McDermott, Daboll, Frazier zoom session 9/13

[HappyDays]

1 minute ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

agree. Coached a very good game. 
 

I may also be in the minority, but I think Wallace is alright. He got the one bad PI call (which only works because Ben R three the ball like straight up into the air), but he made several good plays in coverage, including knocking the ball away on the TD that Johnson miraculously re-caught. 

 

Completely agree. Wallace was fine yesterday. He only had the one bad play. For what this scheme asks of the CB2 he is not a problem.

[Coach Tuesday]

15 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Why?? Aggressive 4th down gadget plays are what you run when you're down multiple scores and have nothing to lose, or up multiple scores and you can afford a risk to put the game away. This was a tightly contested one score game until the very end. Every 1st down in this game mattered. I'm shocked that Daboll didn't understand that. A 1 yard gain there would have been huge for our momentum. This tells me Daboll did not have a feel for this game at all.

Completely agree.  If ever there were a situation NOT to be aggressive it’s that one.  Total lack of game flow awareness.  Daboll is a likable guy but I pity the owner who hires him to be head coach.  Inexcusably reckless.  Martzian, even.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Coach Tuesday

[BringMetheHeadofLeonLett]

34 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Again...will anyone ask him WHY he thought those plays were the right call against a Pitts D that was pinning its ears back and penetrating quickly all game?

 

 

YES.

I'd add that the flea-flicker was an arrogant call against a proud defensive team- at least that early in the game.  Seemed to say, we're just gonna do whatever we want to you today.'

[jlgarsh]

41 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

 

But QB sneaks have like a 95+% success rate on 3rd or 4th and 1. I don't know why they wouldn't do that? Brady had converted like 87 straight before the Bills stuffed him some years back.

[YoloinOhio]

1 minute ago, jlgarsh said:

But QB sneaks have like a 95+% success rate on 3rd or 4th and 1. I don't know why they wouldn't do that? Brady had converted like 87 straight before the Bills stuffed him some years back.

Eric Wood today seemed to indicate they didn’t get the right defensive look for that 

[Malazan]

1 minute ago, jlgarsh said:

But QB sneaks have like a 95+% success rate on 3rd or 4th and 1. I don't know why they wouldn't do that? Brady had converted like 87 straight before the Bills stuffed him some years back.

 

You have a QB who can act like a RB as well. You could throw 2 lead blockers in there for him if you wanted to try smash mouth running it there. 

[JESSEFEFFER]

They got greedy on the 4th and 1 and wanted to hit for a chunk play.  We all would have been happy with a new set of downs but tried for a home run.  Posts correctly point out that the motion brought Sutton into a spot where Gilliam could not make the block instead of following him.  I wonder if that should have killed the play call and Josh missed it. The Steelers were in the right spot to blow it up and the Bills coaxed them there.

[MasterStrategist]

54 minutes ago, jeremy2020 said:

 

These reporters should have pounced on that. WTF about 2004 Seattle defense reminds you of the recent Steelers defenses under Tomlin?

Not defending the call, but we do run QB sneaks almost always on 4th and 1 (since Josh) and had already did 1 earlier on 3rd down.

 

That said, it was a super aggressive call that either works or in this case, makes the off coordinator look like a fool.  I'd have rather we sneak it or hand it to Motor, but if that play would have busted open then we'd all be saying something different

[FireChans]

53 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I hope McDermott has a come-to-Jesus meeting with Daboll and shifts his focus.

 

That simply begs the question of why, if execution is the issue, you don't shift your thinking and try something else you might execute better against that D.

What.

 

Do you realize that the collective Daboll criticism in 2019 was “we pass too much?” And then, in 2020, Josh took a step and we had one of the best offenses in football? And when Josh has a 2019 type performance yesterday, again it’s back to “we pass too much?”

 

Josh got paid like an elite QB. Our offense is built for an elite QB to do damage. When our QB isn’t elite, it looks like yesterday. 
 

Josh needs to be better. Period.

[MasterStrategist]

41 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Ai Yi Yi.  Do you think this will re-focus him?

 

 

Overall I agree with McD yesterday that the D did enough to give us a chance to win.

 

But did anyone ask Frazier about what happened in the 2nd half where Pittsburgh scored on Every.  Single.  Drive.  ?

 

We need a defense that plays 60 minutes, not 30

Disagree about this 2nd half nonsense.  

 

Yes, Steelers scored on  consecutive drives.  BUT...

1. they started with great Field position on 2 of those

2. Penalties, questionable on Tre and Levi led to 2 scoring drives

3. We held them to 2 FGs and just 1 TD

 

We should be saying, why weren't we up by more than 10+ at halftime?  Defense stopped a HOF qb, top 5 skill postion group for 30 min and gave our offense many chances to put the game away.

 

Defense wasn't the problem, it didn't win the game for us but certainly performed well above what we needed for a win

[Hapless Bills Fan]

4 minutes ago, Mango said:

Part of the issue is none of that was working. The screen game sucks and most definitely sucked yesterday. Before we were down by 10 Singletary was only averaging about 3 yards per carry. Once Pitt got a two possession lead, Singletary was getting 10 yards a clip. Pitt didn’t get up +10 until midway through the 4th. 
 

The quick passing game has been a weir anomaly under Daboll/Allen. I don’t have a great answer as to why. 
 

But when you break it down, the run game wasn’t working until the game was in hand. The screen game was failing. Our QB was jittery. I am not sure what else to do other than to get the quick passing game going. But that’s not anything that this offense has ever had in its wheelhouse. 
 

I just don’t know what the executable solution was.

 

I would love to look at the screens we tried but don't have time to go all through the film.  Can you point me approximately which drives we tried screens?

 

With regard to Singletary, I think you have a good source of stats so I'm sure that's correct.

It's true that Singletary's longer runs of 15 and 25 but I also think that may be misleading.

 

Singletary had 5 rush attempts in the 1st half:

"up the middle" 8 yds

LT 2 yds

LG 6 yds

LT 1 yd

LT 1 yd

 

It's not a lot of data but I see a pattern there.  It looks like maybe Devin was gaining yards between the tackles, and not gaining a lot trying to run outside.  I kinda think that fits what people have said that he's not fast enough to run outside, and his best rushes will be between the tackles.  

 

The overall YPA was 3.6, which moves the chains

Maybe try a little more?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dave mcbride]

38 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

 

He's right. Miami looked fast yesterday, and Tua definitely looks better -- he looks uninjured and as a consequence less tentative. Waddle is scary.

[Mango]

22 minutes ago, jeremy2020 said:

 

The defense gave up 16 points even with the 2nd half. They played well. 

 

 

Well, for starters, you can't spend the offseason saying how you're not going to run and paying little attention to it. The Bills HAVE to figure out why their 5 offensive lineman can not create hole against 4 defensive lineman. It's way too consistent that it's a "they just suck" problem. There is a scheme problem in how they're blocking or what they're doing that they need to invest time and effort into figuring out. It feels like they just aren't interested and will rely on pass game always working which let's not forget there were 3-4 games last year where it didn't. Remember beating the Jets with only field goals?

 

For one, stop going 5 wide. Bring Knox in tight and throw quick passes to him. He seemed like could catch the ball yesterday when some others seemed to struggle. They have Gilliam...put him and singletary in the backfield for help blocking and a quick outlet. 

 

Also, I'll take 3 yards on 1st and 2nd down. 3rd and 4 with the defense having to at least respect that the Bills might run it is better than 5 wide with zero belief they were going to run. 

Right there has to be something they can do. But they also did do some different things yesterday with little to no success. I wouldn’t say that the run production/block was inconsistent (assuming that’s what you meant.typo). It was situationally bad. Like when you are running the 2:00 drill and you protect the end zone/big play/sidelines but give up the runs and short passes over the middle that chew up clock. I will have to go through the game again to see what formations were were in for the run plays we called. 
 

I actually don’t hate that we can never get the run going specifically. I’m upset we don’t have reliable ways to pick up 3-5 yards with high percentages. I don’t care if we take a surgical approach like Brady and get carved up, pound the ball with Marshawn Lynch, or have a great screen game like Gailey or Marshall Faulk. My issue is we don’t do any of this at a professional level. And we have never done any of those things well with Josh and Daboll.

 

Given our personnel, I am tempted to think that going with a quick as, Brady-esque philosophy is the most applicable. We are never going to maul anybody with her OL, and I have little faith in our ability to draw up a quality screen game. It boggles my mind that I can’t think of a single pass where Allen hit the top of a 3 step drop and fired it as soon as he planted it. 

[dave mcbride]

25 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

Eric Wood today seemed to indicate they didn’t get the right defensive look for that 

Funny - right before that play happened, I was thinking, uh oh, this looks like one of those instances where a QB sneak will actually fail. And there's no bigger fan of the qb sneak than me.

[SDS]

1 hour ago, YoloinOhio said:

 

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 minute ago, MasterStrategist said:

Disagree about this 2nd half nonsense.  

 

Yes, Steelers scored on  consecutive drives.  BUT...

1. they started with great Field position on 2 of those

2. Penalties, questionable on Tre and Levi led to 2 scoring drives

3. We held them to 2 FGs and just 1 TD

 

We should be saying, why weren't we up by more than 10+ at halftime?  Defense stopped a HOF qb, top 5 skill postion group for 30 min and gave our offense many chances to put the game away.

 

Defense wasn't the problem, it didn't win the game for us but certainly performed well above what we needed for a win

 

I said "Overall I agree with McD yesterday that the D did enough to give us a chance to win.'

I'm not exculpating the offense, which was bad, and we ARE asking why we weren't up by more than 10 at the half, especially starting with great field position on the first drive and only coming away with a FG

 

But

 

Pitts started in the first half from 25, 20, 13, 7, 45 yds (that last the result of a fumble): average 22 yds

Pitts started in the second half from 25, 36, 48, 25 yds: average 33 yds

 

Point is they had a drive starting from great field position in the 1st half and the defense held

They really only had one drive with awful starting field position in the 2nd half, due to some very strange 4th down decisions and playcalls.

 

More than one thing can be true at once

 

It can be true that the Offense was bad, AND true that the Defense wasn't nearly as good in the 2nd half

 

Why isn't that fair game to discuss without calling it "nonsense"?

[Big Blitz]

They win that game if they had to go on the road.  

 

They'll never admit it or probably realize it but way too many distractions and hype for the first home game -- against a great team with a HOF QB pissed they've lost the last 2 games to us.

 

 

 

We lose to Miami then we can push panic buttons.  But not today. 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

The flea flicker isn't a bad idea against that type of team. It didn't work because they actually covered well and I still don't think that ball came out right from Allen it kinda floated. The 4th and 1 play against this D was a mind boggling call. 

I think I heard one of the analysts say Diggs broke off the route because it was well covered downfield. I’m guessing it had something to do with why the route and throw looked wonky.

 

4th and one play, McDermott seemed really salty in the post game. when they asked about that forth and 1 he very curtly said “yeah, the one where we threw it backward?” 

[Malazan]

20 minutes ago, MasterStrategist said:

Not defending the call, but we do run QB sneaks almost always on 4th and 1 (since Josh) and had already did 1 earlier on 3rd down.

 

That said, it was a super aggressive call that either works or in this case, makes the off coordinator look like a fool.  I'd have rather we sneak it or hand it to Motor, but if that play would have busted open then we'd all be saying something different

 

No, we wouldn't. On a day when the offense is humming, if the game was a shootout then sure... on this day, against this team it was pure idiocy even if ended up working. 

[Mango]

32 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I would love to look at the screens we tried but don't have time to go all through the film.  Can you point me approximately which drives we tried screens?

 

With regard to Singletary, I think you have a good source of stats so I'm sure that's correct.

It's true that Singletary's longer runs of 15 and 25 but I also think that may be misleading.

 

Singletary had 5 rush attempts in the 1st half:

"up the middle" 8 yds

LT 2 yds

LG 6 yds

LT 1 yd

LT 1 yd

 

It's not a lot of data but I see a pattern there.  It looks like maybe Devin was gaining yards between the tackles, and not gaining a lot trying to run outside.  I kinda think that fits what people have said that he's not fast enough to run outside, and his best rushes will be between the tackles.  

 

The overall YPA was 3.6, which moves the chains

Maybe try a little more?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re: The screen game:  I will have to go back and watch, but off the top of my head there was one to Diggs that was blown up and another that Allen threw into the dirt. The screen game under Daboll has not been terribly great the last few years. 

 

Re Singletary: I went through the play by play on ESPN and checked each Singletary run before the Steelers went up 10 points. Devin Singletary had runs of 8, 2, 6 1, 1, 3, 2, for an average yards per carry of 3.29 . Since you pulled up some his individual runs, we probably used similar or the same source. You just happened to stop at the half and I went to when the Steelers went up +10. I agree the amount of times we ran creates a small sample size. But I also think some of the takes along the lines of "Just run the ball more Singletary is killing it at a million yards per carry" are disingenuous

 

Everything I pulled was valid, all you had to do was go one more quarter and add a few more carries. Maybe you try a little more....
 

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Mango