The Big Cat

It WAS NOT the same personnel. That's categorically and unquestionably false. And if your premise revolves around it being true, I would encourage you to reconsider. If the defense is ranked 25th next year and we make the playoffs, I won't care and neither will you. At least I'm a wall grounded in reality.

I've considered it. I don't believe it to be true. And I've been quite thorough with why. How often have you considered alternative explanations? Also, there is no narrative, in spite of you trying to use it as a nasty word.

Engage with fantasy? It didn't happen.

Brown was drafted into a different scheme. I'll happily concede that point. Doesn't mean Rex failed him, but does imply that he's no good under Rex, which aligns with the same 'talent' argument I've been making for the last decade on this board. At the combine yesterday, Rex came right out and flatly said that Brown has to do a better job of making the calls. Bradham played fine and he played fine last year. At no point has he 'excelled.' Both of them benefited greatly from playing alongside Spikes. You will not convince me otherwise. But again, they're both marginally talented and they comprise what is arguably the most important unit of any NFL defense.

Neither Bradham nor Brown are excellent. And if your argument hinges on whether or not they 'excelled' in 2014, then it's baseless.

I understand that Spikes had a limited snap count. But Bradham and Brown were lost without him and they seemed much more sure-footed with him in there. Perhaps that's a scheme issue? I'm sure it had something to do with it, but Brown and Bradham simply aren't that good. They just aren't. Spikes was better at his job than they are at theirs, snap count be damned.

I agree, talent does win. So..? Particularly talent at QB. As for Jauron overachieving, if this isn't clear to Bills fans by now, there's no hope. As for Rex underachieving, the defense suffered a lot of injuries, and the linebacking corp suffered tremendously without Spikes. LB's can go a LONG LONG way in improving an NFL defense, dare I say they're the most important unit? Ours stunk, bad. So, about that talent? So, between the injuries and the lack of talent at a critical unit, I'm not prepared to say--with certainty--that Rex was to blame for failing. On the flip side, I've provided clear evidence that the offense did the team no favors during critical stretches of winnable games, mostly because of our lack of talent at QB (again). I see the combination of all these talent factors having more of an impact on the disappointment of 2015 than the all-present-in-Bills-nation gripe: COACHING.

Well, we've had particularly lousy players...for a long time. That's been especially true at the one position that masks all the so-called coaching that nobody's privy to. So, yeah.

YEP

i was amazed at how many people were hell bent on convincing other bills fans that he multiple game suspension was a certainty.

I don't share your insistence that Rex's comments to the media left him beholden to do...anything...from a strategic standpoint.

Well, now that you've made it about me, I'll trust you concede whatever point it was you were trying to make.

Yeah, because Brady's 346 yard performance the one time NE tried against BUF in 2014, that was a 'dominant' performance from that defense.

So your counter to injuries is: because nobody was injured during a poor performance week 2, then when everyone DID get injured, those injuries had no bearing on weeks 3-17?

Chandler Jones is the closest thing they have to a prototype like Mario, and he's far more versatile. I'm just not seeing the fit.

Also, it's wonderful that we've now reverted back to pretending the scheme, and scheme alone had the biggest impact on a defense ripped with injuries. Well, your account doesn't jive with many many first hand accounts from media and team mates both past and present.

You keep making this Randy Moss point as if already-first-ballot-WR's catching passes from first-ballot-QB's are in any shape or form analogous to over the hill pass rushing specialists who don't match the defensive fronts NE traditionally employs.

I wouldn't hold your breath. Mostly because it doesn't make sense to build your defensive philosophy around a 31 year old proven non-leader.

no because the original exercise was based around stretches of three and outs. one three and out followed by two scoring drives or a three and out, a nine minute, 17 play drive that doesn't score, followed by a three and out are not the same as three consecutive three and outs.

You oughta follow my link

i know 2014 is all you

I linked to it.

I'd love to see your comparable analysis from 2014. Please, go through each of the losses and see how the defense responded to extended runs of three and outs. They responded poorly this year. I'd be curious to see how they responded to similar pressure the year prior. My analysis from 2015 very clearly shows that games were lost during long stretches of offensive inactivity. That is due partly to the defense having lapses during those times, and we can chicken and egg that correlation all you want, but losses came because the offense never had swing backs to come back and win the games in which it created a deficit. The only exception was against the worst team in the league.

There's that vacuum again.

So we stop repeating this notion that the defense failed in the vacuum because we've convinced ourselves the offense was good enough to win.