THE ROCKPILE REVIEW - Midseason Meltdown

[BringBackFlutie]

I definitely thought this last night.  We're starting our mid-season string of blowout losses a little early.  I just hope it's not a string this time.  I'd like to beat the Chiefs. 

 

I guess if we're guaranteed to go 14-2 every year, with 2 losses by 20+, it's okay...  Very odd to me, though, that McD seems to have a lag period.  Usually between weeks 5 and 10 in the regular season, and every 3rd quarter.

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

 

 

one smart thing the announcers said ^

 

 

prepare and be ready 

 

get a win and all will be good again 

 

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, Figster said:

Hi Muppy, I hope all is well.

 

Myself Personally,  what has always made the New England Patriots such a hard team to play is the abilty to play smash mouth football with the best of them. Good run game opens up the pass more IMO.

 

The Buffalo Bills do not need to abandon the run because we have a big armed franchise QB in my humble opinion. Running the ball well helps rest the D and gives the Oline a chance to go on the offensive.

 

Godspeed into the future my friend...

Smash mouth is a winning formula. 

[LABILLBACKER]

5 hours ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

Accurate assessment.

 

I also think the extended downtime by the Titans was a huge factor, they have been thinking about coming back for a long time and showing the rest of the league.   I dont want to hear about the lack of practices they had.  First of all we dont know how many "informal practices" they had and how many  zoom meeting they have been doing. These guys are pros, not a high school team that desperately need more practice times.

 

The Titans were better prepared and eager to get out there.  The Bills have been getting jerked around as to if they game would happen and when.  I thought it was very telling McDermott quickly said "no  comment" to how he felt about the way the league handled it. He didnt want to use it as an excuse but I bet he is pissed about it. I would be if I were him.

The league crapped the bed in the way they handled this period of indecision. The Bills has no clue who to prepare for. This gave Vrabel a huge advantage. And because of the carelessness of the Titan organization, the Bills get to play 2 straight games on short weeks. Great punishment for Nashville. 

[freddyjj]

5 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Look at those keys to the loss:

 

Turnovers:  It may be too simplistic to say the Bills lost because of the turnovers, but it’s true.  Three turnovers, three touchdowns, three missed scoring opportunities.  The first put the Bills in an immediate hole.  The second ended a productive drive that could have made the game 21-17 in the middle of the third quarter.  Instead, the Bills quickly were down 28-10, and the situation was desperate.  Roberts’ fumble just was the beginning of the Titans’ celebration.

 

The Bills may still have lost, but the game would have been completely different without the turnovers.

@Shaw66 spot on brother.  As a result of our 3 turnovers, their scoring drives were 12, 16 and 18 yds.  And they had a short field after the 40 yd  punt return and only had to go 30 yds for a 4th TD.

[Shaw66]

40 minutes ago, LABILLBACKER said:

The league crapped the bed in the way they handled this period of indecision. The Bills has no clue who to prepare for. This gave Vrabel a huge advantage. And because of the carelessness of the Titan organization, the Bills get to play 2 straight games on short weeks. Great punishment for Nashville. 

Well, I think you're looking at this wrong way.  I mean, what you say is true, but you misperceive what is important to the league.   The primary objective is not to be fair to the teams.  There are two primary objectives:   Keep everyone healthy, and play all the games with as little disruption to the schedule as possible.   There is punishment for teams that have positive tests.   

 

Every season some teams have good schedules, some teams have lousy schedules.  It's inevitable.  This season, it's necessary to adjust the schedule, so who has a good schedule and who has a bad schedule is changing in the middle of the season.   It's unprecedented, but trying to preserve someone's sense of fairness in the schedule is NOT very high on the League's agenda.  

 

Bottom line:  Everyone plays 16 games, and the teams with best records make the playoffs.   Want to go to the playoffs?  Then win the games the League gives you to play.

[RoyBatty is alive]

54 minutes ago, LABILLBACKER said:

The league crapped the bed in the way they handled this period of indecision. The Bills has no clue who to prepare for. This gave Vrabel a huge advantage. And because of the carelessness of the Titan organization, the Bills get to play 2 straight games on short weeks. Great punishment for Nashville. 

 

And Vradel, who was mentored by whom, knew exactly how far he could push it "within the rules".

[Jrb1979]

As I posted in another thread many are overlooking the fact they played a lot of bad teams with bad QBs last season. They have been playing better QBs and better offenses so far and it shows. 

 

To add to that you can have Allen throw 40 times. Last night was why you can't, he will make mistakes throwing that many times. The running game needs to get going. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by Jrb1979

[Fan in San Diego]

I still think that first INT derailed them. They never looked right after that.

[RoyBatty is alive]

11 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

Well, I think you're looking at this wrong way.  I mean, what you say is true, but you misperceive what is important to the league.   The primary objective is not to be fair to the teams.  There are two primary objectives:   Keep everyone healthy, and play all the games with as little disruption to the schedule as possible.   There is punishment for teams that have positive tests.   

 

Every season some teams have good schedules, some teams have lousy schedules.  It's inevitable.  This season, it's necessary to adjust the schedule, so who has a good schedule and who has a bad schedule is changing in the middle of the season.   It's unprecedented, but trying to preserve someone's sense of fairness in the schedule is NOT very high on the League's agenda.  

 

Bottom line:  Everyone plays 16 games, and the teams with best records make the playoffs.   Want to go to the playoffs?  Then win the games the League gives you to play.

 

No the primary objective is to advance the NFL popularity and maximize $.

 

As for schedules, they are codified, set up   with very a fair & understandable system, granted Covid is a major problem but they are pushing this season forward "fairness" be damned.

[HomeTeam]

3 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Smash mouth is a winning formula. 

This. 

 

We need to win the line of scrimmage battle. Our lines get pushed back way too often. You can't win playoff games without being able to run the ball, set the edge, and rush the passer. 

[Shaw66]

3 hours ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

 

No the primary objective is to advance the NFL popularity and maximize $.

 

As for schedules, they are codified, set up   with very a fair & understandable system, granted Covid is a major problem but they are pushing this season forward "fairness" be damned.

Yes, $$$.  That's why a primary objective is to play all the games. They lose a lot of money if they lose a game. And they lose money if they don't reschedule to the best times. 

[SoCal Deek]

In a nutshell, the Bills were totally unprepared to play a football game. They were flat in every aspect. There could be many reasons why, but I'm guessing a big part of was all of the speculation as to whether they'd even play the game at all.  Remember, the Titans had a much better idea about their own health. The Bills were left hanging and guessing.  So when the gun went off they were caught flat footed and never recovered. 

[Jrb1979]

24 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

In a nutshell, the Bills were totally unprepared to play a football game. They were flat in every aspect. There could be many reasons why, but I'm guessing a big part of was all of the speculation as to whether they'd even play the game at all.  Remember, the Titans had a much better idea about their own health. The Bills were left hanging and guessing.  So when the gun went off they were caught flat footed and never recovered. 

I buy that as much as I buy the whole "Its hard to win in this league" crap. 

[LABILLBACKER]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Yes, $$$.  That's why a primary objective is to play all the games. They lose a lot of money if they lose a game. And they lose money if they don't reschedule to the best times. 

So what have we learned today boys and girls. There's actually 3 primary objectives.  Money, Money and Money. Watch the Bills start getting infected?  How will I perceive that Shaw? The bottom line is the shield had no intention of ever punishing (forfeit) the Titans. It would be a stain on the NFL more than any team.

[transplantbillsfan]

Part of me saw this coming.

 

Too many factors at play against Buffalo, starting with not knowing their opponent until the weekend. I really think that impacted preparation... probably especially on the coaching side as I'm sure the coaches were preparing for 2 teams.

 

For the players I think fear of Covid was probably a factor, too. The Titans had no reason but to play all out. They already had the disease spread through their team. I'm sure in the back of Buffalo players minds was the question of whether the guy lined up across from me is going to get me sick.

 

I really wanted this game postponed until a week 18. Sounds like McDermott did, too... oh well.

[Nihilarian]

My take is the coaches and players were all looking past the covid-19 riddled Titans to the Chiefs. They weren't certain that they would even need to play the Titans until the day of...

 

The Bills had all just watched the Raiders beat the world champion Chiefs and were all thinking about what they needed to do against that team to get that win. what I've noticed over the years is when a team gets caught looking past an opponent they usually end up getting beaten by both teams. 

 

The good news is Buffalo is not as bad as they looked...and yet the entire NFL world watched that one singular game and saw how Tennessee beat up Buffalo pretty badly.

 

Josh Allen had the time to throw because the Titans were dropping more into coverage which is kinda the same way the Raiders beat the Chiefs in my view. The Titans most times allowing short passes and trying to take away the deep passes. When Tenn brought more than four rushers Buffalo usually picked it up. 

 

Anyway, the Bills were exposed on both offense and defense. The Titans worked on taking two players on offense out of the game in Diggs and Singletary. Motor, 11 rushes for 25 yards a very poor 2.3 YPC AVG, Diggs caught 10 of 16 targets for 106 yards. 

 

Yet, Cole Beasley caught 6 of 6 passes in the second half and 5 of those 6 were in that first drive in the 3rd quarter that ended in an INT. That INT BTW was Allen's first real INT as the others were a tipped ball and a very questionable call. I think Allen was getting restless to throw deep and got careless on that short pass to Davis.  

 

Beasley vastly under used in this game in this game IMO as was TJ Yeldon who had 7 carries for 52 yards, 34 the longest with a 7.4 YPC avg. 

 

Buffalo 22 rushes vs 41 pass attempts. To me its like the Bills came in with a game plan and were defiant to run that plan no matter what. In my view Buffalo has the horses to build a power run attack and yet don't even try most of the time. The Titans are more of a complete team because they now have a decent QB and a stout run game.

The Bills need work that run game better than 25th in rush attempts,  28th in rushing yards. JMO. 

[Nihilarian]

16 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Game planning:  Brian Daboll, what happened to your passing game?   The Bills were unprepared to be shut down like that.  They didn’t have answers to get the ball deep, and they didn’t have answers on the line of scrimmage to get the running game going.  The game was close until late in the third quarter, but already by then the Bills were passing on two plays for every one run.  There had to be opportunities to run, but Daboll couldn’t find them or hadn’t prepared his team for them. 

Amen! 

 

Did anyone else notice that last season after that Thanksgiving Cowboys game in which the Bills offense looked brilliant that Brian Daboll was getting a lot of interest as a HC by some teams?

 

Then the Ravens game happened and Daboll had no answer for their constant blitzes, normal 55% of the time and they stepped it up to 65% once they saw Allen couldn't hit the deep pass. Six sacks on Allen and he had very little time to throw and yet 39 passes attempted. After this game only Cleveland gave him an interview. 

 

After those Raiders / Rams games this season Daboll was suddenly getting looks in the media about a HCing job, Texans, Falcons. The Jets and Jags will also be looking IMO. Lions, Vikings? This Titans game showed that there are still a bunch of flaws in Brian Dabolls game planning and the teams execution, penalties. On another note, the Bills offense was top 5 until this game, now 11th in points, 5th in yards. Still, big improvement!

 

The Titans showed you can win with a good passing game AND a top run game as a more balanced team. 

[Billsfan1972]

The offense got the ball 2X's the second half.....  Allen threw a bad int, when it was a play he could have run the ball, but seemed to want to force it in & a TD.

 

The Bills stopped the Titans after the Int and should have been a fg, but a stupid Roughing the Passer Penalty.  So instead of 24-10 (and Bills made it 24-17), it is 28-10 (16) and complexion of the game completely changed.  

 

Add to that the when Tennessee went 90 yards to score at the end of the half.  

 

Simply the Bills defense was lousy (yes short fields, but 1-2 stops and maybe a different result).  

 

The Bills are a good team, maybe very good, but a dose of humility maybe exactly what the doctor ordered.

[Shaw66]

9 hours ago, LABILLBACKER said:

So what have we learned today boys and girls. There's actually 3 primary objectives.  Money, Money and Money. Watch the Bills start getting infected?  How will I perceive that Shaw? The bottom line is the shield had no intention of ever punishing (forfeit) the Titans. It would be a stain on the NFL more than any team.

I agree absolutely, and I don't blame them at all.  When your job is to grow and protect the enormous revenue stream they manage, their decisions are going to be driven by the money, period.  The stain, as you say, must be avoided at all costs.   So, for example, the NFL completely dissed Kaepernick until this year, when his message threatened to impact the revenue stream.  All about the money.  

 

Do they try to make the schedule fair?  Sure, for plenty of obvious reasons.   But you know they're telling the owners that the schedule can't be perfect, and they're telling the owners this year not to complain about anything, because the league is fighting to preserve, - ready? - the money for this year and beyond.