dave mcbride

Given the Ravens truly ridiculous injury situation, I'll be surprised if they do better than the Steelers.

I read the same thing, and also that Daboll was behind the substitution in the championship game.

I think singletary plays, but factor in that he fumbled twice. Both went out of bounds, but that’s dumb luck. You know that doesn’t sit well with the coaches. RBs have one job besides accumulating yardage: don’t fumble because they are supposed to be the “safe play” players.

The only strength of our team in fourth and short is the qb sneak. The Bills always seem to fail on fourth and short rb runs (a play call i hate), partly because the interior of the line can’t force big bodies backward. But we have a qb who is a fumbler and also basically the entire team. He can’t get injured, and getting pummeled in a dog pile is a good way to get injured. Honestly, if they’re not going to do a qb sneak, I just wish they’d run their regular offense in fourth and short situations and treat it like a regular play. More likely to succeed than a trick play or — even worse — a standard rb plunge that’s most likely to lose them a yard.

Yet Daboll did exactly this last year vs. both NE and Seattle. Both teams were flummoxed, first NE by the run heavy attack and then Seattle the next week by the pass-heavy attack. People have short memories around here. Agreed, Allen missed plays that would have made Daboll look better. I thought Simms’ breakdown was fantastic. That was hardly the only play where Allen seemed confused.

Yup, thought of this last night. Chad Green is on my fantasy team. Oof. 14 homers in 75 innings. That’s not good.

I don’t think anyone here is saying that Daboll had a good game. They’re reacting to Graham’s supremely dumb and clickbait-y suggestion (reliant on a very skewed understanding of the Ravens game) and crazy suggestions like let Allen call all the plays. Allen, who should have had three td passes, Daboll, and the line all underperformed. But the opponent has players too, and they played great except for breakdowns on the back end that Allen was incapable of exploiting. Even on that second bomb into double coverage, he had a wide open deep out throw to the right side. He went for the no chance big play instead of the easy 20+ yards.

See the Steelers D stats last season and DVOA numbers. See how the Bills have fared against them three years running. And factor in that while Daboll has flaws and is far from perfect, the Bills offense had arguably its best season ever last year outside of maybe 1991. I know it's really easy to criticize, and that's OK (it's a message board), but teams face adversity and failure all of the time. It's one game out of 17. They actually didn't play badly vs. the Ravens either; they missed 2 FGs and board favorite Gabe Davis dropped an easy TD pass. Plus they went into ball control mode after going up 17-3 and facing a garbage QB. That game is a bad example. KC destroyed them, sure, but partly because the line was utterly overwhelmed by Chris Jones and Frank Clark in a four-man rush.

Tom Brady has never called his own plays. Just sayin'. Letting a fourth year qb with a rudimentary college and HS background call an NFL offense ain't gonna work. To be fair, picks 3 and 4 this year were OTs. That's good. Hopefully they pan out. Wyatt Teller is the one that got away, of course.

The Steelers line did not play poorly. They didn't resort to holding all day. More importantly, the Bills defense is pretty good, but their front four simply cannot overwhelm an o-line. You're comparing apples and oranges. The Bills have nothing like a Hayward, Ingram, or Watt on their line. I also watch NFL teams with good QBs crumble because of bad line play all of the time. The Pats vs. the Broncos in 2015 AFC championship game and the Chiefs vs. TB in the SB are examples 1 and 2 of a very, very long list. PS -- since you mention Brady, I'll add the 2008 SB, when he was overwhelmed by the Giants' front four. Same goes for the 2012 SB and the loss to the Ravens the next year in the AFC championship game.

The Bills blockers couldn't handle the Steelers' front. If your line can't handle the front, you are going to struggle no matter what scheme you run. Give it more than one game before passing judgment is all I'm saying. The Bills are literally coming off of arguably their best offensive season ever, and they struggled last year vs Pitt for the same reason -- the o-line getting overwhelmed by better talent.

Ingram is so damn good regardless of sack numbers (which are still good). He is really hard to block. However, he was coming off an injury and missed 9 games last season. Teams get wary around experienced players with injury issues. Went to high school in North Carolina though. That's gotta count for something ...

Daboll is a good coordinator. He is creative and has shown the ability to adjust. Don't overreact because of a terrible o-line performance against the #1 D in the league last season that's now improved because of the addition of Melvin Ingram.

Message for Tim Graham: Pittsburgh was #1 in defensive DVOA last season and third the year before. Christ. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/team-defense/2020 https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/team-defense/2019

Deep outs on a rope and the like factor into those stats; it's throws 20 yards and beyond. He's great at those. His issue is bombs -- throws where you throw it deep, vertically, and beyond a receiver with the intention that he'll catch up to it while he runs to the EZ. If you did it just on bombs, my guess is that his numbers would look pretty poor.

The thing is, when you factor out points that derive directly from turnovers, the Bills scored 14, 19, and 13 points vs. the Steelers in 2019, 2020, and 2021. And 7 of those 19 points in 2020 came after the Steelers punter shanked a punt that set the Bills up at the Steelers 40 yard line. Basically, the Steelers' defense is a terrible matchup for the Bills.

I despise Collinsworth, although I agree he is prepared. I hate his voice, mannerisms, delivery, and general folksy/smirking/falsely ingratiating tone. And the constant puffery. Other than that, he’s more or less fine.

Yes, that’s right. It was a pass defended, not a drop. The defender was in perfect position to do an easy tomahawk swipe.

The way I look at it, the Bills lost the ST battle 7-3. Their first 3 points were ONLY because of ST play. In the non-ST portion of the game, they lost 16-13. 13 points at home for the #2 offense of 2020 speaks very poorly of the offense, but maybe it's just the opponent. They clearly struggle against Pitt, putting up only 19 vs. the Steelers last year (factoring in the pick 6 by Taron Johnson) and 14 the year before (In 2019, they had a pick returned to the 18 and had to settle for three after making no progress; they also started their first TD drive at the Pitt 40 yard line after a shanked punt.) So basically, in their last three games vs. the Steelers, they've averaged 15.3 offensive points per game. Maybe their scheme is just a bad matchup for Pitt??? Maybe Pitt's D is far better than average?

Not sure of the reasons for the hostility here. I did break down the film in another thread (posted twice, actually). You’re of course free to disagree with my conclusion.

Well, I respectfully disagree with that, as I’ve explained in two other threads.

Funny - right before that play happened, I was thinking, uh oh, this looks like one of those instances where a QB sneak will actually fail. And there's no bigger fan of the qb sneak than me.

He's right. Miami looked fast yesterday, and Tua definitely looks better -- he looks uninjured and as a consequence less tentative. Waddle is scary.

If you really want to get into the nitty gritty, it wasn't well placed either. Allen put it in a spot -- slightly outside and behind -- where the defender had a very easy opportunity to make a play rather than throwing it to the inside and further ahead where it becomes significantly harder to defend for that player. Of course, he may have been absolutely blown up by the other DB if that happened, but that just tells you that he threw it too late because it was double coverage by that point after being wide open a few yards earlier. But I know you -- you still probably blame Sammy for not making a finger-tip circus catch on Tyrod's high throw vs. NE in 2015 (yes, I remember that argument). You are a receiver blamer!

Badol, during the game thread I was the one defending the officials from the mob here. Wallace should have been called for PI in the first half on that sideline throw to Claypool, and the Bills got away with a number of offensive holding non-calls. The Bills definitely didn't lose because of the refs. Still was a bad call on Tre though. My only explanation is that perhaps he was being handsy all game and this was a makeup flag (and he can be handsy). Hard for me to tell from television viewing, however.