Is Star Lotulelei A Liability on the DL?

[Dopey]

13 hours ago, GG said:

 

I would add that the main reason you saw the results in games 6-7, is that teams saw game tape after Harry was out of the line up and started exploiting Star's ineffectiveness

 

He better let Frazier know, because Peko's play count has been increasing.

Peko has to play more, Harrison is out.

12 hours ago, Dablitzkrieg said:

McClap is not going to publicly roast his players.

Or he could really mean what he's saying.

[colin]

im starting to wonder about edmunds.  he was spectacular vs NE, and since the bye he's just made mistakes.

 

the one play that blew my mind was when there was a qb draw on (i think) like 3rd and 10.  edmunds was in great position, no one on him, and wentz did some kind of fake toss out right and edmunds spun around, and they got the first.  edmunds had a clean shot and coulda just hammered wentz.  that tells me he's not playing with confidence.

 

i do think we need to go and get a wr and a dt.  a guy who can play like star is supposed to play (or how phillips was playing) will give the lb's a little extra juice and will set the tone some.

 

the athletic pointed out, as many of us have noted, under mcd we give up jail break rushing totals and get blown out way more often than we should.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

13 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

***If anyone is reading this and wants to follow along, you can get full TV rebroadcasts @ https://www.nflfullhd.com/ Coach's film you have to pay for

 

Re: the 2nd and 15- that's not Lotulelei being lazy, or being stood up, or not moving his guy. That is the playcall on down/distance in a McDermott defense, pure and simple. Single TE set in motion to Milano's side, since they don't shift on D his responsibility is cover on Goedert and NOT let his eyes get caught in the backfield on RB which is what happens. The RB route if it's playaction is Edmunds' cover, but he already knows it's not playaction (I hope at least) because the center is downfield on him immediately after snap. Milano needs to be square up and leveraged closer to the LOS against the TE ready to stack/shed, instead he's unbalanced because his eyes were in backfield. This play has little to do with Lotulelei at all in that it's not his man. DTs are supposed to maintain gap in this call which they do. 

 

McD defenses in Carolina were predicated on Davis and Kuechly making a ton of tackles and the DTs keeping them clean. Those two were the heart of a bunch of very good defenses and the similarities with what Edmunds/Milano are being asked to do look very familiar. Here on this play if they bring the extra olineman through to the second level on Edmunds he needs to read that earlier and not get caught leaning in toward the wash, because downfield blocker guarantees the plan is halfback run. I am 100% what McD wants here is for Edmunds to recognize the C getting through to second level, shoot his gap past the block playing run and for Milano to not get caught looking at the RB when his key is the TE. If Milano is keyed on Goedert he's able to deal with that block and fill much earlier, and if Edmunds recognizes C and avoids getting caught leaning in they have this play managed. 

 

You may be 100% correct about Star's role in McD defenses and that Star is fulfilling expectations.  In fact what you say makes a lot of sense mapping onto what I've seen and the results we've seen.  It would explain why sometimes we have brilliant D and sometimes we have blowouts.

 

But if McD's defenses are predicated on having Luke Kuechly or his equivalent at LB, then I have this:

 

Maybe he has a bad defensive scheme, the kind that only works if you have brilliance or at least strength at certain positions like LB, and is too inflexible to adapt if you don't.  Maybe he needs a bit more play out of his DL to take a little bit off his expectations for the LB or to give more than 1 chance to make a play.

 

If you're right, seems to me it's going to be a Longfellow situation, "when his D was good it was very very good, and when it was bad it was awful"

[mjt328]

2 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

You may be 100% correct about Star's role in McD defenses. 

 

But if McD's defenses are predicated on having Luke Kuechly or his equivalent at LB, then I have this:

Maybe he has a bad defensive scheme, the kind that only works if you have brilliance or at least strength at certain positions like LB, and is too inflexible to adapt if you don't.

 

It's going to be a Longfellow situation, "when his D was good it was very very good, and when it was bad it was awful"

 

It's hilarious that Buffalo's defense has been considered Top 3 all season long.

But then after one bad performance, Sean McDermott has a "bad" defensive scheme and the entire Front 7 needs to be replaced.

 

The Eagles had the perfect gameplan against us, and then executed it perfectly.

It doesn't mean this defense has been "exposed" as a fraud, or that we really aren't a good unit.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

13 minutes ago, mjt328 said:

It's hilarious that Buffalo's defense has been considered Top 3 all season long.

But then after one bad performance, Sean McDermott has a "bad" defensive scheme and the entire Front 7 needs to be replaced.

 

The Eagles had the perfect gameplan against us, and then executed it perfectly.

It doesn't mean this defense has been "exposed" as a fraud, or that we really aren't a good unit.

 

I'm glad you're finding amusement, but there's a real issue with McDermott's defense and it merits being discussed and dismissing people who try as Chicken Littles won't make it go away.  And it's not "after one bad performance", either.

 

At times, we've had an amazing D, an overperforming D relative to our overall talent.   During the same season, we've had some amazing blowouts on D - more blowouts than we had under previous coaches with overall worse defense.  It's a puzzlement, or at least, it's been a puzzlement to me, because often blowouts are correlated to offensive turnovers but the same correlation hasn't always been there.

 

People have criticized our DTs, but what @GoBills808 had to say rings true - McDermott is praising him for having a good game because he is, in fact, doing what McDermott expects of him.  McDermott doesn't throw players under the bus, but he also doesn't praise them unless he means it.  He praised Star, unambiguously and for McD, strongly.

 

Here's the problem, if there is a defensive scheme that can be turned from brilliant to suckage with a few missed plays by 1-2 players, maybe it's not a robust and flexible enough scheme for the NFL, where opposing coaches are able to harvest learnings on tape and craft "perfect" gameplans against us. 

 

When that happens, the coach and scheme need to be flexible enough to adjust - and they need to be able to adjust IN THE GAME.

 

Otherwise what you have is a D scheme that is good enough, say, 80% of the time, and is subject to falling apart when pressed in the right spot by a coach who can find that spot or when the spot turns from strength to weakness due to injury.  It will beat the checker-players coaching in the NFL, but the chess masters will pwn it.

 

Calling it a "bad scheme" is probably hyperbole, but it seems to me it's probably, by design, not good enough to take us consistently to championships.

 

 

[soflabillsfan1]

Star was a HUGE swing and a miss by this front office.  Lazy, terrible stats, terrible on PFF, he's playing like a rotational DT you'd pay 2-3 million a year to.  

[MAJBobby]

Man Skates has a bigger cult following than Tyrod did

[BuffaloBillsGospel]

On 10/28/2019 at 5:12 AM, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Looked to me like a bad game. Casey Hampton had them too. Everyone does. Just checked a couple of years on Hampton and saw a few games when the Steelers got gashed on the ground despite Hampton playing. In the 2007 Jax game, they allowed 227 yards on the ground, for instance.

 

And you can see that Alexander and Frazier are very clear on how very well he did his job last year.

 

I'm not clear on how he's doing over the whole year this year. Has he regressed? It's not clear to me yet how well he's done over the whole year. Joe B. looks at all the tape and says he's not doing as well. And again, is he injured? Regressing? Attempting to do too much? It's not clear yet.

 

As for how it could happen if Star is playing well, well, it could easily happen if the other players in the front seven are getting beat. Or it could happen when Peko is playing and Star is on the bench. You can't blame all defensive problems against the run on Star. Only the ones he's to blame for. Again, I'm not clear, and I've made my unclarity pretty clear. Maybe it's time for you to either believe Joe's opinion or go back and start watching film like a maniac.

 

 

One thing for sure is that as happens after bad losses, the default for fans will be wild overreaction. Same as after good wins most overreact to that as well.

 

I agree, there is no telling if he's regressed or not but for me I never thought he was great at his job to begin with. It would be interesting to see from like PFF or one of those sites how much of an impact Star is really making on our DL. I'm not overreacting to a bad loss, I'm just pointing out obvious concerns and he is one of them.

[GoBills808]

2 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I'm glad you're finding amusement, but there's a real issue with McDermott's defense and it merits being discussed and dismissing people who try as Chicken Littles won't make it go away.  And it's not "after one bad performance", either.

 

At times, we've had an amazing D, an overperforming D relative to our overall talent.   During the same season, we've had some amazing blowouts on D - more blowouts than we had under previous coaches with overall worse defense.  It's a puzzlement, or at least, it's been a puzzlement to me, because often blowouts are correlated to offensive turnovers but the same correlation hasn't always been there.

 

People have criticized our DTs, but what @GoBills808 had to say rings true - McDermott is praising him for having a good game because he is, in fact, doing what McDermott expects of him.  McDermott doesn't throw players under the bus, but he also doesn't praise them unless he means it.  He praised Star, unambiguously and for McD, strongly.

 

Here's the problem, if there is a defensive scheme that can be turned from brilliant to suckage with a few missed plays by 1-2 players, maybe it's not a robust and flexible enough scheme for the NFL, where opposing coaches are able to harvest learnings on tape and craft "perfect" gameplans against us. 

 

When that happens, the coach and scheme need to be flexible enough to adjust - and they need to be able to adjust IN THE GAME.

 

Otherwise what you have is a D scheme that is good enough, say, 80% of the time, and is subject to falling apart when pressed in the right spot by a coach who can find that spot or when the spot turns from strength to weakness due to injury.  It will beat the checker-players coaching in the NFL, but the chess masters will pwn it.

 

Calling it a "bad scheme" is probably hyperbole, but it seems to me it's probably, by design, not good enough to take us consistently to championships.

 

 

I think they can make it work because we have far better safeties than what McD was working with previously, and Milano probably has more range than Davis. The issue right now is that the Edmunds/Milano combo is still young and learning how to play in this defense, and they’re not as intuitive or physical yet.

 

The whole Star thing is completely overblown. He’s been doing this since McD was fielding top defenses in Carolina and people bitched about him then too. Just have a look at how the respective defenses fared when Lotulelei came here. He’s just an easy target because if you don’t know what you’re looking at he appears to not be doing much.

[Green Lightning]

1 hour ago, soflabillsfan1 said:

Star was a HUGE swing and a miss by this front office.  Lazy, terrible stats, terrible on PFF, he's playing like a rotational DT you'd pay 2-3 million a year to.  

I'm done defending Star. Swallow our pride and that whopper salary and move on. The guy is as effective as putting a parking cone out there.

[MAJBobby]

3 minutes ago, Green Lightning said:

I'm done defending Star. Swallow our pride and that whopper salary and move on. The guy is as effective as putting a parking cone out there.

More and more starting to see the real Value of Skates Lotulelei

[mjt328]

7 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

I'm glad you're finding amusement, but there's a real issue with McDermott's defense and it merits being discussed and dismissing people who try as Chicken Littles won't make it go away.  And it's not "after one bad performance", either.

 

Every coach needs PLAYERS to make his scheme work.

Like every other aspect of this roster, the Defense has been a work in progress since 2017.  As new pieces have been added, the performance has gotten better and the bad games have decreased.

 

McDermott's defense has ALWAYS needed linebackers playing at a high-level to make his system work.  It wasn't until the second-half of 2018 that he was getting strong play from Tremaine Edmunds AND Matt Milano.  

 

Over the final 7 games of last year, and the first 6 games of this year - the defense has played very well.

So yes.  This has only been one bad performance.

 

 

Quote

 

At times, we've had an amazing D, an overperforming D relative to our overall talent.   During the same season, we've had some amazing blowouts on D - more blowouts than we had under previous coaches with overall worse defense.  It's a puzzlement, or at least, it's been a puzzlement to me, because often blowouts are correlated to offensive turnovers but the same correlation hasn't always been there.

 

I'm curious what your definition of a "blowout" is.

We lost by 18 points on Sunday, allowing 31 points overall.  

 

And I would consider Josh Allen's fumble (led to 8 points at the end of the half) a significant factor in the final outcome.

 

 

Quote

 

People have criticized our DTs, but what @GoBills808 had to say rings true - McDermott is praising him for having a good game because he is, in fact, doing what McDermott expects of him.  McDermott doesn't throw players under the bus, but he also doesn't praise them unless he means it.  He praised Star, unambiguously and for McD, strongly.

 

Here's the problem, if there is a defensive scheme that can be turned from brilliant to suckage with a few missed plays by 1-2 players, maybe it's not a robust and flexible enough scheme for the NFL, where opposing coaches are able to harvest learnings on tape and craft "perfect" gameplans against us. 

 

Bad games happen.  And most of the time, the can be summed-up in a handful of bad plays.

Would it surprise you to know that Buffalo's Defense had allowed only 31 yards on 11 carries to Running Backs in the first half?  The only big gains were from a WR end-around and a few QB scrambles.  They also had allowed only 3 points, prior to the Allen fumble.

 

The game changed on the Miles Sanders 64-yard run.  

And that play pretty-much boiled down to Jordan Poyer hesitating and taking a poor angle to the hole.

 

 

Quote

 

When that happens, the coach and scheme need to be flexible enough to adjust - and they need to be able to adjust IN THE GAME.

 

Otherwise what you have is a D scheme that is good enough, say, 80% of the time, and is subject to falling apart when pressed in the right spot by a coach who can find that spot or when the spot turns from strength to weakness due to injury.  It will beat the checker-players coaching in the NFL, but the chess masters will pwn it.

 

Calling it a "bad scheme" is probably hyperbole, but it seems to me it's probably, by design, not good enough to take us consistently to championships.

 

 

Fair statement.

But like I said above, the Bills Defense actually performed very well in the first half.  There were really no reasons for adjustments.

Outside of the big run by Sanders, things really didn't fall apart until the 4th Quarter.  At that point, it's hard to make drastic changes.

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by mjt328

[HappyDays]

From Joe Buscaglia's All-22 review, FWIW:

 

1) Most of us were wrong about Lotulelei vs. Eagles

I’ll be the first one to admit it. After watching the Eagles break off some significant gains in the ground game — including the 65-yard Miles Sanders touchdown — my inclination was that one-technique defensive tackle Star Lotulelei was struggling. Lotulelei could have done more on that play individually, but it wasn’t wholly his fault that the Eagles busted loose for the biggest play of the game. Weakside linebacker Matt Milano needed to siphon the runner to the hard-charging Micah Hyde on the outside. Instead, Milano froze and provided a big running lane right up the middle, which effectively canceled out his supporting tackler, Hyde. It’s that type of play that shapes a game, and unfortunately, sometimes, it shapes our thoughts on a game, too. That’s the beautiful part about reviewing the film, to see where you erred on Sunday — and I whiffed on Lotulelei, though I don’t think I’m alone.

Outside of that long touchdown, Lotulelei was an impact run defender while the rest of the defensive line and linebackers around him were lacking. He held his ground, took on double teams and set the table for his teammates at a high level. Lotulelei was the best player they had on Sunday in the front seven, and it wasn’t particularly close. The stats back it up, as well. When Lotulelei wasn’t in the game, the Bills allowed 5.09 yards per carry to Eagles’ running backs. With Lotulelei in the game, if you take out the 65-yard run by the Eagles that wasn’t primarily his fault, the Bills were allowing just 3.15 yards per carry. And, if the Bills’ linebackers do their job differently on the second level, Sanders likely only goes for a six-yard gain, which would bring the average up to 3.29 yards per carry. He even helped create a sack for Shaq Lawson early in the first half, and then later took on the double-team to enable Jordan Phillips to get a sack. I focused all my video efforts on Lotulelei today to drive home the point; he wasn’t the problem on Sunday. He was a strength.

[Logic]

30 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

From Joe Buscaglia's All-22 review, FWIW:

 

 

 

Was just about to post this. Thanks.

The video that accompanies that writeup backs up Buscaglia's claims with visual evidence.

Imagine that: first impressions of a player's effectiveness -- and an already divisive player, to boot -- from fans during the game proving to be inaccurate and overly reactionary. Shocking.

[GoBills808]

3 minutes ago, Logic said:

Was just about to post this. Thanks.

The video that accompanies that writeup backs up Buscaglia's claims with visual evidence.

Imagine that: first impressions of a player's effectiveness -- and an already divisive player, to boot -- from fans during the game proving to be inaccurate and overly reactionary. Shocking.

Not all fans.

[oldmanfan]

McD thinks Star is giving him what he wants. This may be shocking to some here, but McD knows a helluva lot more about NFL defense than anyone posting on a message board like this.

[Happy]

1 minute ago, oldmanfan said:

McD thinks Star is giving him what he wants. This may be shocking to some here, but McD knows a helluva lot more about NFL defense than anyone posting on a message board like this.

 

Very true.  Though McD needs to figure out how to stop his defense from getting gashed against the run, and in turn blown out.  As stated above, when his defensive scheme works, it is very effective; when it doesn't, the defense is horrible.  If he can't field a stable defensive scheme, what good is it?  Maybe he needs bigger DTs who play more of a one tech.  Maybe Star can line up in the one tech position.  Something has to change, otherwise we will see the Redskins and AP put up 200 rushing yards against us.

[oldmanfan]

3 minutes ago, Happy Gilmore said:

 

Very true.  Though McD needs to figure out how to stop his defense from getting gashed against the run, and in turn blown out.  As stated above, when his defensive scheme works, it is very effective; when it doesn't, the defense is horrible.  If he can't field a stable defensive scheme, what good is it?  Maybe he needs bigger DTs who play more of a one tech.  Maybe Star can line up in the one tech position.  Something has to change, otherwise we will see the Redskins and AP put up 200 rushing yards against us.

They are saying it was fundamentals and they know what needs to be fixed.  We’ll see if they get it fixed Sunday.  My bet is they do.  Plus my understanding is Star plays the one tech spot.

[123719bwiqrb]

I just wanted to say

Star Lotulele

sucks in every way

 

Holy crap, where is that Vincent guy? AP on pace for 200 yards.  Redskins are so bad that we’ll probably still win, but not a good sign. Thanksgiving is going to be a shitshow.

Edited November 3, 2019 by ScotSHO

[MAJBobby]

Skates with another Great Game. Cannot wait to see the COS come to defense of him. 
 

 

give Phillips Skates Contract.