A perfect storm yesterday for the Bills D

[Hapless Bills Fan]

48 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

Well, selling out to stop the run didn't work. They gave up 163 rushing yards on 30 carries (5.4 ypc), and none of those runs were long qb scrambles that skewed the running stats. It was a legit beatdown in the running game. Anyway, their front four was dominated most of the game, although they made the occasional play here and there. Giving up 472 yards and allowing them to have the ball for over 34 minutes is never good. Indy got into Bills territory on every possession save for the kneel down at the end of the first half. 

 

Still, they won. Can't argue with that!  

 

So this is kind of interesting.  I refer you to the NFL .pdf of the game, which presents first-half statistics.

https://nflcdns.nfl.com/liveupdate/gamecenter/58489/BUF_Gamebook.pdf

 

The perception is that the Colts ran all over us and we couldn't run at all.  But at the half, the Colts had 55 rush yards to our 66 rush yards!  11 of those were on a reverse to Pittman.  Taylor was averaging 2.9 ypc, so he was pretty shut down.  Meanwhile the colts were dominating TOP almost 2:1 with 19:41 to our 10:19.  They were beating us with the pass, 13 completions for 167 yds.  The majority of that came on 4 plays, 3 deep passes for 77 yards and one short pass with good YAC for 32 yds.  Pittman's 6-4, 223 lb butt had 6 targets for 4 receptions and 91 yds of that total. 

 

Our offense was pinned near the goal line on most of our first half possessions, with the best starts being the 15 and the 11 and with 3 starts at the 3,6, and 4 yard line, so we had 3 - 3 and outs.  Meanwhile except for opening kickoff, the Colts average start was at our 38 yd line, including a start at the 41 and 42 yd line.  To say "Indy got into our territory on every possession" kind of seems to overlook the point that except for the opening drive after kickoff which started at the 25, Indy didn't have far to go to get into our territory!  Average of 12 yds, twice only 9 and 8 yards.

 

Now here's the interesting thing: Pittman finished the game with 5 receptions on 10 targets for 90 yds.  That means he had 1 reception for -1 yds in the entire 2nd half.  Clearly we made an adjustment from "sell out to stop the run", which was pretty well working in the first half but allowing us to be gouged by the deep pass and a big YAC pass, to shut down more aspects of the passing game.  Pittman had two deep receptions for 20-30 yds and a short reception with a BIGGGGG RAC in the first half.

 

I'm not good enough to pick out what we did from the broadcast film, maybe someone better than I can sort it.  But I can tell you that "we sold out to stop the run" and "it didn't work" are gonna prove overly simplistic analyses of the first half.  We actually did shut down the run pretty effectively in the first half and limited the short passing game, but gave up 4 big pass plays (3 long).  We limited their points pretty effectively considering how much TOP they had (which was not run-driven, but pass-driven). 

 

Then we clearly made a change to how we were defending them in the 2nd half that limited some of the pass-driven stuff at the expense of allowing more rushing.  We gave up 108 rush yards in the 2nd half, much of it to Hines not Taylor.  I can tell you we still gave up a lot of first downs by passing and not so many to the rush, in the 2nd half.

 

Will be interesting to dig in.

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

17 minutes ago, Lieutenant Aldo Raine said:

I just remember Tannehill picking us apart right behind the linebackers because they were being sucked in to stop the run.

 

Oh, for sure.  And part of that was poor LB play, from an injured Edmunds, from Dodson being asked to play like Milano, and from Klein still learning his role.

 

My point is just that when you gift the opponent 3 drives starting within your red zone and one just outside, there's not a lot of room for the D to be stopping them.

[Marvlevydraftdaygenius]

The defense did not play to bad yesterday.   Problem the majority  will say 3rd downs killed us. no pass rush, but I am going to say what killed us was 1st and 2nd downs that to me killed us because can anybody count the number of times the colts were in 3rd and long notice the colts had a hard time at the end of the game trying to pick up that first down when they were in 3rd and 11 and not one holding call was called against the colts I can spot them a mile away but the Refs would not call it I wonder if the league really wants us here.

[mannc]

2 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

After some thought, here's why I think the Bills' defense found themselves in a perfect storm yesterday. Make no mistake about it: they were absolutely shredded, and Indy's failures were more about them failing to make plays than anything the Bills did. They had seven drops, and Rivers missed a wide-open Pittman that 3 times out of 4 would have resulted in a TD. Rivers played extremely well, but he also missed a key slant to a wide open WR near the goal line that would have converted a third down (right before the missed FG). 

 

Anyway, Indy has arguably the best offensive line in the league (it features two 2020 all-pros). The Bills' front four is really pretty mediocre, and they only get sacks/pressures against a) teams with weaknesses along the o-line or b) QBs who take too long and struggle to read complex zone packages (i.e., Tua, Drew Lock, Darnold). When rushing four, the Bills were hopeless. Consequently, they blitzed a lot, but Rivers, who is really good (and made sure to get to the line early and figure out over the course of 15 seconds what the Bills were probably doing), made them pay pretty much every time because he almost always had a quick and effective solution to the blitz -- usually a shallow crosser in a zone vacated by a blitzer (but not always; a few were deeper). The combination of getting no pressure with the front four and facing a QB who can chew up blitzes and spit them out meant that the Colts had answers on basically every third or fourth down, and they usually connected. The only times they didn't were because of a bad play call (pitch out near the goal line) or failures of execution by the Colts in plays that should have been executed given the play design's overall success. The one third down stop that was impressive was the near-pick by Hyde on Indy's first possession of the game.

 

At the root of it all is the weakness of the defensive line vs. good offenses quarterbacked by HOF-level vets (of which there are a bunch in the NFL now). They are all decent d-linemen, but they don't have either an interior or edge game wrecker (watching the Rams play yesterday really brought that home). Ed Oliver was supposed to be that guy, but he isn't. He's a starting-level DT and pretty solid, but he plays like a second or third round pick rather than a top ten selection. Addison, Hughes, Epinosa, etc. are all decent players who can play in the NFL and occasionally make big plays, but they aren't good enough to take over games or dominate good o-linemen. And they certainly can't overcome the sort of QB-line-RB combo that the Colts presented. There's a reason why KC traded for Frank Clark last year -- Reid recognized the dire need for an explosive pass rusher in the playoffs. They didn't have a game wrecker coming off the edge, and Clark is that guy. The Bills are a great team this year, but they do need at least one game wrecking pass rusher if their D--which ranked 16th--is to move up to the next level.    

 

Final comment: this is a defense that will really struggle vs. NO, GB, and TN given their QBs, o-lines, and skill players. KC is a bit odd because their line has played pretty poorly lately. That said, they have Mahomes, who covers up so much. Tampa has Brady and is absolutely loaded with weapons, but their o-line really isn't that good.   

 

I don’t think a game-wrecking d-lineman would have made much difference yesterday.  Playing against Rivers is like playing against Brady; the ball comes out very fast and it’s almost impossible to sack him, especially with that offensive line in front of him.  Washington’s d-line is full of game-wreckers and they didn’t get near Brady all night.  I do agree the defense has to do better, but I think it’s the coverages that need to improve.

[Ethan in Cleveland]

No negative plays (except the fumble the refs took away).  That was the issue.  Modern NFL defense is bend but don't break and wait for a negative play.  I don;t recall a single 3rd and long all game Indy faced. The one 3rd and 10 Rivers missed a wide open slant for a TD.  As the OP pointed out they played the run well in the first half.  But they did not get a sack, a TFL, or a penalty to put Indy's offense in a bad spot.  It all stems from lack of pass rush against a superior O-line.  

The story for Buffalo was the same.  Allen was effective and the Bills o-line pass blocked reasonably well. The difference in the game was Allen running and escaping pressure to make throws downfield.  And the only reason Indy had a shot in the end was the sack/fumble negative play by Allen.  On that play, it was 1st and 10 at the 37 or something like that.  They likely score on that drive too and it would have been a much less stressful final 5 mintues.

[Big Turk]

The D played GREAT situationally. That is what ultimately won them the game. That is what prevents teams from scoring points.

[John from Riverside]

All I know is it’s a really good solid bet that the line is where we’re going with our first round pick next year’s draft

[LABILLBACKER]

3 hours ago, Green Lightning said:

Solid take and I agree. We lack elite in our DL and front 7 actually. That said I also think we sold out the scheme to stop the run and challenge Rivers to beat us, and he almost did. Beane will focus on D next year and maybe add another OL.

Our draft has to be defensive front 7 heavy. So far AJ doesn't have NFL speed. Ed needs Star right next to him to look like a "2nd rounder". The rest are devoid of any good pass rushing abilities.  I knew the Colts had a great OL but to NOT sack, knockdown or hurry Rivers all day was excruciating. 

[Green Lightning]

2 hours ago, billykay said:

If we sold out to stop the run, it certainly didn't work.

Well a lot of the yards came in the 4th when we went into the idiot prevent D. Making them take 5-6 mins to score would have prevented the nailbiter it became. 

 

 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

3 hours ago, Nextmanup said:

I don't disagree with anything mentioned in the OP.

 

But I would argue we knew a lot of this prior to yesterday's game, and the real failure was the offense being unable to get into a groove, moving down the field, and scoring touchdowns.  We did get to 27 at the end, which ain't bad, but this was not the offense we have seen for the last month +.  Of course, we were also playing a very solid team.

 

Don't rely on our D to win games!  The Offense has to put 30+ on the board and see which opponents can keep up.  That's how we are going to advance in the playoffs.

 

Too early for this, but in the off-season, No. 1 need on D is an edge rushing monster.  No. 1 need on Offense is a Rob Gronkowski type of TE, if we can find one.

 

The RB position probably needs upgrading, but I would not commit any serious assets to that pursuit.

 

Big body on D line and real Mike LB finalize our needs IMO, but not before edge rusher.

 

 

 

 

I think we're underestimating how difficult it is to move the ball when backed up to our own goal line because we have been doing it this season.  We had terrible starting field position the entire first half