colin

I'm super mad at McD for what I consider to be clear and obvious errors last night: 1. Time out after the sneak. Just spike the ball if you have to, and have it ready to go before the first sneak was called. if we had 3 time outs we can kick it deep and stop then on an obvious run 3 times and have the ball back w about 40ish seconds, maybe near mid field. At that time of the game that was about a 40%+ chance of winning given that allen was unstoppable. 9 men on the punt and the punt block deserve mention as some shocking fundamental issues on special teams. The poor kick coverage and kick return stats were also problems. 2. The D gameplan/coverage. We did go to some man and got flagged for horrible holding and pass intro, so he did kinda do something there. What really happened is he went from making it super easy to run to easy for them to pass. The whole scheme on D was weak and set us up to fail vs Stafford who is statistically the best qb in the nfl vs zone. The blitzing seemed like a tacked on after thoughts -- always obvious, always back 7 guys coming up the middle. No disguise which he has a rep for. 3. Playing Milano. He might be able to come back, but it's clear he is not ready yet. Williams is at least fast and physical. He likely would have made a couple of plays vs the run or just ran someone down in the pass game and made a tackle short of the sticks. He woulda made mistakes mentally, but we forced this team to punt one single time as it was. Now, it has been historically true that mcd has been able to make chicken salad out of chicken poop on D a few times. Poy and hyde came in as no ones and balled out. that tyrod lead team that went to the playoffs had a lot of luck w turnovers and such, but he really did get a squad of zeroes to play beyond their means. He's made Hamlin almost look like a starting NFL safety, and has gotten really good games out of Rapp, and made 6th round pick benford and old vet douglas too. this is largely because of preparation and scheme. He's certainly had success w the players we have had on D. Now, we have a ton of dead cap, and have just giant contracts on players (von, knox, milano, dquan, to a certain extent chris samuel and ed oliver) who simply do not make meaningful contributions to the team. The upside, and it sucks because we are wasting yet another all world season by the qb, is that once we can clear these contracts we have room to upgrade lots of positions. The downside, aside from the putrid performances we've had in the playoffs on D and this year vs baltimore and the rams, is that mcclapper has too much influence on who gets drafted and signed and we over draft or over pay Scheme fit guys instead of talent because of McDs stubborn nature. his D needs a top flight run and pass beating off ball MLB and some really talented D linemen who can disrupt vs the run and pass. talent at corner is important too. The entire NFL, particularly our own O, has adjusted from seeking constant deep passing to constructing teams that beat deep shell zone coverage because that's the recipe that has caused the 2017-2022 mega offenses to falter. McD between the low quality roster and his scheme, not to mention having a rookie DC with a small veteran D, has not shown enough ability to come of of type and adjust to that. Real talent would hep us there, but given McD is a pure D coach who stays up at night scared of deep passes, I wonder if he can make the adjustments even with the necessary added talent. Another playoff exit with a lay down like we had last night on D and I will put the long term D shortcomings on him squarely.

I'm mad at McStupid for being a clown today, and I've been vocal about his stubborn crap (like playing a Milano who is not ready) that loses us games, but I'm in the same place as before :win it And you're close to a forever coach. Another playoff bounce on the back of trash d, and you have to go

He shouldn't be starting right now, another MCD patented roster decision going with his guy rather than who gives the team the best shot to win

We are too or near the top in turnovers and turnover differential. If we don't get turnovers, we basically don't win on D. The degree of difficulty we for e the opponents to operate at is just too low for well coached teams w good QB play.

The chargers have this killer o line and just the most gutless offensive philosophy possible

The problem is how terrible the blitzes are. Obvious, you always know who is coming, no stunts or games, no disguise And they are all up the middle

I hope Milano I comes back to form, but he looks like he won't so far, Oliver is not even jag level, he was off the field for the last drive on d. Knox and Miller are also huge trash contracts. Dequan is beyond washed too. The upside is once we be out of these trash contracts we have money for real guys and still have 17

They are so flipping proud of being diligent on illegal man down field when RPOs take two seconds too long, but just let aggregious holding and pass interference go, and evidently 4th down false starts too

The fact that they called Dawkins on our last drive before the o was set makes it even more horrible. Clear false start, getting back to block giving him an advantage, and cupp commiting offensive pass interference and holding all on the one play for the game sealing TD. I know they let a lot of crap go, and both ways, but every single one of those fouls on that game winning TD decidedly impacted the play. D was horrible, MCD couldn't figure out to play man with a bear type front until too late, a couple play calls on O maybe could a been better but otherwise an all time game Question to the smart: was the play on the punt block illegal? Also, they shifted everyone on that block, they saw something on film to exploit. More coaching blunders. Sucks to lose that game, but it was a barn burner

I really thought we had that stop. Odds just got longer for an epic comeback

This reminds me of the game when I ran meyer had his jags beat us by out coaching MCD. The passes all come out at the same time to one of these soft spots and they run up and empty alley in the gut. The d is designed to dominate teams with bad QBs by taking the least big play risk possible. MCD out his coaching pants mom vs KC and called lot of man and disguises. He's returned to form this week and might as well be showing his calls to Stafford. It's just so obvious

Rapp took out 31

That was magical. We need two more just like it and some turnovers

We haven't gotten a shadow of pressure today. When we play a team who can block our d just hopes they make a mistake

We can't run or stop it, just a sad sad first half

If we give up 30 points in the half vs the rams I think the discussion on our d is done

Dts and linebackers are the start of the problems. They just can't win their match ups. Huge gaping avenue in thengut regularly

This d really sucks

Bad

Some luck, and Josh is magic, but our run d and Dts have been pure cheeks,

Bills 41 Rams 27 (10-14 of it after the game is all but over, our back ups get more burn) Cook breaks a couple, bills add with long drives in the first half and the rams d gasses out.

ive grown to accept our scheme will allow runs in the middle of the pitch. the hill i will die on is that mcd/our dc's have choked in the playoffs. being conservative to a fault and then panicking by being aggressive past the point of reason by making desperate measures (remember the hamlin fake punt? i don't think that even worked in practice). running what we run but making the adjustments and adding the wrinkles that mcd has done in the past at times is what he needs to do in the playoffs. even if we are banged up again on d, making it hard and forcing a couple punts or turnovers is the minimum standard that i'll accept on the d no matter who it is facing. if smoot, carter, and milano are 100% G2G and we aren't a mash unit anywhere else that will be my expectation.

It's just this simple. He's a defensive guy, that's his claim to fame, and 100% of the reason why he was ever in the running as a HC. He never won as a DC. philly got rolled by the pats in the super bowl (was he even the dc then, or just on the staff?) and Carolina lost to denver, but TBH his d was pretty awesome and cam newton imploded. either way, the offense, outside of the 2020 game when our offensive line roster was: 71 Ryan Bates T 65 Ike Boettger G 73 Dion Dawkins T 68 Jordan Devey G 76 Jon Feliciano G 60 Mitch Morse C 77 Ty Nsekhe T 75 Daryl Williams T 66 Brian Winters G our D has been consistently bad vs the run, our O has balled out (cinci perhaps being the exception). the biggest thing, as mikie made clear so many times, is that we went from a statistically very good or great d to just getting trucked, our d having been essentially solved and not even threatening teams to punt. 13 seconds in particular was clearly a coaching loss. last year hosting kc the punted one single time when dorian saw the pitch instead of a man that no other nfl team even bothered to employ all season. the evidence shows that our d underperforms in the playoffs, and while the os are better and the injuries count, the differences in measurable performance are too great for it to be just that (particularly when we bet kc 3 years in a row in kc in the regs). mcd has been chocking in the playoffs as a coach. all of that can totally change if he just does his best work this season and wins a championship. our d is not as great in the regular season as it has been, but ok linebacker play, really good corner play, and solid DL play (pass much more so than run) is enough for them to maybe force kc to punt about as many times as they did when they visited us a couple weeks back. on O, we have what is a legit top 10 or even top 5 OL, two TEs who can start, some actual NFL WRs, a three headed monster at rb, and the greatest qb to ever lace em up for the buffalo bills organization. someone made a point somewhere about tom coughlin. coughlin had wonder teams with the jags, went 14-2 and lost to the titans in the playoffs at home after a bye week (the only team they lost to that season, imagine that!), and then was up and down at the giants. he flipped a switch and basically played god father coach to team with literal maniacs at OC and DC, playing aggressive green light football and never being intimidated. the bills have a team that can do their own version of that this season, and if mcd jumps over that hurdle he will legit be in the conversation for being an all time great coach. if he returns to poor postseason form, then he's just the modern shottenheimer, who never had a qb who could sniff allen's jock.

the rams play fast and aggressive on both sides of the ball. i could see them jumping gaps hard with a lot of bodies near the line, and cook breaking one or two for massive gains. i don't know what the stats are, but it seems like when we have an ideal CJ spiller type of game from cook, like 15 touches 120ish yards and a score, we just either have penalties and and drops and stuff or we walk into the end zone on each drive. the 49er game felt like that. the moment cook broke the big one, you could see the air go out of the sf d, because they knew their scheme was just not going to work vs a hot bills O. allen had like 22 total plays or something, and still produced. it has got to be demoralizing to spend all week keyed on not letting allen role right, simulating pressure, putting in a spy one some plays, disrupting routes to impact timing, and planning to run down allen all the time just to see some heavy jumbo formation lead to a casual home run off of an inside zone run. it's like losing the jab game to mike tyson in his prime, and you know power punches are still gonna be coming.

lol, thanks! TBH, when being analytical I think i have a reasonable take on the team, but I black pill like a psycho during games when we make the same errors we've made before. and I think i wrote that post mainly to type "barely licked the stamp on his mailed in performance" about saffold. I have honestly never seen a top NFL field an OG who played with less effort than he did in my life.