The Big Cat

Are you sure you're thinking of the 2012 defense? Because if that's what you thought the 2015 defense was...well, let's just say I'm surprised you survived the Wannstadt debacle.

Yep. The 135 penalty yards didn't help. But The Bills first 11 drives went: 3 plays, punt 3 plays, punt 5 plays, FG 1 play, INT 3 plays, punt 3 plays, punt 6 plays, punt 3 plays, punt 3 plays, punt 13 plays, missed FG 7 plays, TOD So...yeah...

Here, I'll just tell you. Search query returns 25 results: http://goo.gl/5z8R4O Remove results with games that had ST or defensive touchdowns such that offenses scored less than 24 points and you have 14 occurrences in 2015 (counting both Bills v NYG and Bills v Jax) of offenses scoring 24+ points on 305 yards or less. So it happened in 5.5% of total NFL games in 2015, but 12.5% of Bills games (both resulting in losses). Also, those two losses account for half of the four of 14 games in which teams did this and still lost. Go figure. EDIT: I HAD THIS PART ASS BACKWARDS The other games it happened, teams that did it: Arizona over Chicago on 9/20 Carolina over Tennessee on 11/15 Cincy over SFO on 12/20 Cincy over Baltimore on 1/6 Denver over KC 9/17 KC over Oakland on 12/6 KC over Denver on 11/5 MIN over SD on 9/27 NE in a loss to DEN NYJ over Jax on 11/8 PHI over NE on 12/6 TEN in loss to IND on 10/30 Based on these numbers, yards accumulated are a predictor of points scored. And the yards accumulated by the Giants are a predictor of less than 24 points and the combination of 24 points and 303 yards SHOULD have resulted in a win, which again supports my argument that the defense did not lose that game. SORRY, TEAMS THAT SCORED ONLY 24 POINTS AND ACCUMULATED 300 YARDS OR LESS PREDOMINATELY WON, which I find strange, but hey.

I agree. And two of those problems were: Wiffing on a TFL, resulting in a 51 yard touchdown Throwing a TD from your own 6 yard line, which led to a TD two plays later. How many offenses in 2015 you think scored 24 points by only gaining 303 yards? I doubt many. But I'd be genuinely interested to see.

So we know that safety play went down and so did sack total. We could reasonably view this as a chicken and egg scenario. Go ahead and choose which you think had a greater effect. I really don't care. I'll bet you were screaming at the TV all the times Wade dropped Von Miller into pass coverage too. This particular crusade has reached absurdity, even for you.

I'm people. And the game, even with that play in the stats, was one of the best for the defense and one of the worst for the Giants' offense. The latter part of your statement here is straw man, plain and simple.

26B, you the man

If you've had trouble making sense of anything I've shared to this point, my best advice for you would be to look within. As for your clear and present bias against Rex Ryan, it has quite clearly clouded any/all valuable input you would have otherwise contributed.

OBJ was punching players in the face. It set Brown off. He got a penalty. This was a much debated incident. Then OBJ pulled the same **** again and was disciplined for it. Rex's fault, I guess.

Rex has gained 30 lbs since Rob came to town.

TT has a lot to prove to this Bills fan. But that TEN game was brutal and he single-handedly willed the team to victory. Without him, it was a soul-crushing flashback to Edwards-era football. That was a third down play. A stop and it's a 4th and four, in their own territory with less than 8 minutes to go in a one score game. They would punt. After that play, the defense only surrendered another 32 yards...29 of which were assessed on unsportsnmanlike penalties. I guess what I'm saying is: we can hoot and holler and make a big !@#$ing production out of marginalizing these facts with accusations of kool aid drinking or we can take them for what they are: facts. But so long as the facts are dismissed and mocked as some sort of subjective homerism, then we're locked into a stalemate of realities that can't co-exist: actual reality (the one supported by facts), and the reality that NNNs (predominately) twist to satisfy their own bizarrely self-flaggelating narrative. Yep, exactly. An individual's error is being cherry picked as a critique on the whole unit/scheme.

That game and the one the following week against TEN were borderline unwatchable. Against TEN they had 56 (I think) total yards of offense with about 5 mins to go in the third quarter. It's very important to note that in both games Shady and Sammy were out. But make no mistake, both games were brutal because of the offense.

The Giants started off hot then did virtually nothing for three quarters. That's just how it went. It's just not accurate to say the defense struggled that day. Why even have players? Why not just hardwire coach's brains into a simulation portal? I'm obviously being facetious here. And I think the coaches may be share some of the blame for the players not prepping the way they should have. HOWEVER the additions of Reed and Ryan2 indicate to me that the tone and the expectations for preparation will be set from the top down. If they didn't do it last year, it was their mistake. That they're making efforts to fix it now is worthy of some credit.

They were very good against NYG. Bradham makes that tackle for a loss and Eli throws for 160 yards on the day.

Boy, given the outrage over Whaley's comments this week and given what we know about the nature of Bills fans in general, not hard to imagine a universe in which an admission of culpability would be used against him!

Graham wasn't good enough to be the man absent AW. I thought he was very highly suspect last year.

It is an open forum. You can say whatever you please. And people can challenge you on it. That's part of it being an open forum.

There are precisely zero people in this thread that don't acknowledge the abundance of hot air in that interview. There are also--from what i've seen--precisely zero people in this thread CONFIDENT that said hot air will equate to wins. So, I'm not sure precisely whom you're railing against...oh, there's a **** ton of Kool Aid on the table. But being a Bills fan, at THIS point, is tantamount to being a Jonestown survivor. Nobody's gulping it down like you say. Head into January with double digit wins? That might be a different story. There might not be enough Kool Aid to go around then!

Respectfully disagree. You run the spread to counter defenses built to stop a power attack... Whether or not defensive personnel is actually GOOD at stopping the power attack doesn't take away from the fact that the spread is intended to exploit them and NOT play in to their perceived strengths.

Because I don't believe it's suddenly a scheme that's ineffectual against whatever an offense throws its way. Do you believe that?

I've heard that Rex's scheme is weak against power football and weak against the spread. Can't possibly be both.

Why? You know that puddle is 12 feet deep.

It's human nature. I work for a global consumer company and we just hired a new CEO. Not everyone's on board with her way of doing things, people at the highest echelons of the company. Guess what? They probably won't make it through the year. And she'll probably bring in her Justin Leonhards and her Bart Scott's to replace them. It's not a Rex Ryan way of doing things.

I think Rex's other MMQ points surrounding this issue were well made. Specifically that players in his system have won DPOY's, been to Pro-Bowls, been named All-Pro's, etc. And at every level of the defense. So exactly what is it about Rex's defense that doesn't allow for individuals to excel?

Yep