A Few Thoughts about the Steelers Game, in no particular order

[Maine-iac]

I'm with Virgil on using Davis over Sanders and in some ways it's like comparing apples to oranges for me.  Everywhere Sanders has played he's played out of the slot.  If it was who plays the slot Davis or Sanders I wouldn't think twice about it.   On the outside though I'd rather start Davis.  Considering how much we throw the ball Sanders could be on the field all the time just spelling Beasley or Davis.  Seeing how good they were last year I wouldn't mess with that chemistry.  Mind you this is all just my opinion and I certainly think Sanders is a great addition but I don't think he should be a replacement for Davis or Beasley.

[Playoffs?]

8 hours ago, zow2 said:

my thoughts similar to others:

 

- still no real threat of a running game

- Pitt was super physical with our WRs

- o-line is not any better than last year 

- Josh holding the ball half second too long

- play calling was bad. too cute and pass happy.  Some weird non 4th down run calls for Josh for little gain and placing him in harms way.

- defensive line played more stout than last year 

- penalties already an issue like several games last year 

-KC is still better and the AFC team to beat. i’d rank Cleveland ahead of the Bills too. They can run the ball and throw. 

Nailed it. 
Willing to chalk this one up as a fluke and us either being distracted or not ready for this game… however I’d call the Miami game a ‘must-win’…. Yeah I said it.  I need to keep

telling myself that we beat NE 31-0 in the home opener, and they went on the win the super bowl.  Learn from the loss, beat the crap out of Miami in typical fashion and all is forgotten from the Steelers game. 

 

I’m not sure who was mostly to blame for the playcalling and lack of adjustments.. but that was just terrible. Hopefully the entire organization has a come to Jesus moment and gets back on the same page. The Bills are not champions until they’re champions. 

[BADOLBILZ]

3 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

No, I don't care about the Edmunds debate.  I care about the defense overall. The Edmunds debate is just tiresome to me. I realize that a lot of people feel differently and are very passionate about it. I'm just not one of those people.

 

As for forcing turnovers, the Bills finished third in the league at forcing turnovers last year, so I'm not too worried. They may regress to the mean a little, but matchup zone is a fairly good scheme for forcing TOs, especially against young QBs. They're facing Tua, Jones, and Zack Wilson twice as well as Lawrence, Darnold, and Winston, so they'll get their share of TOs over the long haul. I'm not sold on Wentz being good at preventing TOs either. He's a strip-sack fumble sort of guy.

 

 

You don't care about Edmunds quality of play............and I don't care about complaining about officiating impacting the game like you did wrt the White non-interception.

 

Both sides of the ball have 60-80 snaps to make a play............one officials call doesn't absolve one side of the ball of not accomplishing things over 60-80 snaps.

 

I expected a close game..........but realistically this Bills team should have tuned up the Steelers by a number far exceeding the spread.

 

One team had a vengeful,  determined attitude and focus and battled thru a tough environment to play in..........the other seemed to be mentally caught between playing not to lose and trying not to look bad winning........officiating didn't decide *****.   

[dave mcbride]

4 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

You don't care about Edmunds quality of play............and I don't care about complaining about officiating impacting the game like you did wrt the White non-interception.

 

Both sides of the ball have 60-80 snaps to make a play............one officials call doesn't absolve one side of the ball of not accomplishing things over 60-80 snaps.

 

I expected a close game..........but realistically this Bills team should have tuned up the Steelers by a number far exceeding the spread.

 

One team had a vengeful,  determined attitude and focus and battled thru a tough environment to play in..........the other seemed to be mentally caught between playing not to lose and trying not to look bad winning........officiating didn't decide *****.   

You are arguing with a phantom. I never said that the Bills lost because of the White PI call. Never even close to it. It was a legit bad call, but whatevs, bad calls happen all of the time and PI/holding can be called on a ton of plays. No excuses for the officials, though; they should be judged too for their performance. Carry on with Edmunds with someone besides me. I know you have plenty of sparrers here to work with on that front.

Edited September 13, 2021 by dave mcbride

[BADOLBILZ]

13 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

You are arguing with a phantom. I never said that the Bills lost because of the White PI call. Never even close to it. It was a legit bad call, but whatevs, bad calls happen all of the time and PI/holding can be called on a ton of plays. No excuses for the officials, though; they should be judged too for their performance. Carry on with Edmunds with someone besides me. I know you have plenty of sparrers here to work with on that front.

 

 

You just want to bring up things you don't want to talk about today, don't you? 

 

Don't worry about officiating.........ever...........I am sure you are aware of my opinion on this as I've made it clear many times..........worrying about negative result officiating is for losers.

 

If you want to complain about officiating complain about not being a team that does things that make the opponent catch flags.

 

For instance.......for every whine about the PI calls yesterday.........unmentioned is the fact that teams know that they can get the Bills DB's heads turned around on certain routes and create situations where they seem to not be looking back for the ball allowing a prepared receiver to sell a PI call.  

 

 

[dave mcbride]

Just now, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

You just want to bring up things you don't want to talk about today, don't you? 

 

Don't worry about officiating.........ever...........I am sure you are aware of my opinion on this as I've made it clear many times..........worrying about negative result officiating is for losers.

 

If you want to complain about officiating complain about not being a team that does things that make the opponent catch flags.

 

For instance.......for every whine about the PI calls yesterday.........unmentioned is the fact that teams know that they can get the Bills DB's heads turned around on certain routes and create situations where they seem to not be looking back for the ball allowing a prepared receiver to sell a PI call.  

 

 

Badol, during the game thread I was the one defending the officials from the mob here. Wallace should have been called for PI in the first half on that sideline throw to Claypool, and the Bills got away with a number of offensive holding non-calls. The Bills definitely didn't lose because of the refs. Still was a bad call on Tre though. My only explanation is that perhaps he was being handsy all game and this was a makeup flag (and he can be handsy). Hard for me to tell from television viewing, however.  

[Mango]

2 hours ago, Virgil said:

I’m not saying Sanders is bad, but Davis needs more time on the field.  

I can get behind this. But I am not sure who he replaces though.
 

Thinking about the game today, it’s amazing to me that with all the 4/5 WR personnel we marched out there how terrible of a job we did at finding any desirable match up anywhere with any consistency. 

 

I don’t think Davis solves this. 
 

We have yet to find much of a competent(consistent?)run game once McCoy left and we haven’t been able to make up for it in a high percentage short passing game either. It’s been going on for years now, which makes it frustrating and places blame on Daboll/McD, Josh, Beane, and the RB room. leaving the WR Corp out of this since it’s been a good group for 3 seasons now. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, MrSarcasm said:

To win the turnover battle yesterday Buffalo would have needed 3 takeaways. That is asking for alot. 

You can't win the turnover differential with turnovers.  Fixed it for you

 

We only had 1 turnover, so I'm unclear on how we would have needed 3 takeaways for the turnover battle.  The blocked punt is a different issue.

 

I think BadOl's point is that we had our opportunities - Edmunds had his hands on a deflected ball, Tre White had a pick - but for different reasons didn't "seal the deal".  I thought the PI on White was ticky-tack, and arguably not White's fault, but Edmunds needs to haul that in.

 

 

[MrSarcasm]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

We only had 1 turnover, so I'm unclear on how we would have needed 3 takeaways for the turnover battle.  The blocked punt is a different issue.

 

I think BadOl's point is that we had our opportunities - Edmunds had his hands on a deflected ball, Tre White had a pick - but for different reasons didn't "seal the deal".  I thought the PI on White was ticky-tack, and arguably not White's fault, but Edmunds needs to haul that in.

 

 

That blocked punt doesn't go down as a turnover only due to outdated metrics.

[The Frankish Reich]

17 hours ago, Virgil said:

I feel like Sanders is being force fed down our throats as an offensive weapon.  While he worked downfield on a few plays, he overall acted in the same role as Beasley.

Virgil, great write-up (particularly about the D line play), but I have to take issue with this one comment. He was wide open on the early bomb and Allen admitted he just missed that throw; if he'd put some air under it, that's a quick 6. And he was also open later in the game for about a 30 yard gain that Allen missed. If Allen makes those throws we're talking about a 140 yard day for Sanders and we're all talking about what a genius Beane is for effectively upgrading from John Brown for similar money. I do think they'll get in sync soon. Overall, I was impressed by Sanders' debut as a Bill ... he seems to have a lot more left in the tank than I thought when we signed him.

Edited September 13, 2021 by The Frankish Reich

[Dan]

7 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

Emmanuel Sanders is a top 25 receiver of the last decade who hasn't actually lost a step. He's an upgrade from Brown (tougher, better route runner) who consistently gets separation. Beane has been chasing him for years for a reason. The whole idea behind bringing him in was to put in place two "mirror" receivers (Diggs and Sanders) on opposite sides of the field who could run mirror images of each other while both separating (Diggs, Sanders, and Beasley were 1-2-3 in the league last year in gaining separation). That forces teams to defend both sides of the field and not weight their defense toward Diggs. Beasley, Knox, and Davis/McKenzie should be able to run free. Davis is a nice player, but his hands are inconsistent and he has separation issues. He'll get his targets, but he's not as dangerous a weapon as Sanders, who over his career has thrived in sophisticated passing attacks and knows the full route tree like the back of his hand (as does Diggs).  

 

Yeah, they lost yesterday, but not because of Sanders, who was the one guy on the team to beat the Steelers deep. Obviously, the o-line has to be better, but if it does start playing well, the passing attack should be harder to stop than even last year's. 

I’ll respectfully disagree with you.  I think Davis is pretty good with his routes, separation and hands.  And he knows the offense better, by sheer virtue of this being his 2nd year.  
 

I’m not saying I dislike Sanders. I’m just saying that at this point in the season, I would think Davis should be getting more snaps than him. Whether that continues, would depend upon how the season panned out. 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Dan