GunnerBill

So first of all, just to say I acknowledge and recognise the starting point from which you are coming at this which is just that you are not saying this offense is bad it doesn't meet your schematic preferences. I understand that. I have a stylistic aversion to heavy blitzing defenses, I have never liked them. But I recognise that done well - Brian Flores, Steve Spagnoulo - they can be really successful. They'll just never be my cup of tea or the way I'd call it if I was running a defense. I think the Brady / Daboll comparison on the way they are trying to create separation is interesting too. They are using different styles to do the same thing. To a certain extent I think you can throw the 4th and 2 from Sunday out. The Bills have basically admitted Spags won that rep coaching wise. The Bills expected man, saw man, and then got zone and it was just Josh Allen making a superman play that made it work. The play was designed to get Shakir open and he is sufficiently past the line to be open, the Chiefs just had the right D called. But overall they do take different approaches to creating space. Daboll, as you say, was a master of spacing. And he used that to get his receivers into areas of the field where they had green grass around them to be open targets. Brady does a lot more of trying to put the defense in conflict. That tends to be why he has receivers closer to each other because he is trying to use natural leverage and rub routes to put defenders into a bind, conflict them as to their coverage responsibility and get separation for his receivers. The 3rd down play to Shakir earlier in the drive was a classic example of where they did exactly that on a key down. I'm not sure it is poor spacing so much as by design he wants his receivers close to each other to make defenders read and react and they have been pretty effective recently at getting guys open that way. It is a different strategy, and I might argue with our current pass catchers is an approach more suited to the talent. Dorsey was still trying to run the Daboll philosophy but with a declining Diggs, no Brown or Sanders and no Beasley to just sit in those zones. I have always felt that the Brady O has a lower ceiling than the Daboll O. That is still my niggling doubt despite the decent upward curve we are on. But I think the personnel kind of required them to move away from some of those core Dabes concepts. It needed a different way of getting guys open.

What will happen is it will be a really good football game, between two really good teams, it will be close and come down to the last 2 minutes or so. One team or other will make a play or not make a play and that will decide the outcome. 2021 playoffs - 13 seconds 2022 reg season - Taron pick on final drive 2023 reg season - Toney's toe 2023 playoffs - Josh just misses Shakir in the endzone 2024 reg season - Josh's superman run It is how these games have gone now 5 times in a row. Just gotta hope that finally, in January, we come out on the right end of one.

Offense: 1. Daboll 2. Brady 3. Dorsey 4. Dennison Defense: 1. Frazier 2. Babich 3. McDermott

Don't think so. I mean I'd never say never if Josh lobbies for him. But I think they'd go another route.

It has been the case since 2020. The Bills have been a top 5 team in terms of 4th down aggression by the numbers since Josh broke out basically.

I mean most sensible sports are one game eliminations. Just your funny 'merican sports that normally are different.

Yea I agree. As long as the let them play is broadly consistent (and I think it was) I prefer it that way.

My personal take on the 1st down runs was they were precisely to remain on schedule. I'm not saying it worked as the Bills would have hoped.... I'm sure they would have liked to be getting 3-4 yards rather than 1-2 on those runs but it felt like "I am not going to let the Chiefs force negative plays get me into 2nd and 3rd and 10 plus when you get the craziest blitzes in Spags playbook." I don't think it was about trying to set stuff up later or wear the defense out or any of those theories. I think it was simply a means of trying to avoid negative plays. I think there was a confidence that the Chiefs secondary was vulnerable especially with McDuffie not in top form and Watson injured and there would be plays to be made on 3rd down as long as we were not "behind the sticks". The thing that particularly makes me think that is the obvious solution to getting stoned running up the middle is tosses and sweeps and run plays to attack the edges. While Cook's first TD was an edge run the next drive they ran a toss where he should have been tackled in the backfield for a loss of about 5 yards and instead scampered forward, kept his balance and turned it into a short gain. After that - no more tosses - which suggests the risk of being 2nd and 15 or someone was not one Brady was willing to take. They only had 3 negative plays on the day and all were for -1. Two on first down and one on second down so in that sense I think it worked, but they would have been hoping to be more effective that the 1-2 yard average on first down, no doubt. They need to look at how we crank some more yards out of 1st down (both run and pass actually) if we meet them again in January. But I think stopping the Chiefs defense from creating negative plays at the same time has to be part of that equation too.

Hahahaha. I feel insulted! Although Lidl are charging £13 for a turkey crown which is nuts.

Yea I normally cook during the Detroit game and eat during the Dallas game. Will be swapping that around this year. Late dinner I think 😆

The main person who didn't and still doesn't realise that is Aaron Rodgers.

Luck plays a bigger part in sport than most want to admit.

Saffold is the worst Bills player I have ever seen the team stick with as a starter for an entire year in my 22 years of fandom I think. I've seen other bad players have runs as starters but eventually they get benched. Not Ol' Rog. He was rolled out to make my eyes bleed weekly.

Benching him wouldn't have helped. The problem with Aaron hasn't been his throwing the ball. It is everything else. It is the poison that seeps out of every pore of the man. The toxic, corrosive, self-absorbed attitude. Once they brought that into their locker room for a 40 year old past his prime, they were dead. I think Douglas and Saleh were, two years ago, a Quarterback away from being the men that made the Jets relevant again. I know this sounds mad... they'd have been better trading for Derek Carr. Because all that young team needed was competent Quarterbacking and Carr, while limited, would have given them competent play without disrupting the chemistry of that young group in the locker room. Instead they sacrificed all the culture they had built to pander to the ego of a poisonous individual. When the story of Aaron Rodgers career is written in years to come it will be the story of one of the most incredible Quarterbacking talents to ever play the game whose biggest rivalry was with his own personality. And sadly the Quarterback lost to the person too many times.

My overall take on this year's schedule was tricky, but like the home slate, tough on the road. Next year I think tough home slate (but the Bills are great at home) but there isn't a single road game there that I go "man that's tough." Maybe Houston? Steelers and Falcons are not "easy" but the Bills are better than those two teams.

I think they have to keep showing they are willing to attack outside. It will open up those spaces that the Bills really want to attack in the middle of the field even more. I still want to see more Kincaid vertical when he returns. They managed to find that element when Brady took over last year but his depth of target has been down again this season. I know that is influenced some by the increase in his usage on screens and other catch and run concepts at the line but I want to see them find a way to get him vertical in that 10-20 yard range and I think spreading defenses out more horizontally my making them worry more about the Bills attacking outside will help. But we have definitely found a groove on offense in the past few weeks. Starting a bit better, putting up 30 regularly even with injuries, 3rd down conversions are up on earlier in the year. Definitely encouraging.

Orlovsky is the man. Great demonstration too of how you need the right call and the right execution to make a big play work. Great concept and a great job by the Bills players.

I mean I also think that was a great football game. Remember when that wild Chiefs - Rams game was being lauded as the best game ever... was it 54-51... ? I said man that is not my idea of a great football game. The best games are those 30-21 or 34-27 type games. When every drive feels like it ends in a touchdown... meh. Not enough jeopardy. That Sunday was a true battle between offense and defense, a fascinating strategy battle between two excellent coaching staffs and two all world QBs who were prevented from playing perfect but who each made 4 or 5 incredible plays over the course of the game. It had jeopardy, drama, lead changes and some great football plays. Maybe I only feel this way because we won - but actually I was saying it in the GDT at half time - that was my favourite Bills - Chiefs game of the rivalry. I loved it.

It was a massive coaching win for the Bills on Sunday. Of course the play of the year was Josh Allen pulling on the cape. But (with the exception of the dumb challenge) the previous 58 minutes that got us to that point was a Bills plan that had got the better of KC on both sides of the ball. Specifically: - found ways to pressure Mahomes with a front 4 without, for the most part, letting him escape the pocket. That takes such detailed planning and disciplined execution; - mixed in more man coverage than I have ever seen us use against the Chiefs. 30.8% according to the Athletic; - protection schemes that kept Allen clean for the most part - as @Buffalo716 mentioned - that doesn't just happen that is relentless planning all week "if we get this and we see that then this is our response in protection"; - attacked the blitz better than we ever have against KC. Said it yesterday but in previous meetings at times it felt like our plan when they blitzed Allen was survive. Just dump it off, or throw it away, live to play anothet down. On Sunday they saw Spags blitzes as a chance to attack the back end. Loved it from Brady and Josh. By contrast: - Spags struggled to create negative plays even when sending 5, 6 and on a couple of occasions 7 guys; - the Chiefs tried to confuse Josh on the backend by a lot of disguised zone - as Josh talked about on the 4th and 2. And the Bills were wise to it; - Andy Reid said himself he got away from the run too early and that was the Bills being brave enough to show a heavier box, even if they dropped out of it multiple times into cover 2; - the Chiefs could not get Kelce and Hopkins going at all who have been the big peices of the passing game the past 3 weeks. I give a ton of credit to McDermott and his young coordinators. I think in the 8 meetings of this Josh vs Pat series of Bills - Chiefs games that goes down with the 2021 regular season game as the second time the Bills coaches have conclusively won the coaching battle. I know for some they won't get credit until they do it in January, and I understand that. But man that was, as the thread says, a clinic from this staff.

It is like the year John Brown was the de-facto #1 and had 1,000 yards and people were arguing he is therefore a true #1. It's not about yards put up. It's about what they can do and what they can't. Shakir isn't a #1. He is a slot guy. John Brown was a boundary guy but also wasn't a #1.

0% chance it's the Redskins.

Haha. I'd have hated it but it would have been funny.

I hate to be that guy.... but I did like the Campbell hire. I liked him as far back as his interim stint in Miami after Philbin got canned. I am a "hire a leader" guy at Head Coach though. It's "in" this year apparently and teams are after leaders and culture setters. Presumably after watching such non-entities as Brian Callahan and Dave Canales get Head Coaching shots last time around teams have realised having called a few good offensive drives does not a Head Coach make.

Yea the Brady trick play was a momentum killer for sure.

I haven't properly looked at him to be honest. I've only seen tv highlights. I will let you know once I have got to work in the new year.