WideNine

Marino did a good analysis of this and the numbers bear it out. We stink at screens. A couple other interesting things he pulled out during that podcast was how much better Allen was with play action and how drastically play action was reduced under Dorsey. And one brain twister was that Allen when passing from a clean pocket with time was less efficient than when pressured... Don't know where to go with that assuming it's true.

I don't believe that big swings with coaching lead to great results. That is hard to digest when we see teams like Miami flushing their defensive staff and picking up Fangio and seeming to gain ground on our team. With Frazier I just wonder if we have seen his best. There is a lot of churn about draft misses on the defense (particularly DL), but is some of that a DC or system that does not know how to best use the players he has? I have seen posters here trash Elam and Rousseau and that is nonsense. Both are young players with a lot of promise. I have never on this board suggested we move on from Frazier, till last year's 13 second botched defensive stand. This year I felt even more convinced that perhaps the team should be open to exploring other DC candidates. Sometimes a limited shakeup is healthy for an Organization when things get stale.

I have lost faith in Frazier's defense. The only sniff he has had at a championship was riding Dungy's coattails with Indy as an assistant in 2006. Just feels like he fields a decent unit that relies on a system discipline that does not present issues for better teams to successfully plan against and attack. Hence why our defense is a sieve in those bigger games. He gets outcoached. I am not reacting in a knee-jerk way. Just look at the numbers with our defense in big games. If the Bills are truly an Org that holds players and coaches accountable... and objectively review performance, at some point they have to ask the question could that coordinator position be improved? If they are not asking that question, they should be.

Missed the "Thoughts" Virgil... looked for them and appreciate them. But completely relate to the malaise. Could not put my finger on my own either, but just felt my football currency was spent with all the highs and lows this year.

Is this a coaching career that advanced? Seems like someone getting less and less defensive responsibilities. I wish him success... we need the help with a loss of veteran leadership backstopping our secondary.

And that's a wrap. Thanks Shaw.

I found that presser to be a bit confusing. I agree that knee-jerk reactions rarely produce good outcomes, but our team keeps stalling in the playoffs. It is either coaching or players. If it is not the coaching then is Beane saying he has not brought in the right players? I have to allow that it is likely performance gaps with both players and coaches. Perhaps it is just too early to unpack, but the time to evaluate coaches and consider upgrades would be now when there is a lot of FO turnover and guys are looking for their next gig. I never thought hope was a good strategy, but feels like we are heading for a rinse and repeat where OBD hopes something falls better our way.

A lot to unpack here. Yes. I feel that Frazier has topped out and he has not shown the ability to get his defenses ready for the big playoff games. Should have been shown the exit after the 13 second debacle. Allen doesn't take the underneath stuff - that is really a thing with him getting tunnel vision for the kill shot or running the ball rather than dumping it off to open shorter options. That being said, having an OL that can hold up long enough for Allen to take the plays that are underneath on schedule has to be factored in as well. If there is a jail break nearly every time he hikes the ball, of course Allen is going to pull the ball down, scramble and slide around, and is not going to process the plays that are on schedule around the sticks. It got to the point where Allen's mistrust of his protection actually had him leaving the pocket when it was holding up, so as much as he says he trusts the guys in front of him... They need to find the right guys up front that can earn Allen's trust again so he can tap into that short game better and get rid of the ball faster. So, it is a little bit of both... protect Allen better and he will show more tendencies to hit the routes on schedule and the Bills would see more RAC. Having other WRs be as dependable as Diggs would help. Having an OC that schemes in more passing plays to weapons like Hines and Cook would also help with RAC as they are weapons custom built to make someone miss in the flat and gain a lot of yards after. Dorsey also has a lot of growth opportunities as an OC too as he was taken to the woodshed by the Bengal's DC.

Their backup LT could start for a lot of teams. The other depth guys are not that bad. I thought their OL woes were overblown a bit.

Yeah. I thought the DPI on Tre' in the red zone against the Bengals was weak as hell compared to all the physical play in the secondary that has gone unchecked on the way to the playoffs. Not that I felt that was going to be a huge difference in that game, but it does give too much subjective power to officials to impact games unless they clean it up. I can't even say I hate the rules as I don't really understand what the rules are supposed to be any more. Shoving more than 5 yards down the field, one hand on the receiver or two, hand wrapped around or is the DB just tracking a receiver who changed direction as he is looking back at the QB, looking back while falling into the receiver or falling into the receiver without looking back, driving through the receiver to make a play on the ball... I prefer letting DBs be physical, but if officials are going to go that route, they should stay consistent and avoid throwing flags on anything borderline.

This defense IMO relies on offenses making mistakes and is designed to keep things in front of defenders by playing off receivers and only giving up short completions. Problems arise when your DL cannot pressure the QB into mistakes, when facing a QB that is elite and can deliver even with pressure, and your secondary defenders miss on tackles or get dragged past the sticks vs larger WRs and TEs. You simply give up chunks of yards and extended drives as they work their way down the field. Even worse if you are giving up a 1st down on the doorstep and the opposing team has 3 opportunities to either hit a variety of talented receiving options or go with the running game that is churning out 5-8 yards a pop. We may be scheme-constrained with coaching, but I think we definitely did not have the pieces needed to help make our existing scheme effective.

Not taken that way... no worries. The rabbit hole I would start us down would be for another board and would end with both of us resigned to some manner of belief system that works for us. I will leave it at respecting yours, as it should be.

Dark with overtures of human hubris. But, I do appreciate our medical professionals and what they do.

Right there with ya. Not really feeling any joy in being right about this team, but I do feel that folks are more receptive to the comment you made above. I felt like McD was trying to preach this message in his post game locker room speech after Miami. That they could not keep playing sloppy football and expect to win. Then Allen stepped in and said something like any way you can win... An ugly win means there are things that need to be cleaned up. Enjoy your "W", but know and embrace that there is work to be done and that the same effort and execution may not cut it against a different opponent. Not saying he lost the team, just that I think there was a disconnect in regards to the urgency needed to clean things up; A complacency that things would somehow always work out, they would get a stop, or a bounce, or Allen would magic a come back.... I am not in that "fire them all" place, I remember too well how Wade was ran out of town and how long the Bills sucked after that knee-jerk decision by Ralph. I do recognized this year that we took a step back on offensive consistency, with turnovers and stalled drives, and on defense. Injuries on defense certainly took a toll, so not certain how much that factors into their slide. The secondary was certainly impacted.

In the right systems with the right supporting cast these players may shine more than here, BUT the Bills have some changes they need to make. Those changes will be set back quite a ways if they fall into the trap of overpaying to keep potentially replaceable talent instead of finding similar talent for cheaper or shorter term deals on their roster. Even Edmunds who flies all over the field, gets in the way of passes, and makes tackles all over the second level. The team has to ask, do you break the bank? The questions surrounding Edmunds has been his ability to diagnose plays in the backfield, shed blocks to get in position to make plays, and the low number of impact plays... INTs, forced fumbles, sacks, and TFLs for the amount of snaps he takes. Other than that, he covers a lot of ground, is a great tackling safety net for the team, and deterrent to QBs trying to pass where they are staring... QBs like Burrows and Mahomes do a better job moving him out of the way with their eyes. In Frazier's current scheme this team admittedly felt it when Edmunds was not on the field. They are both above average players, but is that enough to justify being locked into a long-term cap hits? I am sure Beane wanted nothing more than to have rings on the fingers of every player before having to make the tough decisions. Don't envy his position this offseason.

The Bills scheme has to have impact 1-tech defensive tackles to work. They absorb the double-teams, hold or push the line, and free up the Oliver's to penetrate and be disruptive. One of the biggest issues we had getting push from our DL in the past is that we were stuck over-paying for a declining Star who was a no show one season. DaQuan Jones fit that bill perfectly this year, and was the 1-tech we needed to get this line to work. He was out on Sunday and you could see how quickly we went straight to suck with Milano and Edmunds getting swallowed up by blockers downfield. We have a bevy of DTs that I think fit the 3-tech mold, but 1-tech after Jones...maybe only Phillips if he was playing with more than one arm and with two functional hammys. For this defense they need to have two solid starting 1-tech DTs. I like Jones... he's a keeper, so there's one, another starting quality 1-tech , for rotation, and a practice squad 1-tech they could sub in if someone gets dinged. At DE we had Von, Groot, and Epenesa who has not done enough to justify where he was picked.

Also a zone defense needs players that can quickly adjust and close. Harder to do on a slick field. Both teams played a lot of zone yesterday, but Burrows often had time and did a better job of freezing or moving defenders with his eyes and hitting the shallow to intermediate throws to keep the chains moving. Allen struggles processing those and to be fair... often too many jailbreaks to accommodate those throws on schedule.

Although I have maintained that my Bills had issues this year I don't consider myself a "hater". Just someone that watches my team closely, tries to follow the folks that break down the X's and O's and game film better than I could, and it was clear that there were issues I thought we would struggle to overcome against better opponents. All it would take is the perfect storm of those issues against an opponent that was playing at a higher level more consistently and I knew we would Iikely lose. We have been pulling out wins on the raggedy edge. We saw that come to an end on Sunday. Hate is what you have been seeing from many of the fans who were on the bandwagon pointing the finger at those with any critique this year, who have recently fallen off said bandwagon.

I think you first statement is the best one. Probably a bad day to be doing this. Emotions are raw, disappointments running deep and folks tend to want to lash out in every direction. Probably the same at OBD. We know that even Diggs wanted to lash out. It is human nature, but not usually constructive to building or maintaining a competitive team. There are changes that need to be made for this team that has arguably slipped down a rung on the AFC ladder. It will be interesting to see what those changes are going to look like, but a lot of investment went into this season and fell short.

Once the anger and disappointment wears off folks will see this team through a better lens. I appreciate how hard this team fought this season through adversity, injury, and a nightmare schedule. There is a lot of valid critique, but I think there is some truth in the idea that this team just lost steam and was emotionally flat. It was a long season and a tough emotional ride. Not going there as an easy excuse though. At the top of our game, I don't think we stack up with the Bengals this season. They were and are a better team so give credit where credit is due. They have done a good job with that org finding impact players and putting them in position to be successful.

No overreaction here. An overreaction would have been if I blindly ignored the issues this team had all season. I did not feel this team was playoff caliber. It had a great W/L record, but I have felt better about teams we have fielded with worse records that happened to peak and play good football at the right time. There are changes needed, but I expect the Bills FO will take a sober look at both staff and players where improvements need to be made. This is not a knee-jerk org and that is the right approach. Business can be brutal, but folks get paid to make honest evaluations and tough decisions too. Players are pretty banged up this year, I just want these human beings to heal up first and foremost. There will be plenty of time for self reflection.

Even felt like some of the players were using that mantra to avoid facing some hard questions about issues in their game that needed to be taken seriously. Who knows, but I do know that the odds are against teams being able to wing their way into a championship. They usually crash into a team that is just playing more consistently in all phases and lose.

Yup, those "scrub" OL players starting for the Bengals were driving our DL players 4 yards off the ball on many of those carries. It does make life a whole lot easier on your QB when you can keep down and distance short and have Chase and Higgins that defenders give huge cushions. Made it look real easy just driving down the field on us.

His piss poor line held up far better than our starters. Just saying. And i like their backup LT - could start for a lot of teams and would certainly push Dawkins the way he has been playing.

There is some truth to this. There are some tendencies I think Allen needs to correct in his approach to going through progressions. Having an OL collapse around him every snap does not help Allen or any QB overcome tendencies. Just the opposite usually.