Week 16: Bills at Pats on MNF

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

3 hours ago, wjag said:

 Yep. Never ever forgive or forget. Pile it on Buffalo.  

Anthony Thomas. Those were some lean years...

6 hours ago, TBBills Fan said:

 

 

"yeah great point Lou"

 

lmao

gimme a break. He can’t answer that? Every pats “fan” wants to see what stidham can bring. Glad this reporter didn’t back off. 

[Inigo Montoya]

The strength of our offense in the passing game.  The Bills need to come out and start throwing and play to our strength.  If the Pat's defense can shut the pass down, then we can adjust to the run.  No reason to go away from what has been working for us. 

 

You can over think things at times.  You don't see Andy Reid game plan to minimize Mahomes.  Why would he ever take the ball out of Mahomes' hands unless he absolutely had to?  I think we are now in the same situation with the Bills.  Why take the ball out of Josh's hands?  He is the engine that drives this offense.  Maybe New England can stop him.  If so they'd be the first to do it in quite a while.

[EmotionallyUnstable]

2 hours ago, BananaB said:

Wasn’t Gilmore hurt the first time we played them this year?

Yes he was inactive. 
 

It was also week 8, half a season ago. The bills were an entirely different offense. They don’t care who they play now, they want to throw the ball. 

[Wacka]

6 hours ago, RiotAct said:

yep, I’m going with passionate and dedicated.

Why not both?

[BillnutinHouston]

6 hours ago, RiotAct said:

yep, I’m going with passionate and dedicated.

 

Dedicated to.......stupidity?   Surely table jumping isn't a measure of dedication to a sports team.

[Patrick Duffy]

2 hours ago, jkeerie said:

Recall that Allen sustained his shoulder injury in the Raiders game.  After that game Josh wasn't himself for 4 weeks.  In those 4 weeks Bills played the Titans, Chiefs, Jets, and Pats.  Our offense sputtered in those games.  The 5th week post injury, Bills put up 44 against the Seahawks and our offense was back.  I suspect the Bills will have more emphasis on the pass this game.

After his shoulder injury he did struggle a bit, I agree. Also just to point out, the Titans and Chiefs games the Bills were preparing 2 different game plans and didn't know which team they were playing for quite a bit and also didn't know which day they were to play said team.

 

I think that had a pretty good impact on the way the Bills struggled those 2 games also. It most certainly made things more difficult. Not saying that's also why Allen's play dropped, but the whole team in general struggled, especially against the Titans.

 

And yes, I think Allen will throw the ball more this time around, a good amount more so I agree.

Edited December 23, 2020 by Patrick_Duffy

[PatsFanNH]

5 hours ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:

Except you lost your best pass defender to a Quad injury...RUN RUN RUN, as you call it, ain’t happening. This team can schhhling it with the best of them. 

Umm no we didn’t Gilmore was our 2nd best CB JC Jackson IMO has outplayed him all year

[AKC]

2 hours ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:

Yes he was inactive. 
 

It was also week 8, half a season ago. The bills were an entirely different offense. They don’t care who they play now, they want to throw the ball. 

Additionally Stefan is better at his craft than a guy whose primary schtick is to get a pre-snap position that allows him to grab his opponents jersey out of view of the zebras, almost always near the elbow, and just mess up the timing/ direction enough on the receiver’s route to get the QB throwing a different direction. Stefan>Stephon. Better name. Better player. Better taste in teammates.

[Bangarang]

2 hours ago, Inigo Montoya said:

The strength of our offense in the passing game.  The Bills need to come out and start throwing and play to our strength.  If the Pat's defense can shut the pass down, then we can adjust to the run.  No reason to go away from what has been working for us. 

 

You can over think things at times.  You don't see Andy Reid game plan to minimize Mahomes.  Why would he ever take the ball out of Mahomes' hands unless he absolutely had to?  I think we are now in the same situation with the Bills.  Why take the ball out of Josh's hands?  He is the engine that drives this offense.  Maybe New England can stop him.  If so they'd be the first to do it in quite a while.

The Pats like to play 6 DBs a lot so they can be run on. We were successful running the ball last time. I say we attack their weakness.

[Inigo Montoya]

1 minute ago, Bangarang said:

The Pats like to play 6 DBs a lot so they can be run on. We were successful running the ball last time. I say we attack their weakness.

 

I'd go four or five wide and let Josh pick them apart until Bill cries uncle.  I trust our wide outs to get a step of separation off the line.  I trust Josh to make the right read and put the ball where it needs to go.  Bill would like nothing better than to take the ball out of Josh's hands. We need to try and stop him from doing it.

 

Just one man's opinion. 

[Figster]

5 minutes ago, Inigo Montoya said:

 

I'd go four or five wide and let Josh pick them apart until Bill cries uncle.  I trust our wide outs to get a step of separation off the line.  I trust Josh to make the right read and put the ball where it needs to go.  Bill would like nothing better than to take the ball out of Josh's hands. We need to try and stop him from doing it.

 

Just one man's opinion. 

I think getting our RB's more and more involved has really helped the Bills gain the upper hand IMO.

[Dr. Who]

25 minutes ago, Figster said:

I think getting our RB's more and more involved has really helped the Bills gain the upper hand IMO.

No doubt, but in general its the success of the pass game that has opened up the run game for us.

[Figster]

19 minutes ago, Dr. Who said:

No doubt, but in general its the success of the pass game that has opened up the run game for us.

Generally speaking, I think it works both ways IMO. A good run game that can come at you at any time that gets mixed in with a high powered passing attack puts the oppossing D on its heels and 2nd guessing IMO. Good ball distribution in both run and pass,  the motor is hitting on all cylinders.

 

So Josh can put the pedal to the metal...

 

(The Titans deep playoff push last post season is a great example of what a good running game can do for you.)

Edited December 23, 2020 by Figster

[Dr. Who]

8 minutes ago, Figster said:

Generally speaking, I think it works both ways IMO. A good run game that can come at you at any time that gets mixed in with a high powered passing attack puts the oppossing D on its heels and 2nd guessing IMO. Good ball distribution in both run and pass,  the motor is hitting on all cylinders.

 

So Josh can put the pedal to the metal...

I agree, old friend. Our oline, however, does not seem constructed to allow a proactive running attack, as it were. They're simply not good enough as run blockers to allow that to be a primary option. OTOH, they are quite good at pass protection. Once the pass game is clicking, the effectiveness of our run game increases. (At least, this is my sense of things.)

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

5 hours ago, jkeerie said:

Recall that Allen sustained his shoulder injury in the Raiders game.  After that game Josh wasn't himself for 4 weeks.  In those 4 weeks Bills played the Titans, Chiefs, Jets, and Pats.  Our offense sputtered in those games.  The 5th week post injury, Bills put up 44 against the Seahawks and our offense was back.  I suspect the Bills will have more emphasis on the pass this game.

 

Allen looked fine in the Titans game. It was our defense and a lot of drops and penalties that killed us. But Allen's play wasn't the problem in that game. He was passing it well. So basically I don't think his injury had the negative effect that some think it did.

 

I blame the two game losing stretch on 

 

1. Our schedule being flipped upside down

2. Our defense not being healthy

 

Pats game was just poor passing weather and a game plan to run the ball. You don't score as many points when you have a bigger commitment to the running game. Chiefs ran it down our throats and only scored 26 points and that included a FG in the final minutes just to get to 26.

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

1 hour ago, Inigo Montoya said:

 

I'd go four or five wide and let Josh pick them apart until Bill cries uncle.  I trust our wide outs to get a step of separation off the line.  I trust Josh to make the right read and put the ball where it needs to go.  Bill would like nothing better than to take the ball out of Josh's hands. We need to try and stop him from doing it.

 

Just one man's opinion. 

 

My opinion, since we are playing with house money, as in, division clinched and we've already beaten them once to get that monkey off our back, I'm all for coming out and throwing 10 straight times. That said, I'm not 100% sure it is the game plan we will see. Our coaching staff has shown that they like to take advantage of a teams weakness if they have a blatantly obvious one. Like not having a single designed rushing attempt in the first half of the Seattle game to exploit their secondary or having a season high rushing attempts in the first Patriots game. As long as we don't run Josh on a bunch of designed runs I'll be happy.

[Chandler#81]

Old timer chiming in here. Back in the 60’s, there were true Boston Patriots fans -and they were worthy! Jim Nance was a menace of a RB. Then they fell off a cliff. But around the time they changed their name to New England Patriots* -with the deserved *, most fans had turned their allegiance to the NY Giants. Schaffer Stadium was barren of fans and their future was in doubt. In fairness, Boston is a huge historical city and they have teams in all 4 major sports. So blowing off one crap franchise is completely understandable. When Kraft stepped in and hired Vader, the franchise was virtually reborn and band wagoners ascended in droves. Most have never heard of Gino “the Duke” Cappelletti, Babe Parillli and Nance. If Darth chooses to ‘hang ‘em up’ soon, History will repeat itself and we’ll begin to chip away at the stunning w/l record. Maybe we should buy Bill a rocking chair for MNF..

🤔

[Nihilarian]

7 hours ago, Inigo Montoya said:

The strength of our offense in the passing game.  The Bills need to come out and start throwing and play to our strength.  If the Pat's defense can shut the pass down, then we can adjust to the run.  No reason to go away from what has been working for us. 

 

You can over think things at times.  You don't see Andy Reid game plan to minimize Mahomes.  Why would he ever take the ball out of Mahomes' hands unless he absolutely had to?  I think we are now in the same situation with the Bills.  Why take the ball out of Josh's hands?  He is the engine that drives this offense.  Maybe New England can stop him.  If so they'd be the first to do it in quite a while.

Not really true as when the Bills played the Chiefs and Buffalo worked on stopping that deep passing game while taking away hill. The Chiefs went right to the run game with Helaire 26 carries 161 yards while dominating the Bills ToP Chiefs 37:45 vs 22:15. 

 

Yes, Mahomes still had 225 yards passing, 2 TDs. That's still about half the yards he normally has so the Chiefs took what the Bills gave them...and pounded the rock. 

 

The Patriots might be 6-8 this year, but the best part of their entire team is their pass defense. 27th points, 24th yards on offense. 7th in points allowed, 11 in yards allowed on defense. 

 

The Patriots are #1 in passing attempts against them, #6 in passing yards allowed, #3 in passing TDs allowed and the #2 team in INTs. 

 

Meanwhile, the Patriots defense is #27th in rushing /attempts and 22nd in yards per attempt. 

 

In my view it would really make sense to work that Buffalo run game for several reasons. First, being that is the NE weakest part of their defense. Second, it would prepare the Bills offense to start gearing up for the upcoming snow, cold, wind in Buffalo for the playoffs. Lastly, that run game needs time to build continuity in becoming a force.

 

I look back at last seasons 10-7 Titans/ 12-5 NE wildcard game in which Tennessee destroyed the Patriots on the ground, 40 rushes for 201 yards, 1 TD. Tallywacker went 9 of 16 for 76 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT. I relished that game. 

 

I just want the Bills to win while making those patsies look bad. Singletary, Moss, Yeldon running all over them. Save Allen for the playoffs. JMO

[CSBill]

9 hours ago, Inigo Montoya said:

The strength of our offense in the passing game.  The Bills need to come out and start throwing and play to our strength.  If the Pat's defense can shut the pass down, then we can adjust to the run.  No reason to go away from what has been working for us. 

 

You can over think things at times.  You don't see Andy Reid game plan to minimize Mahomes.  Why would he ever take the ball out of Mahomes' hands unless he absolutely had to?  I think we are now in the same situation with the Bills.  Why take the ball out of Josh's hands?  He is the engine that drives this offense.  Maybe New England can stop him.  If so they'd be the first to do it in quite a while.

Well, he kind of did when they played the Bills.

 

Regardless, the Bills should simply do what they do best, pass first, run when you need to.

[JMF2006]

9 hours ago, BillnutinHouston said:

 

Dedicated to.......stupidity?   Surely table jumping isn't a measure of dedication to a sports team.

 

Only if its on fire