Bottom line is the Defense has to prevent an 80 yard TD drive and we win

[TJC25]

1 minute ago, Mark Vader said:

You don't think he's played better at all?

He has cut down on picks. still very erratic and his deep ball has gotten extremely bad and his fumbling has gone up 

[BillsVet]

30 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

See, this is where I am, and maybe you can show me where I’m off track.

 

The way I see it, in the 4th Q, it really doesn’t matter what the absolute score is.  The absolute score could be 34-30 or 16-12.   It’s the difference that matters.

The point is: there is a lead, and with the game coming to an end, if we keep the lead, we win.  If we lose the lead, we lose, unless we score again.

 

Now, could the offense have put the issue beyond doubt by scoring more earlier?  Obviously if the score is 22-12 or 40-30 no single score matters.  So yes, the offense could and should score more.  But that ship has sailed.  It’s drawing to the end of the 4Q and it’s a 1 score game.

 

Elite D’s get the stop in those circs.

 

Non elite D’s, however tough they played earlier, do not.

 

Good O’s score more points, sure, no argument.  But if the D allows more scores, it’s still the same point difference in the end and the D didn’t get the stop.

 

I see the merits in these arguments.  In effect, get the stop on a crucial 4th quarter drive, as Minnesota did against Dallas, and the game is won.  

 

It's still a four quarter game and what you do before that final drive matters.  The Bills have such a small margin of error that it means one side of the ball needs to come up big late.  Against the Jets, and Titans it was the offense making plays to win.  Against the Bengals and perhaps Washington it was the defense.  This time, neither side made the big play to win the game.    

 

I'd say in the NFL of 2019 that limiting a talented offense to 19 points is good.  Not great, but good.  The same cannot be said about the offense.  Scoring 14 points is mediocre to poor.  McD himself has talked about needing to score 21 points per and I'm sure analytics combined with his defense first mentality means he's going to win those types of games.     

 

That said, I don't see there being elite defenses anymore.  Not ones that week in and week out are going to suffocate opponents like some in the past before the league opened up the passing game. 

 

[TJC25]

4 minutes ago, BillsVet said:

 

I see the merits in these arguments.  In effect, get the stop on a crucial 4th quarter drive, as Minnesota did against Dallas, and the game is won.  

 

It's still a four quarter game and what you do before that final drive matters.  The Bills have such a small margin of error that it means one side of the ball needs to come up big late.  Against the Jets, and Titans it was the offense making plays to win.  Against the Bengals and perhaps Washington it was the defense.  This time, neither side made the big play to win the game.    

 

I'd say in the NFL of 2019 that limiting a talented offense to 19 points is good.  Not great, but good.  The same cannot be said about the offense.  Scoring 14 points is mediocre to poor.  McD himself has talked about needing to score 21 points per and I'm sure analytics combined with his defense first mentality means he's going to win those types of games.     

 

That said, I don't see there being elite defenses anymore.  Not ones that week in and week out are going to suffocate opponents like some in the past before the league opened up the passing game. 

 

What was the score of the titans game btw refresh my memory and how many points did our d let the jets score?

Edited November 11, 2019 by TJC25

[Mark Vader]

5 minutes ago, TJC25 said:

He has cut down on picks. still very erratic and his deep ball has gotten extremely bad and his fumbling has gone up 

Yes, but his completion percentage is a lot better, he has several game winning touchdown drives, and he's been a big contributor to our red zone efficiency which is tops in the league.

 

Can he get better? Yes. We are just going to have to take what we can get now. I think he will get better.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

4 minutes ago, TJC25 said:

What was the score of the titans game btw refresh my memory 

 

https://lmgtfy.com/?q=bills+titans+score&s=g 

[TJC25]

3 minutes ago, Mark Vader said:

Yes, but his completion percentage is a lot better, he has several game winning touchdown drives, and he's been a big contributor to our red zone efficiency which is tops in the league.

 

Can he get better? Yes. We are just going to have to take what we can get now. I think he will get better.

But how many of these game winning drives were because josh was bad for 3 quarters 

[Mark Vader]

3 minutes ago, TJC25 said:

But how many of these game winning drives were because josh was bad for 3 quarters 

In all honesty and if I am being fully objective, that would be once, and that was against the Jets.

 

I think you have set yourself up for such lofty expectations and there is nothing that will satisfy you.

[Protocal69]

2 hours ago, Boatdrinks said:

Except it wasn’t the final drive. The Bills got the ball back with about 1:40 on the clock and a timeout. You should win or tie that game 90% of the time. It’s a ton of time, and they couldn’t do it. Sometimes the team who has the ball last is going to win the game, and this should have been one of those times. NFL rules don’t favor the defense. 

That’s part of the advantage of deferring to receive the ball until the 2nd half

[TJC25]

1 minute ago, Mark Vader said:

In all honesty and if I am being fully objective, that would be once, and that was against the Jets.

 

I think you have set yourself up for such lofty expectations and there is nothing that will satisfy you.

Lofty expectations just decent qb is lofty a qb hitting wide open guys is lofty having a offense average 21 is lofty expectaions man we have fallen far as a fan base if these things are lofty expectations. So Josh played well in cinci and the titans 

[ganesh]

7 hours ago, BrycePaup4ever said:

Is this really the time to blame the defence. They have won a few games for us this year and despite that drive still played an alright game. They get a pass from me this time.

since they did cost the game as the OP wrote, I think it is right to call them out.  They gave up too many plays on that 80 yard drive.

[PaoloBillsFanFromItaly]

I don't blame the defense for the last drive, the most important play was a well defended pass but a better throw and a "fingertip" catch.

Run defense was awful for the entire first half.

[Troll Toll]

6 hours ago, Dopey said:

Invested so little in the offense?! They've invested a top 10 pick at qb, a whole new line, new wrs, new te's, new rbs. Are you joking?

 

16.66 points allowed per game

19.33 points scored per game

We've given up 20 or more points only twice this year. TWICE.

We've held 2 teams to single digits.

Yet our offense, in 9 games has had games of 10, 13, 14, 17 points scored this year. And only 16 today.

 Higher standard? Again, are you joking?

We had a better WR, TE, RB and OL situation the season before McDermott took over than what it is now. They rid themselves of Robert Woods, Sammy Watkins, Cordy Glenn, Richie Incognito, Charles Clay and Lesean McCoy (and Eric Wood retired). We didn’t have a great offense even with those guys and the talent level has dropped considerably since then. Signing mediocre guards and tackles, a bunch of slot receivers, an old RB, and spending late picks on TEs are a bunch of band-aid moves. The only big investments have been Allen, Morse, Cody Ford and Zay Jones. On defense they made big investments in Star Lotuleilei, Trent Murphy, Ed Oliver, Tremaine Edmunds, Tre’Davious White, and Micah Hyde. I can’t really see much of a difference between Year 1 and Year 3 on defense.

[Pbomb]

7 hours ago, TheJauronClap said:

No business why say that? 

Because when most teams no matter who the qb is drop back to pass the ball almost 50 times they seldom win, and like he said against a bad run defense in a one score game we ran 13 times 

[JoshAllin]

everytime they barely use singletary i already know the offense will do poorly, the call of a toss to gore in the rz for zero  yrds when they should of used singletary gets to me

Edited November 11, 2019 by motorj

[Nextmanup]

7 hours ago, Happy Gilmore said:

 

Not sure where you got 25% of the time; I agree with the previous poster.  There was more than enough time and we should have been able to tie at a minimum, but couldn't.  The amount of time we wasted by sitting in the huddle was the epitome of incompetence.  Any offensively competent team would have won given what we had to work with.

McDermott was quite deliberately playing for a FG/TIE/OT on that final drive.

Look at how they used the clock!  They are scared to let Allen open it up and try to move down the field for a TD and win.

 

They have him extremely restrained b/c when he is not, he's a turnover machine.

 

That last drive was really interesting to me.  I am wondering, for the first time ever, if these guys are thinking Josh isn't the guy.

 

 

[All_Pro_Bills]

I blame the defense for giving up the late TD but not necessarily the players on the field.  The Browns have a good set of skill players on offense and a QB that can be very effective and accurate when given adequate time to throw.  Their weakness on the offensive side of the ball is the offensive line and when Mayfield is pressured he can be erratic and make mistakes in judgment and throwing bad passes. 

But rather than bring pressure on the QB on the Browns scoring drive the Bills DC/HC ran a relatively vanilla bend but don't break and hope for the opponent to make a mistake strategy.  And it didn't work as Mayfield mostly worked the ball to Landry exploiting Wallace who was having a bad day at CB.  This to me screams of a lack of situational awareness.  Looking around the league at the top defensive squads I suspect most of them would rolled the dice and have brought the heat on Mayfield.  

Other than that the offense didn't run the ball enough and our PK missed two crucial kicks. In fact he's missed a FG to close the 1st half in each of the teams 3 losses.  

Edited November 11, 2019 by All_Pro_Bills

[Big Gun]

2 hours ago, Nextmanup said:

McDermott was quite deliberately playing for a FG/TIE/OT on that final drive.

Look at how they used the clock!  They are scared to let Allen open it up and try to move down the field for a TD and win.

 

They have him extremely restrained b/c when he is not, he's a turnover machine.

 

That last drive was really interesting to me.  I am wondering, for the first time ever, if these guys are thinking Josh isn't the guy.

 

 

IMO this is not true, 41 passes says as much.

 

Bad play calls and bad clock management are a huge issue. 

 

Daboll and McD ineptness is really hampering Allens developement.

[DuckyBoys]

3 minutes ago, pop gun said:

IMO this is not true, 41 passes says as much.

 

Bad play calls and bad clock management are a huge issue. 

 

Daboll and McD ineptness is really hampering Allens developement.

They really need to decide how they are going to handle Allen  Either open it up and live  with the good and bad or stick with a game plan that gives him support (run the football more created completion near the los)  They cant seem to make up their mind.  Browns are not good against the run why were we in shotgun with no rb on most downs?  Daboll sucks, Allen may be struggling but his OC is not doing him any favors.

 

[goldenboy81]

I'm trying to be positive but it sure looks like this team is really soft especially on defense

[Big Turk]

If you hold a team to 19 points you should win the game, period. This offense scoring under 20 points a game BS has to stop.

 

The offense driving into opponent territory and coming away with no points way too often( I'll bet they are top 5 in the league at percentage of drives that get into opponent territory but score no points)

 

The offense not being able to hit wide open deep balls to save their life.

 

A kicker who misses from 34 yards out and then is SHORT on a 53 yarder at the end of the game which obviously influenced McDermotts decision earlier to eschew a 53 yarder earlier and go for it on 4th and 4 since he realizes he can't reach from that distance now...effectively costing us 9 points

 

To blame it on the D is a little ridiculous. 

Edited November 11, 2019 by matter2003