The Frankish Reich

Frank Gore averaged 3.5 per carry last year. At age 37. For the Jets. The old problem of "drafting for need" instead of best player available.

Two cheers for "balanced offense!"

You mean neutral site playoffs and Super Bowl, like the NBA bubble in Summer 2020? When do Hawaii flights open up for booking? Or are we in the Cancun Division? Whichever way, it sounds absolutely horrid.

Set the edge so well that they had no choice but to run it right up the gut for 220 yards!

You mean other than holding them to less than 220 yards rushing? Other than holding a team that passed for 19 yards to less than 14 points? Other than stopping a team that didn't even pretend to be attempting a pass from a 65 yard TD run?

Well you'll be happy to learn that Gabe was out there for 28% of snaps vs. 79% for Sanders. And we just didn't have the bodies on offense to go "heavy" - Knox played 97% of snaps, Sweeny 22%. No fullback, so that wasn't an option, and McD wasn't doing the Pats thing and using an O lineman as an extra "blocking TE" (why not?). So the heaviest we went was 2 tight ends - both receiver-first types if you ask me - on the field at the same time in about 20% of our snaps. Which left us in 3 receiver sets a lot of the time in a game that screamed "run the damn ball."

Weird thing is everyone - including on TSW - said "let's make Mac try to thrown in bad weather." And then we didn't. Oh, we had 9 or 10 men in the box on many occasions, but we learned that it also matter WHO those 9 or 10 men are. Levi Wallace, Taron, Dane, the safeties, Tremaine, Milano ... where's the big guys to stop the bulldozer?

43% of snaps for Taron. So unless my math is really worse than I think it is: we had 3 CBs on the field at a time for nearly half of the Pats offensive snaps. In a game where they threw the ball 3 times. And we wonder why the bulldozed us for 220 yards.

I actually like him. Someone needs to be a little bit ... provocative. I think that's the nice term for it. He got a raw deal because Bills management couldn't take the heat back when they really deserved the heat.

One step from the Lockport Union-Sun and Journal.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-week-13-game-recap-new-england-patriots-14-buffalo-bills-10 Micah Hyde’s critical error on a pursuit angle is what opened the door for Harris’ long touchdown run in the first quarter. New England’s formations forced nine (and sometimes 10) Bills defenders near the line of scrimmage, leaving the safety in the middle of the field as the last line of defense. Sometimes it's better to just own it. Hyde is a smart player. He was playing deep on the breakaway run for one reason - as a safety (hey, is that where the name comes from?) preventing the big run if a RB slips past that front 10.

First, for the Pats on offense: https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-week-13-game-recap-new-england-patriots-14-buffalo-bills-10 In a game in which they ran the ball on 48 of their 51 offensive snaps, the Patriots often deployed their “jumbo” package. That lead to some of the wonkiest play-time numbers that we’ve seen all season. Mac Jones and his starting offensive line were the constants in this one, with each of those six players going the distance on Monday, while reserve lineman Michael Onwenu got a 61% share of his own as the “blocking tight end” for the night. Jonnu Smith, who actually gets paid to play tight end, also played a big role in the running game having played 76% of the snaps himself. Jakob Johnson (49%) even beat out Hunter Henry (29%) to be the third man in line, as Jones’ favorite red zone target wasn’t needed much in the run game. And for the Bills on defense against that jumbo package? - Levi Wallace: 100% of snaps - Dane Jackson: 100% Who were they covering? That Offensive Lineman who was the "blocking tight end"? We don't have a lot of LB/safety options to bulk up against the run, particularly with Klein out (waiting for the vax update ...). But maybe: - Siran Neal: 33% - Tyler Matakevich: 4% Even Jerry Hughes was on the field for only 49% of snaps. I thought the rotation of pass rushers was because they tire themselves out, you know, rushing the passer all over the field ... They went heavy. We stayed light. McD and Frazier do know that when the offense substitutes you get a chance to substitute yourself so you don't have 179 lb Levi Wallace trying to tackle a 245 lb RB?

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32809233/new-england-patriots-throw-just-three-passes-dominate-ground-win-buffalo-bills The three passing attempts are the fewest in Patriots history, while the two completions match their fewest, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. The three pass attempts were the fewest by any team since the Bills attempted just two in Week 3 of the 1974 season (vs. the New York Jets). "We played kind of the way we felt like we needed to play to win. In the end, we scored enough points," New England coach Bill Belichick said. That made me wonder. What was going on in Week 3 in Buffalo in 1974? https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/197409290buf.htm The box score says winds were 19 mph, but that obviously downplays it. It was apparently raining with wind gusts in the 30-40 mph range. Here's how the NYT put it: ORCHARD PARK, MY., Sept. 29—The Jets and the Buffalo Bills played some strange kind of a game today. Because of the elements, it was not football. The Bills won, 16‐12, in wind and rain. The wind was the worst, 20 miles an hour down one end of Rich Stadium with gusts up to 40 miles. Lou Saban WAS Bill Belichick in that game. Joe Ferguson threw 2 passes. OJ ran it 30 times, Braxton 17. We gained 220 yards on the ground (now where else have I seen that number?). The Jets tried to play a more normal game, so Joe Namath threw 18 times. He completed 2 to his own receivers, and 3 to Bills interceptors. We won 16-12. Someone Bills intern should have pulled out the old tape of that game before last night's debacle. I suspect some Pats intern did.

I love how this is becoming a meme ... Zack Moss running directly into his own Guard's back. Someone needs to do a lowlight reel of those plays.

Correct. Just poor talent evaluation is all I can come up with there. Teller was a mid round draft pick and Spain a FA signing, so they liked what they saw when they acquired them, but soured on both with no better alternative.

You mean yet ANOTHER run stuffer? Just how wide is out D line going to be with all of these run stuffers?

True. My thought experiment: how would the Pats offense have been any different if they'd just played 10 men and direct-snapped (wildcat style) to one of the RBs every play? Is there any reason to think they still wouldn't have run for 220 yards?

I'm pretty sure that somewhere inside the dome of an inactive volcano deep in the Andes Ernst Stavro Blofeld is petting his kitten while his minions operate the diabolical BBWCM* every Sunday afternoon (and sometimes on Thursday, Sunday, or Monday nights). *Buffalo Bills Weather Changing Machine

You somehow neglect to mention that the guy who beat him out wasn't chopped liver ... in fact, it was the immortal QUINTON SPAIN. Quinton, please come back. I miss your mediocrity. EDIT: yeah, yeah, I know, it's PFF and all that, but ... PFF currently has Spain (starting for the Bengals) as an above average guard. I never quite got why they gave up on him so fast. I mean, mediocrity is sometimes better than the alternative.

Not boring for me because I'm a Bills fan. And probably not boring for Pats fans. But talking to some people this morning who are neither of the above but are merely NFL fans - the consensus is that it was a snooze fest. I don't think many stuck around till the end. It wasn't even goofy fun like the snow game a few years ago. It was just stupid watching standard and exciting parts of the game completely eliminated by weather conditions.

This is what the Pats did when teams finally committed to stop the GOAT and his precision passing game: https://www.nfl.com/news/james-develin-is-the-most-important-back-in-super-bowl-liii-0ap3000001013097 And they did it in midseason. Suddenly they were run heavy, playing a FB on most downs, and winning that way. We saw a glimpse of Daboll trying to do that after the Jags debacle, but he clearly didn't commit to it, and Beane/McD left him without the personnel to execute it properly (Gilliam was just a guy, and when he got hurt there was literally no one to turn to - same with TE and Sweeney)

I don't know how much is on Beane vs. McD. They've been joined at the hip since coming here together, so I guess I just have to assume every decision is a joint decision. But here's what's bothering me: some GMs do a great rebuild job. That's what Beane did. But then they tend to overvalue their guys who helped them turn things around. And so they get complacent. Jon Feliciano ... nice find! Our O line got better with him in there. Bring him back. Dion Dawkins ... turned into a solidly above average LT! Pay the man to the tune of $58 million even though pretty much everyone agreed he's certainly not a top 10 LT. The great GMs (Belichick with his GM hoodie on) are ruthless. There's no "this guy made us better, he's not elite, but we better lock him up because it's not easy to figure out how to replace him" going on. Remember this one? https://www.espn.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4812167/patriots-stay-true-to-financial-discipline-in-absorbing-tough-loss-of-nate-solder You're not gonna pay Tom Brady's blindside protector? Really? No, you're not. Nor are you going to pay Malcolm Butler or Danny Amendola. You are going to go out and find UDFAs and guys off the waiver wire and mid round draft picks to ensure you don't let yourself creep right back into salary cap hell.

That was what was driving me nuts. Watching Levi Wallace on the field with the Pats going against the wind, letting the whole world know that they had zero intention of throwing the ball.

Looks like Star pitched a shutout last night. No tackles. I don't want to be a "boxscore scout." So I'll leave it to the All 22 reviewers to show me how he occupied two Pats linemen most of the night, allowing Tremaine Edmunds to be the run stuffer we always knew he could be. I don't want to see him fired for exactly these reasons. But what I want or don't want to see doesn't matter. The Bills' turnaround under McD has bought him at least one more season, but realistically only one more season. It's hard to see this team advancing to the AFC Championship again. If that doesn't happen (particularly if they blow it and don't make the playoffs at all), it's one step back instead of one step forward to the Super Bowl. And coaches on teams considered to have "the most talented roster in the conference" don't last long unless their teams play like that's true.

I didn't see that in the box score. That's lame. Breida just muffed the handoff. It didn't even have anything to do with the weather.