Behind Enemy Lines - "Keys to Beating the Bills" from Raven's Message Board

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 minute ago, Captain Hindsight said:

That game didnt shock me so much so that Cleveland won. The Steelers are old and tired. I thought if the Browns got rolling like they can, it could get out of hand quickly

 

I did not expect the Steelers to spot Cleveland 28 points however

 

That was SO bad.

[Pokebball]

1 minute ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

To me, the interesting question is where was Brown last week and why was he such a non-factor?

 

Last year, the Ravens were very successful at limiting Brown and Beas by playing them very physical and bracketing them at times.  McKenzie and Foster were not a challenge.

 

This year, if everyone is rockin', the Ravens got to pick their poison.  Do they play to bracket or double and absolutely take away Beasley and Diggs?  If so, then the question is do Davis and Brown and Knox step up or do they vanish in single coverage?

All five need to contribute.  To the extent the Raven's D takes Diggs and Beas out of the game will only open up the other three and they have to be there to pick up those opportunities.  If they do, and I think they can, I don't see the Ravens stopping this offense.  The numbers are against them.

[SCBills]

2 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

To me, the interesting question is where was Brown last week and why was he such a non-factor?

 

Last year, the Ravens were very successful at limiting Brown and Beas by playing them very physical and bracketing them at times.  McKenzie and Foster were not a challenge.

 

This year, if everyone is rockin', the Ravens got to pick their poison.  Do they play to bracket or double and absolutely take away Beasley and Diggs?  If so, then the question is do Davis and Brown and Knox step up or do they vanish in single coverage?

 

Just a point here that our own ST unit had something to do with pinning us deep.  Hopefully they won't repeat that.

Good points.  
 

Brown really needs to step up this game if they do focus on bracketing Diggs/Beasley.    
 

As for Davis, he’s a guy I wouldn’t mind Allen throwing contested deep shots too, even if he doesn’t have much separation.  He’ll likely have the matchup advantage out there with single coverage.   My only hesitation on this is that, as a rookie, he has shown on occasion the lack of fight to come and get the ball... but he’s also “Mossed” a guy, so...

[foreboding]

Seems many are basing their estimation of this game on (1) last year's Raven's game and (2) last weeks win (you know the one where we didn't blow out a good Colts team).

Regarding Item 1, the loss last year to the Ravens.

Josh Allen today vs. then, enough said? Still, it was a one score game, lots of mistakes, six TO's!

Item 2. Failure to detonate...
                                            ...on the Colts. First of all, does anyone remember how horrid our field position was in the first half? Do we not think the Bills would have done more, were they not always so backed up? Plus, oh yeah, we won, a tight game against a team that was playing their best ball.

Bills should win. We got plenty of thoroughbreds, all we need is a few players to make a few key plays.
 

[Watkins90]

2 hours ago, aristocrat said:

it's tough to get a read on the ravens.  they haven't really played a good offensive team in months.  the titans need that run game to set up their pass game and they also needed to be very aggressive which they were not which was unusual.  dallas cle jax giants cincy is how the finished their season...your numbers are gonna look good there for sure especially on defense.  the ravens are going to need to score with our offense and i dont think they can.  they rely so much on that run game i just think mcd has the plan to limit that.

 

any time part of your strategy to stop the other team is "hit the wr's and make them pay after they make huge plays" you are going to be playing to lose.

The Browns absolutely destroyed the Ravens defense. It just so happened that the Ravens offense beat up the Browns defense more. I could see this game going that way, high scoring. 

[Billsfan1972]

2 hours ago, maryland-bills-fan said:

Baltimore has played a weak schedule recently.  That will tell.  Our offense will come out with some new wrinkles and tricky plans to unsettle them and cause hesitation. They have not had to respond to such this year.

This is exactly the point.  Last year the Raven's weren't punched in the face from week 5 on and once they were they lost.

 

This year they lost 3 in a row (one without Lamar) to NE, Balt & Pitt and then cruised 4 of the last 5, with Cleveland lighting them up, but a win none the less.  They had 2 quality victories all season Cleveland & Indy & played quality offenses vs. Houston, Cleveland, Titans, Indy & KC.  Not a tough schedule when you include the NFC East.

 

I like it that they are so high on themselves, which as stated so was Buffalo as they weren't challenged from the bye week on (except for Pittsburgh for 28 minutes).

[ROCBillsBeliever]

2 hours ago, vtnatefootball11 said:

Bass has been a really good Kicker in the clutch but no one is on the level of Justin Tucker. The Bills punter has a great leg. Kicking and punting will be about mistakes since both teams are really among the NFL elite in those areas.

 

I didn't see anyone comment on this, but the Ravens fan also gave props to Bass and BoJo. It's nice to see that OTHER teams' fans recognize that BoJo is doing well this year, especially after all the flak he was catching last season, and much of this year. I think most Bills fans--at least on here--have come around on Bass, but there still seems to be some stink on BoJo. If other teams fans can recognize that our dudes are doing well, the least we can do is tip our hats to our guys. Just sayin'.

[RoyBatty is alive]

2 hours ago, RichRiderBills said:

Turnovers, stupid mistakes, special teams, and penalties are going to deceide this game. I know thats cliche and boring.

 

As ive said, especially interested in how this crew will ref PI becuase the Ravens are grabby. I know Tasker agrees with me here. This could set the tone....

 

With passing being so important to the Bills Offense, my guess is they will call it more.

 

Unfortunately, imo, this is the playoffs with one game on, the NFL does NOT want a game with constant penalty flags.  I fear the Ravens will be mugging our receivers a lot like our Super Bowl with the Redskins and not get called unless they are flagrant.

[Crow-Magnon]

33 minutes ago, foreboding said:

First of all, does anyone remember how horrid our field position was in the first half? Do we not think the Bills would have done more, were they not always so backed up? Plus, oh yeah, we won, a tight game against a team that was playing their best ball.

You have to be able to sustain long drives. You cannot count on good field position. That’s an area where a potent rushing attack helps. 

[RoyBatty is alive]

10 minutes ago, ROCBillsBeliever said:

 

I didn't see anyone comment on this, but the Ravens fan also gave props to Bass and BoJo. It's nice to see that OTHER teams' fans recognize that BoJo is doing well this year, especially after all the flak he was catching last season, and much of this year. I think most Bills fans--at least on here--have come around on Bass, but there still seems to be some stink on BoJo. If other teams fans can recognize that our dudes are doing well, the least we can do is tip our hats to our guys. Just sayin'.

 

I have very little worry about our  kickers.  The special team player that has to have a good game in decisions and Returns is Andre Roberts,  His first half blunders nearly cost us that game imo.

2 minutes ago, Crow-Magnon said:

You have to be able to sustain long drives. You cannot count on good field position. That’s an area where a potent rushing attack helps. 

That is true BUT lets be realistic, our first half starting field positions was borderline comically bad. IMO very very few teams in the playoffs could have done much better than what we started with.

[Cheektowaga Chad]

Crazy to think singletary or yeldon will have a big game receiving?

 

I imagine we will spread them out 4 wide and the ravens will probably want to blitz and spy Allen leaving potential screens and dump offs to the rbs open

[Nihilarian]

2 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Last year our pass protection sucked.  Part of that was inexperience on Allen's part.  Part of that was Daboll's use of the 1-1 set with Motor and Knox that had worked best for our offense to that date.  Between them all (Allen, the OL, the rookies) the pass protection was SNAFU'd most of the game.  This year, both Motor and Knox have improved in pass protection but Daboll has also been more flexible about using other personnel packages.

 

Good stuff, although I'll focus on one area.

 

The 2020 Bills offensive line has been so much improved this year over last season. RT Williams has been a god send. Big Jon playing well and that line is much better with him in there. The entire line played so well all season and against the Colts whos strength is their D line. Buffalo held their best player DeForest Buckner to two tackles and no sacks. 

 

Against the Steelers the Bills made some adjustments and took Cameron Hayward out of the mix, who also had only two tackles and no sacks. The Steelers have the #3 defense overall and a leading pass rusher in TJ Watt, 15 sacks. The Bills only allowed one sack in that week 14 game by Tyson Alualu. 

 

If we look back at the 2019 Ravens-Bills game, the Ravens went crazy blitzing Allen all game. The only response the Bills had was to attempt some deep throws to make them back off the blitzing. When those throws failed to work the Ravens stepped up their 50% of the time blitzing to 65%.

 

How the Buffalo Bills handle the Ravens blitzing will be a big factor in this game IMO. If they can handle the Ravens like they handled the Steelers and Colts.

 

The Bills just have so many weapons, Diggs simply can't be covered or stopped from what I've seen. Brown, Beasley, Davis, McKenzie, Singletary, Knox. If that line gives Josh Allen the time he needs...

 

Look who the Ravens have played since week 13 loss to Pittsburgh, 6-10 Dallas, 11-5 Cleveland, 1-15 Jacksonville, 6-10 NY Giants, 4-11 Cincinnati. Yes, they beat 11-5 Titans who had the 28th defense in yards given up. 

 

Last week the Bills faltered a bit on offense and defense, didn't play their best and yet managed to win. If the Bills team, offense plays their best, like they did against the Patriots, Dolphins they should do well.  

 

 

[Inigo Montoya]

4 hours ago, H2o said:

I mean, it does make sense. We don't really have a running game that's going to scare anyone. They will likely key on Josh every time we run a Read Option unless Singletary or Yeldon can gash them a couple of times causing them to do otherwise. That worries me for two reasons. I don't want Josh getting injured and the Ravens are ALWAYS trying to rip at the football. Even their DB's are among the best in the league at this. The one thing you can't really game plan for if you are Baltimore is Josh and his improv runs. He can see an opening then it's boom, off for 10-20 yards. They can try to spy him, but he's faster than people think and he's hard to get on the ground in a one on one situation (hey, Kyle Van Noy ). I also think we need to use their aggressiveness against them with some quick hitting plays that give our guys the chance to go get some YAC. If we can do this early, get a couple of chunk runs from our RB's and get some quick hitters that go for some nice YAC, then their defense is going to have a hard time dealing with all of the weapons we have on the field at any given time. Josh will be able to pick them apart like he did against SF, Seattle, game 2 against NE, and Miami. 

 

I think one of the big problems with the Bills' option running game is that Josh almost never gives the ball up.  Not much of  a mystery who to defend for a Ravens' LB if you know Josh keeps it almost every time.  What needs to happen when we go with those run options is that Josh HAS to hand the ball off unless he has a huge opening to exploit.  I'm sure this tendency has been scouted by the Ravens and they are likely to ignore the RB.  That is something that we can exploit by giving the ball to Singletary or Williams.  

Edited January 15, 2021 by Inigo Montoya

[WideNine]

4 hours ago, vtnatefootball11 said:

Saw this post on the Raven's message board regarding scouting report of the Bills from Raven's fan perspective. Thought it was interesting and worth sharing.  I could nitpick a couple things but overall his analysis is tough to disagree with.   He made some great points, but hopefully JA transcends all and puts the Bills on his back again this week!

 

"With Moss out the bad running game of the Bills is really bad. Singletary is really only effective when there are holes so job one is to plug those holes up. The Ravens have been very good at doing that this year.  

The biggest running threat is going to Josh Allen who is very dangerous especially in the red zone. Allen is 3rd on the team in rushing yards and has 8 rushing TDs. Without that other big rushing threat I would use a similar plan that we used against the Titans only keying on Allen as the rusher instead of Henry. This is how other teams have attacked Lamar this year and it works until Gus or Dobbins start going up the middle and blowing up those guys waiting on the edge. Singletary isn't Dobbins or Gus. They will be able to limit those bigs runs by Allen.

The Bills are going to be respond by throwing the ball. Allen has 7 games this year with 40+ passing attempts. In 2019 he had just 1. Allen is very comfortable passing and will start throwing down field. The Ravens have the DBs to handle even when blitzing. The Bills in general use a layered system of Diggs and Brown deeper, Davis in the middle depth, Beasley and Knox underneath. Everyone of them can catch and they use the whole width of the field. I think we all saw Allen fit perfect balls on the sideline to Davis at the end of half last week. It was textbook.  

Don't focus on pushing Allen into tough throws. Instead focus on making the receivers make tough catches. Play tight and hit hard. Diggs had the best season in the league this side of Devante Adams. He's going to make some catches. Make him pay on every single one. 8 catches for under 80 yards would be a big win against Diggs.

On the other side of the ball the Ravens just need to continue to do what they do. The Bills allowed 21 rushing touchdowns this year which is 27th in the NFL this year. They are 26th in yards allowed per attempt. Pound the ball in the red zone. They are middle of the road against the pass and rank 9th in both TDs and yards be attempt and 7th in getting interceptions. Running the ball just makes a ton of sense.

Both the Ravens and Bills are +4 in turnover margin so both understand the importance of turnovers. Bass has been a really good Kicker in the clutch but no one is on the level of Justin Tucker. The Bills punter has a great leg. Kicking and punting will be about mistakes since both teams are really among the NFL elite in those areas.

It should be a good game but I really like this matchup for the Ravens. As good as the Bills have been I really see this as favorable for the Ravens."

https://forum.russellstreetreport.com/showthread.php?207004-Keys-to-beating-the-Bills&s=5e4430fa0dd03ad736b8d386a8da5aba

 

Not a bad analysis and I do think Motor will have a larger role early because he is so good at picking up the extra blitzer, but the Bills will have a #2 RB ready to go.

 

How effective that player will be remains to be seen, but it is a safe bet that they will want the complimentary bruising RB attributes that Moss brought when he is on the field..

 

It is not going to just be Motor and Allen.

 

 

 

[Straight Hucklebuck]

26 minutes ago, Cheektowaga Chad said:

Crazy to think singletary or yeldon will have a big game receiving?

 

I imagine we will spread them out 4 wide and the ravens will probably want to blitz and spy Allen leaving potential screens and dump offs to the rbs open

Last year the staff made an obvious mistake not activating Yeldon for Gore. 

 

Yeldon can catch the ball. So can Singletary. 

 

When the Bills go 4-wide, a back would be an option. 

 

The other thing is, I expect McKenzie to get a few touches this week after nothing last week. 

[Charles Romes]

4 hours ago, BigDingus said:

Pretty good analysis, not gonna lie.

I don't watch enough of the Ravens to really breakdown many weaknesses, I'm just hoping we can shore up our own.

But did Star pick the worst season to sit out 😂 I'm still annoyed how far our run defense has dropped off without him helping plug up the middle. Turns out he was probably worth the money after all lol

 

now that you mention it, it’s infuriating that a soft undersized DL interior may prevent us from winning the crown this year.  That’s what cost us the title at least one or two years in the early 90s. 

[foreboding]

52 minutes ago, Crow-Magnon said:

You have to be able to sustain long drives. You cannot count on good field position. That’s an area where a potent rushing attack helps. 

Of course you do.

I am merely pointing out that, field position, like that, is unlikely, and naturally, it affects the points scored by an offense.

[WideNine]

10 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Last year the staff made an obvious mistake not activating Yeldon for Gore. 

 

Yeldon can catch the ball. So can Singletary. 

 

When the Bills go 4-wide, a back would be an option. 

 

The other thing is, I expect McKenzie to get a few touches this week after nothing last week. 

 

The kind of zone defense that the Titans used and we saw Indy employ has LBs drop to cover the shallow middle of the field. 

 

It creates a virtual wall across the field at the sticks.

 

It seems to also leave the both sideline shallow outlet options open for easy gainers.

 

Much like the pass Allen dumped off to McKenzie near the left sideline in our game vs the Phins that was just 3 yards, but went for a 1st down....those are there.

 

Allen just has to recognize the coverage and take those options when they have crowded the sticks.

 

 

[RoyBatty is alive]

30 minutes ago, Nihilarian said:

Good stuff, although I'll focus on one area.

 

The 2020 Bills offensive line has been so much improved this year over last season. RT Williams has been a god send. Big Jon playing well and that line is much better with him in there. The entire line played so well all season and against the Colts whos strength is their D line. Buffalo held their best player DeForest Buckner to two tackles and no sacks. 

 

Against the Steelers the Bills made some adjustments and took Cameron Hayward out of the mix, who also had only two tackles and no sacks. The Steelers have the #3 defense overall and a leading pass rusher in TJ Watt, 15 sacks. The Bills only allowed one sack in that week 14 game by Tyson Alualu. 

 

If we look back at the 2019 Ravens-Bills game, the Ravens went crazy blitzing Allen all game. The only response the Bills had was to attempt some deep throws to make them back off the blitzing. When those throws failed to work the Ravens stepped up their 50% of the time blitzing to 65%.

 

How the Buffalo Bills handle the Ravens blitzing will be a big factor in this game IMO. If they can handle the Ravens like they handled the Steelers and Colts.

 

The Bills just have so many weapons, Diggs simply can't be covered or stopped from what I've seen. Brown, Beasley, Davis, McKenzie, Singletary, Knox. If that line gives Josh Allen the time he needs...

 

Look who the Ravens have played since week 13 loss to Pittsburgh, 6-10 Dallas, 11-5 Cleveland, 1-15 Jacksonville, 6-10 NY Giants, 4-11 Cincinnati. Yes, they beat 11-5 Titans who had the 28th defense in yards given up. 

 

Last week the Bills faltered a bit on offense and defense, didn't play their best and yet managed to win. If the Bills team, offense plays their best, like they did against the Patriots, Dolphins they should do well.  

 

 

 

Two observations.

 

On the Bills RT...you are correct, Williams has been a God send and he helped seal the Colts win.  Also re RT, for years i complained about are woeful RT situation, i couldnt believe the one and only  great Jordan Mills actually started for us 3 years at RT.  By the way, guess where he is as of 2 days ago...yep the Baltimore Ravens.

 

Yes we faltered a bit on offenses and defense and I would add a third, we really really faltered on special teams in the return game...we were dreadful

[Capco]

4 hours ago, BigDingus said:

Pretty good analysis, not gonna lie.

I don't watch enough of the Ravens to really breakdown many weaknesses, I'm just hoping we can shore up our own.

But did Star pick the worst season to sit out 😂 I'm still annoyed how far our run defense has dropped off without him helping plug up the middle. Turns out he was probably worth the money after all lol

 

I've been saying this ever since we signed Star and people were screaming for heads.  So many people don't understand the trenches in football because it doesn't get the same level of attention as the skill positions (and corresponding defensive positions).  

 

He's a tremendous asset in the run defense and got paid what he was worth.  Period.