4 near the end. I was expecting another long kill the clock/score the TD drive a la KC and they botched it horribly.

 

[Fezzy126]

I agree with all of this, but especially the last part. I didn't understand why we called the timeout, we had them on the ropes and the clock was working against them not us. It gave them a chance to catch their breath and regroup.

 

[Fezzy126]

Couldn't agree more with this take (you can add Chris Jones in the AFC championship game as well).

 

[Waterfowlist]

when you’re talking about “a while” since the terrible announcers were openly rooting for the other team, you really mean it’s been over a week, right?

Haha. Well last week it was more about a single player in mahomes. This week they were legit rooting for the TEAM.

 

[Dubi Doo]

That was an entertaining game. Tough loss. I really wanted them to add some pieces to the middle of the o line this past offseason. Perhaps they can make a trade before the playoffs? Regardless, that's an area that isnt too costly to fix.

 

[MayDay]

This felt like a trap game from the start.

Trap games aren't a thing. There's no evidence supporting it.

Sometimes you just lose, and it doesn't have anything to do with what happened the week before or the week after on the schedule. Titans are a good team. They'd have a decent chance of beating the Bills in a single game regardless of where in the schedule the game was.

 

[brian_griffin]

I stayed out of the GDT. My post-game comments:

I love MNF. Riddick and Griese are two of my favorite analysts.

Griese made several errors and seemed disconnected, IMO. I like Riddick, and liked him in his pre-MNF roles. He was maybe a little too talkative for my liking last night, but it could have been my nerves / anxiety because the Bills were playing.

Great game, shitty being on this side of it.

It certainly was entertaining, regardless of whether one had their favorite team in the game or not. Neutral fans across the country saw some pretty good football.

Whatever practice squad asshole got the hold on that kick return needs to be cut tomorrow.

Pretty decent probability that without the hold, the tackle would have been made, and no TD scored.

McDermott made that call.

Is that true? That the QB sneak play call was McDermott's, not Daboll's? Didn't listen / read any post-game stuff.

I wasn’t happy with going for it at first but the more I think about and look at the overall scenario and read input from people I trust, I think they made the right call.

I was immediately fine with going for it... (read on)

What a stupid f***ing play call

Hated the play call itself (which I think you are saying), but I like the decision to go for it, vs. kicking, because:
1. Bills were on the road, and the Titans match up well against the Bills.
2. Bills D-line wasn't getting enough pressure on Tannehill, and/or when they did, he was able to scramble and not be sacked.
3. Bills D-backs had no solution for Titans WR Brown in the 2nd half.
4. Bills D couldn't get a stop when they needed in in the second half. I had little to no confidence the Bills D could stop the Titans if the Titans won the toss, or, if the Bills won the toss and drove for a FG and the Titans got their guaranteed possession.
5. Henry was getting stronger as the game wore on.

Usually I'd say that's a strong formula for success, but Simmonds is an underrated disruptor and everybody and their mother saw that play call coming. Obviously hindsight is 20/20 there but I'd prefer to stay away from their best defensive player.

Agreed

I liked that they went for it but not the play call. Get Allen moving with their d-line bunched up.

Agreed. I also like having the ball in Allen's hands at the end of the game, but would have wanted an RPO play there (fake left, move right). Or lineup, a two TE, 2 wideout right, halfback or H-back right "student body" right play with a naked bootleg left, like @7:15 in this clip. I'd trust Allen's size speed to make the left edge and beat/outmuscle a corner with a left TE blocking the right outside DE / LB.

That last play.......and this whole game.......is our issue as a team.

Our weakpoints are both lines. If both get outplayed in the same game, good teams beat us.

Re: the bolded, that is as it should be.

I was thinking earlier how much Tannehill always seems to own our soul, we just can’t beat that guy.

Bills had no solution for his scrambling to extend plays.

Exactly this point. Bills punch in 1 more TD in lieu of a FG, and it's a different outcome. Final drive doesn't even matter.

Whitney Mercilus wouldn't cost anything, as he was just released. He'd give the pass rush some juice.

Has perhaps the best name in the NFL.

Tough loss. McDermott made the right call to go for it on 4th down at the goaline. However, The call was a bit iffy to me, would have rather seen an Allen roll out/option or pass. In the end, Henry made the plays. Sometimes you tip your hat when another player does something special. Bills will be back, but this loss will sting for 2 weeks.

Agreed. And Henry is a threat to win any game he plays in.

Buffalo called their 2nd timeout after Allen didn’t make it on 3rd down. They would have had to call their 3rd and final one if Allen had gotten the 1st down on the 4th down sneak. So they would be out of TOs then with 15 ish seconds left to get the TD.

Which is not a problem. No different than completing a pass to the 1 yd line and calling time out, and having 1st and goal from the 1yd line. Doesn't matter how they got there.

Tnn gives them fits.
Henry stole that one.

Dude was unstoppable in College and Pros. No shame in him beating you, especially when Bills offense left points on the field.

I just think our interior O-line is simply not good. That should be the point of emphasis next offseason

Or sooner.

Did you not watch the game!!
According to the announcers the only time Henry went down was when he wanted to.

It went both ways. Bills got him several times TFL or no/small gain. He also imposed his will a few times. Take away his long TD, and he averaged 3.5 ypc on his remaining 19 carries (again, several of those were intermediate gains to his credit and several were TFL to the Bills credit. I think most teams would take 1 long gainer for a TD and contain Henry to 3.5ypc on a remaining 19 carries.

 

[DueDiligence]

Is that true? That the QB sneak play call was McDermott's, not Daboll's? Didn't listen / read any post-game stuff.

The decision to go for it on 4th down. QB sneak was a good call if Allen didn't slip.

 

[Der Jaeger]

Still think the Bills need to get the OL figured out. They get pushed around by good DTs

 

[Amorgus]

Bottom line is the offense got over thirty points so it wasn't pretty but they did their job. Still need to upgrade the front line though. The defense bent over and spread their cheeks wider each quarter. It's not like they were forced to stay out too long by the offense, as we often saw in the past. As infuriating as the final play was, they shouldn't have been in that do-or-die position if the defense truly was Super Bowl quality.

 

[Fezzy126]

 

[Dubi Doo]

I agree with this.

 

[tsujimoto74]

I agree with this.

I don't hate the decision to go for the W instead of the tie there. I hate that they weren't more aggressive in the red zone earlier in the game. Way too many wasted trips deep downfield.

 

[Taro Tsujimoto]

Absolutely needs to be at the top of the list of things to work on during the bye.

 

[cramdizzl]

It's hard to really blame anyone on the defense. Nobody played terribly, they just didn't have a good gameplan. They had Tre White guarding air on some crucial 3rd downs.

 

[Taro Tsujimoto]

No surprise the Bills have the league's easiest remaining schedule.

 

[brian_griffin]

I agree with this.

They should have pressed him further about whether he agreed with Daboll's play call.

Absolutely needs to be at the top of the list of things to work on during the bye.

They move up to just middle-of-the-league and the net result / impact will be large given how much TOP they have in games.

No surprise the Bills have the league's easiest remaining schedule.

But that assessment is based on his opinion/ranking of remaining teams. It's no more or less meaningful than most other pundit's views, even though we know the Bills have a comparatively easy remaining schedule.

 

[TehDoak]

IMHO, we likely are going into week 13 with 9 wins (Miami, @Jacksonville, @Jets, Colts, @Saints, New England)

9-3 with a remaining schedule of @Tampa, Carolina, @New England, Atlanta, Jets

That SHOULD be a 12 or 13 win schedule. Easily good enough for the division, not likely good enough for the bye, sadly. It doesn't help we've got 2 AFC losses already for the tiebreaker.