HappyDays

No joke, my biggest positive takeaway is that the WR play was so bad in this one it will force Beane to make a move. It's like how the Panthers were forced to bench Bryce Young because the tape was so uniquely bad. Mack Hollins' tape is that uniquely bad and they will have to make a change. On defense, Dorian Williams continues to improve and it was good to see Bernard make a huge play in his first game back. Benford and Douglas continue to lock down the boundary. Bass' two kicks were never in doubt. Very easy kicks by modern standards but I'll take him making even just the easy ones right now.

I'm fine trying anything different considering how putrid the offense has been the last two weeks. I'm just not expecting any miracles. The personnel we have dictates that we don't have an offensive identity.

I loved Kincaid even before we drafted him but what has he shown that makes you think he should be used more? He isn't separating against man coverage and he had two drops today, to add to the two he had last week. He's a good player, not a focal point. Which unfortunately is the best you can say about any of our pass catchers. Samuel? He's been outright terrible. I think it's a total myth that usage is the issue with him. My take is that he just hasn't been any good. Can't separate at all, slow to react on broken plays, looks slower with the ball in his hands than advertised. He looks like Deonte Harty out there. I want him LESS involved until he proves he deserves a role. This part I don't really disagree with, but like I said above handing the ball off to Cook was our best play today. Allen was 9 of 30 passing the ball. So asking for us to pass the ball more isn't really a solution, it's just doing something different for the sake of doing something different. I wish Brady was an elite offensive coach but we aren't just going to magically find one of those off the street. Either we add the talent to make it work, or the coaching change needs to come from further up the chain.

The problem is that James Cook is very clearly our best weapon on offense. So when all else fails, Brady's solution is to lean on our best player. I can't really blame him for that. I think as a fanbase we're looking for solutions that don't exist with the current personnel.

We would need an elite level offensive coach to make it work with this group. What are we supposed to lean on? Our run blocking is just okay so we can't be a run it down your throat team. We don't have pass catchers that separate quickly so we can't be a quick passing offense. We don't have vertical receivers so we can't be a big play offense. Of all of those he tried the run it down your throat offense today and it was just too inconsistent and left our offense in poor down and distance situations. So I'm not happy with Brady but I can't really blame him either. All of the offensive coaches that would make this group look better than it is are either head coaches or about to be head coaches. The correct solution if we're going to have a defensive head coach is to ask that head coach to make his side of the ball work with less resources invested, and start pouring as many resources as possible into the side of the ball that will always have less than stellar coaching. That's the one strategy that this regime for whatever reason has been unwilling to try.

Our WRs were never gaining separation outside even in the first three games. We got away with it because defenses were still playing Josh Allen the usual way, two high shell keep everything in front of you and force the offense to chip away on drives. He was more than happy to play that style by funneling passes to the middle of the field. Now defenses have adjusted and are clogging the middle of the field daring us to beat them downfield outside the numbers. All of a sudden that weakness on our roster has come to the forefront. And it's not a problem you can just hide, unfortunately. Either Coleman quickly develops some separation skills or else we need to add a legit talent at the position.

Joe Marino spends the first portion of this podcast explaining why that final sequence was so poor. He concedes that a 1st down there was necessary to ice the game going to OT. But, in that context we needed to run the most efficient possible plays to pick up 10 yards. Instead we launched three low percentage passes downfield in a game where our WRs had caught 4 of 18 targets. That final sequence was about giving the team the best possible chance to win the game and Joe is baffled that we did the opposite.

It is part of it for sure. Defenses give our weapons zero respect which opens up a lot of options for how many pass rushers they can send, etc. In the past Allen would burn blitzes by tossing deep throws up to Diggs or Davis, and 1-2 completions a game was enough to back most defenses up. Now they have learned Cook is our only meaningful outlet on those plays and we have nobody that is even a threat to burn them outside, so just make sure someone covers Cook leaking out and you have us dead to rights. So because the blitzes are getting home before anyone uncovers, that also means we have to respect any pressure look the defense is showing and then we're screwed whether they actually rush everybody or not. The snowball effect from that one glaring problem is very real.

After today's horror show I would give them both our 2nds in exchange for them retaining salary. Before anyone says that's an overpayment, here is the full list of 2nd round picks under Beane's tenure: Cody Ford - bust AJ Epenesa - JAG Boogie Basham - bust James Cook - very good player but just a RB O'Cyrus Torrence - worst player on our OL right now, plays a non-impact position Cole Bishop - still TBD but was flat out bad today and plays a non-impact position I would give up any random combination of two of these players in exchange for even just a half season rental of Adams. What are we waiting for? Allen is about to be a lot more expensive within two seasons so the degree of difficulty for Beane is only going up, and the top tier of the NFL may have never been worse than it is now. Stop screwing around with this laughable group of WRs. We have an elite QB in his prime years.

I've said this before - the worst thing this coaching staff and front office have done is tarnished Allen's legacy. Look no further than some of the posts on this board. Allen had a bad 1st half so that means he was the biggest reason the team lost. There are some who still blame him for the divisional round loss because of one play at the very end. The expectations on QB play around here have gotten so wildly out of touch with reality because we've grown used to the Bills losing to decent opponents whenever Allen doesn't play like his most elite self on every single drive. No other QB in the NFL has ever had that burden placed on them. So because what Allen needs to do to drag this regime to a Super Bowl win is not a remotely realistic expectation, he will probably never win one and his legacy will take the hit instead of the deserved parties taking the blame. Or maybe he will go the Stafford route and win one elsewhere in his mid-30s.

When was Tom Brady winning Super Bowls with Mack Hollins caliber WRs as starters

Mostly an OL stat but the WRs failing to separate quickly plays a role in this too. And this: One more: The denialism has to stop. The pass catchers stink. They don't get open, they don't track the ball, and now drops are popping up over the last couple weeks. It is a bottom 3 unit.

Beane is responsible for the offense sucking the past two games. McDermott is responsible for the clown show end up game sequence.

This is... something.

Nah that's an easy catch for an NFL WR. He 100% lost track of the ball. I'd say the sun got in his eyes but they play in a dome so the reality is Hollins just sucks. Which was known coming into the season. In fact the pass thrown to him on the final series should have been a completion too. It reminded me of Trent Sherfield's deep targets in the divisional round. Just zero ability to even make a play on the ball. Hollins is not a WR. He's a blocker that occasionally makes a catch within 10 yards of the LoS. But that pass was 100% thrown with touch. It was basically a punt. Because Hollins was so wide open Allen just asked him to the easy thing and track the ball. Hollins couldn't do the easy thing because he is hopeless downfield.

He played about as well as Stroud did which is to say a couple big mistakes and a bunch of really nice throws. Stroud had better pass catchers and better OC performance so his team won. Allen is the victim of his own success. He did not play at his ceiling today, obviously. To say he was "terrible" though is to diminish the definition of the word. Without Shakir this is easily the worst skill position group Allen has had since 2018 and the entire offense falls on his shoulders. His skill players as a group made ONE great play that went above and beyond (Coleman's TD). Everything else was pedestrian to awful. A "terrible" QB performance would have put maybe 3 points on the board.

Hollins is ridiculously wide open on a busted coverage, walk in TD. Allen just throws it up almost like a punt because it's such an easy completion. Hollins completely fails to track the ball for, again, a walk in TD. Allen escapes the pocket and does a classic roll to the right and throw a bullet to an open pass catcher for a big 3rd down conversion. Unfortunately that pass catcher was Kincaid and he didn't lock in the catch. That is two big game changing plays. And that's just the plays that had a chance to be made. More often than not Allen was clutching the ball waiting for someone to come open and it wasn't happening. All of the wide view replays showed that WRs were not separating. There are times that Allen plays like the best QB in NFL history and in those moments the offense might be unstoppable no matter who else is out there. But that can't be the identity of the team. The offense needs to be able to function when Allen has a less than stellar half. When we get the ball handed to us inside the red zone down by 3, we need to be able to punch in a TD, or at least pick up a single yard. On 1st and 10 at midfield down by 3, we can't give all the momentum back to Houston. Allen having a bad (for him) half of football does not excuse the entire operation, and that operation starts with the nobodies that we're lining up outside.

This is quite the overreaction. No doubt Allen was off his game in the 1st half but he also got zero help from his pass catchers. Zero. And you know QBs aren't going to be at their very best for all 68 quarters in a season. Other players are allowed to make a play. And how about the 2nd half? Allen performed at his usual level and our offense still couldn't take advantage of multiple gifts handed to us by the defense. The main reason we lost is what everybody reasonable knew coming into the season - we don't have a single starting caliber outside WR. Hollins lost the ball on two separate deep shots. Coleman can't separate. Shakir is a slot WR. MVS is a vertical decoy. And so defenses are doing the obvious thing, crowding the middle and daring us to beat them outside, and we just can't do it.

I understand that it is hard to scheme an offense when you have no starting caliber outside WRs but a better performance from Brady today and we would have stolen the win. Our 1st down play calling is way too predictable. The OL looks confused on pressure looks. On a key 3rd down we dialed up a play to MVS against Derek Stingley. On the final series we dialed up a stupid deep shot to Hollins. Too many plays that are dead on arrival and we wasted a great defensive performance as a result. But what are we going to do, fire another OC? McDermott is the one that needs to be held accountable ultimately. This is his hire so it's his offense.

You have to win 3 consecutive games like this to win a Super Bowl. When is the last time we've won even 1 game like this under McDermott? So frustrating that he has not gotten better in these moments.

We run it 3 times for 0 yards and we get the game to OT. Instead we dial up a deep shot to freaking Mack Hollins. Why does this team always make the wrong decisions in critical moments of tight games? McDermott owns these mistakes.

If we had a legit outside WR that's a 30 yard catch. Not to mention the missed TD in Hollins' direction earlier. Beane let down this team.

Hollins is garbage!! That should be a catch!

Take a knee and go to OT

Unfortunately this game is an OC mismatch as much as anything else. Brady sucked. We got gift after gift and he couldn't capitalize.