Troll Toll

I think you answered your own question, lol.

Sadly, I felt this way already after the Eagles loss. The team just doesn’t have their **** together. They were gifted the easiest schedule one could ask for and they have come out flat every game since the Bye. I’m putting the blame on everyone.

The lack of success on deep passes tells me they don’t practice them enough. Those should be almost automatic when they are open. Watching Rodgers yesterday, he makes it look so easy to just throw a deep ball his guy can make a play on. Seems like Josh is all over the map in his trajectories on those throws. Coaches should be working with him to get the optimal trajectories on each type of deep throw. It’s disconcerting that our guys can’t even get a finger on these throws. They clearly aren’t giving enough attention to this area.

It was true against the Patriots as well.

Fix’d

In this thread I’ve argued it appears to be a lateral and I stand by that. However, I’m not blaming the refs for this loss. I’m most disappointed and frustrated that this team looked like a gritty playoff squad (tough for 60 minutes) through Week 4 and since the Bye they look like they have been mailing it in effort-wise. Poor effort tackling, missed blocks on offense, and receivers that nonchalantly drop pass after pass. I’m not seeing players hold themselves accountable.

We had a better WR, TE, RB and OL situation the season before McDermott took over than what it is now. They rid themselves of Robert Woods, Sammy Watkins, Cordy Glenn, Richie Incognito, Charles Clay and Lesean McCoy (and Eric Wood retired). We didn’t have a great offense even with those guys and the talent level has dropped considerably since then. Signing mediocre guards and tackles, a bunch of slot receivers, an old RB, and spending late picks on TEs are a bunch of band-aid moves. The only big investments have been Allen, Morse, Cody Ford and Zay Jones. On defense they made big investments in Star Lotuleilei, Trent Murphy, Ed Oliver, Tremaine Edmunds, Tre’Davious White, and Micah Hyde. I can’t really see much of a difference between Year 1 and Year 3 on defense.

They’ve invested so little in the offense in 3 years, in fact they have possibly given away more talent on offense than they have gained. The defense has had heavy investment in all 3 drafts and in FA. They should be held to a higher standard than the offense until that levels out.

I understand the play is designed with that intent, but this particular execution of the play was so badly botched that Baker ended up tossing a lateral instead of a slightly forward pass. I’m thinking Hunt came across field further back than he was supposed to and Baker reacted by sending it slightly backwards instead of the design of a slightly forward pass.

Mayfield releases the ball from his hand at the 20.5 yard line and it lands at the 20.25 yard line.

That was not a forward pass. Baker’s arm is going sideways and backwards to boot. The way the Bills run it they toss it forward. Browns executed that wrong, it should have been ruled a fumble.

If we had beaten the Patriots we would be getting more buzz. This happens to other playoff teams every year, even teams that beat other good teams. IMO the 49ers still aren’t getting that much attention.

I mean it was hilarious that for the last 8 weeks they’ve been telling us that the Bills haven’t beat anybody good, but that the Pats (with an arguably easier schedule) had the greatest defense of all time. No player on that Pats defense scares me, in fact most of them look out of shape. Can’t wait to see the Mahomes revenge game.

Hot take coming through!

Things change week to week in the NFL. The Pats lost to the Dolphins last year. Our defense looked like world beaters until 2 weeks ago. Allen is actually looking better from week to week this year. We were very much in the game last week into the 3rd quarter. There is no reason our defense can’t recalibrate. Our team is built to grind out hard nosed victories that playoff games typically turn into. I don’t care what the DVOA says, the Bills are built to make a run this year at a possible Super Bowl.

Eagles game sadly looked like last year’s team. Defense is either stout or gets gashed all game long. There seems to be no in-between, which tells me our in-game adjustments on defense are basically non-existent. I agree with the OP that a lot of Allen’s fumbles are on the O-line. The tackles seem to get pushed into Allen and his arm gets chopped. Good tackles tend to keep their man on a path outside and around the QB, they don’t just get backed into him. Not only do we need a #1 receiver in the worst way, we need depth. What does this team do if John Brown gets injured? As far as the deep ball goes, the teams that complete that play have receivers that are good at tracking the ball deep. Bills have a couple speedy receivers, but they can’t seem to adjust and make plays on deep balls. Watch Desean Jackson hit that extra gear on an “overthrown” ball and haul it in. Allen threw basically a perfect pass to Robert Foster last week and he either lost the ball or couldn’t make a simple catch on a ball that landed at his feet. DE is a major need. We can’t get to the QB unless we blitz a DB.

This is a really good stat and highlights the major reason for our offensive woes. This probably averages out to a penalty or turnover every other drive. The penalties are absolutely horrendous and the Allen fumbles are way too frequent. Josh has been taking a lot of blindside hits.

Allen’s game right now works only if the defense isn’t getting trounced. I think the bigger limiting factor for Allen is that receivers don’t do a good job getting open and they drop way too many passes that hit both hands.

I was pretty disappointed last year when we didn’t go after a receiver in Round 2. With the defense looking good to start the year, I figured we’d do something in the next draft. However, with the Dolphins and Eagles exploiting big weaknesses on our defense... do you think our defensive minded HC will prioritize the offense?

Bills are winning the games this year that it felt like they should have won last year. Playing Wentz intrigues me. So far we haven’t faced many very good quarterbacks. Eagles are a good test despite their record.

Is it just me or is Gilmore becoming incredibly overrated? Dude has only 20 picks in like 8 seasons. Tre has like 10 in 2.5 seasons. Tre has far better coverage technique, ball skills, running ability and tackling. Gilmore just holds guys and hopes the officials don’t call it. When the ball goes right to Gilmore I always think he’ll drop it because he looks so uncoordinated as a pass catcher. Everyone on New England is SOOO great until they get cut.

The guy I wanted was his teammate AJ Brown. We’ll see how it all plays out I guess.

With Flutie, I still view them as a Super Bowl squad. I have no idea whether they would have beaten the Rams though. Regarding the regular season records you have to consider how good the AFC East was at that time. Bills, Pats, Jets, Dolphins and Colts were all good teams, nobody below 8-8. Titans and Jags built their records in a weak division.

IMO he has been very close to nailing deep throws last year and this year, but many times the receiver couldn’t finish. There are some guys who have an extra gear and haul those passes in. We don’t have that guy.

The only thing I’ll say to this thread: While Peyton Manning was throwing ~50 TDs early in his career, Brady was winning Super Bowls on the back of a great defense.