So, 8 games in, here’s what I think…

[Success]

Great post, and I agree w/ the overall assessment.

 

I think the question that most of us have:  are the deficiencies on the line and at RB fatal flaws, that could prevent us from winning it all this year?  I can definitely see a situation where both areas are the main focus of the offseason, and (if we can limit personnel losses), we go into 2022 as a true SB contender, with few if any identifiable weaknesses.

 

Obviously, not every SB champion has been perfect & without flaws.  I still think the Bills CAN make a run this season, and win a Lombardi.  But overcoming the flaws we have will take great creativity, and some of the stronger units on the team to pick up the slack.

 

[MJS]

The more I hear the talk about Daboll and the offensive coaches like Bobby Johnson being a big part of the problem, the more I think that is the likely culprit.

 

We've seen all of these offensive linemen have good games. They have all shown promise besides maybe Ford. Williams was good last year. Feliciano has had good stretches. Morse was considered one of the top centers in the league before coming here, now he seems like he is average or maybe above average. We've seen good play from Dawkins. We've even seen Ike and Bates play well before. Brown, as a rookie, has flashed many times.

 

They just don't play well as a unit. Maybe they don't communicate well enough. Maybe they aren't preparing well enough.

 

While I agree that we do not have elite guys, they should be able to be a serviceable line. They shouldn't go entire games playing badly as an entire unit. The individual pieces, I think, are better than the sum. And we've seen some of our castoff linemen go to other teams and play well.

 

That has to be coaching and preparation, right? Does the blocking scheme not align well with the players? They seem slow out of their stances sometimes. They aren't planning well this year in how to take away or help mitigate the big time players of opposing defenses, instead allowing those players to get one-on-one matchups and sometimes free rushes.

 

So maybe a coaching or line scheme change is in order.

[eball]

So…we good now?  Last week’s board was a joke.  I hope some people learned their lessons.

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

27 minutes ago, eball said:

So…we good now?  Last week’s board was a joke.  I hope some people learned their lessons.

 

😂 Shirley you jest?

The 

 

Big Bad Wolf Pats** are lurking 

Edited November 15, 2021 by SlimShady'sSpaceForce

[Nextmanup]

On 11/9/2021 at 7:36 AM, BuffaloRebound said:

I suspect if we lose to the Jets, we’ll find out how the offense feels about the coaching.  Zero balance and no commitment to the run… my guess is the O-Line feels like they’re not put in a position to succeed.  They’re certainly playing that way.  

How do you feel now about our "commitment to the run" following the Jets game?

 

 

[TampaBillsJunkie]

On 11/9/2021 at 8:07 AM, SCBills said:

When you break down the OL player by player, it looks better than what we’ve seen as a whole.  

When healthy, with Williams and Feliciano at Guard, this OL has potential to be good - especially if they could ever develop some continuity.  
Our OL depth is an absolute disaster though.  In a perfect world, Feliciano would be a backup, but he’s currently the weak link at starter when healthy.  Anything after Feliciano is barely playable at the moment. 
TE is an extension of the OL.  Knox is fantastic, but again, the depth is brutal.  Sweeney is an entire struggle bus out there. 

 

To me, as much as I love Feliciano as a person, he has lost a bit since his pec injury.  I don't see the same upper body push. A lot of times his legs are holding up but his upper body is getting pushed back.  The most obvious was when he drew the hands to the face penalty on a pass play and they showed the replay in slow motion. His feet were planed and he had great technique, but as the DT was pushing and his upper body kept sliding back until the hands that were on Feliciano's chest rolled up to his face mask.  I don't think the DT expected his upper body to bend like that. 

 

So where Feliciano used to be a mauler in the run game and Singletary would find nice holes between him and Dawkins, those plays no longer work. 

Running to the right side where Brown and Williams switched roles also hasn't worked well because they haven't played together to communicate enough. I think Brown is a mauler and will help, but I'm not sure Williams at RG has long term benefits.  You can't run straight up the gut, because Morse is weak, surround by out of place or weak guards. 

 

Boettger is serviceable and I think the line we saw yesterday is our best combo. How they hold up to an elite defense in the playoffs is the real question. 

 

The best thing they did was get Breida involved and spread out the offense, but as we saw, effective as Breida was, he fumbled. This is why he is inactive. A costly fumble in a playoff game is deadly. I've been screaming for Breida all year and when he scored twice, all I could think of is "what the hell is wrong with Daboll and McD keeping him on the bench. 

 

After the fumble I realized this must be his liability and it happens enough in practice to keep him off the field on Sunday. 

 

What SCBills said about TE is spot on too. Would have been good to keep Holiister or even Lee Smith around. Knox stepped up but when he was out, we saw how shallow our depth is. 

 

Every team has some depth issues somewhere and if the starters are hurt, that team can get exposed. With Edmonds and Star out, we still held up pretty well on D. With Brown and Knox out, our offense suffered.  It's almost surreal to say that Knox is now a key to our offense, but he just might be. 

 

I would expect to address OL and TE very early in the draft next year. 

 

The good thing I saw yesterday was that the Bills found a mismatch and kept exploiting it. Jets had no one who could come close to guarding Diggs and  

Josh kept feeding him. We need more of that. find the mismatch and exploit it. When the defense figures it out, scheme up plays to create the next on. We have enough weapons on offense to do this.

 

Either way, it was great not to see any resemblance of that J-ville nightmare pop up in this game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 11/9/2021 at 8:07 AM, SCBills said:

When you break down the OL player by player, it looks better than what we’ve seen as a whole.  

When healthy, with Williams and Feliciano at Guard, this OL has potential to be good - especially if they could ever develop some continuity.  
Our OL depth is an absolute disaster though.  In a perfect world, Feliciano would be a backup, but he’s currently the weak link at starter when healthy.  Anything after Feliciano is barely playable at the moment. 
TE is an extension of the OL.  Knox is fantastic, but again, the depth is brutal.  Sweeney is an entire struggle bus out there. 

 

To me, as much as I love Feliciano as a person, he has lost a bit since his pec injury.  I don't see the same upper body push. A lot of times his legs are holding up but his upper body is getting pushed back.  The most obvious was when he drew the hands to the face penalty on a pass play and they showed the replay in slow motion. His feet were planed and he had great technique, but as the DT was pushing and his upper body kept sliding back until the hands that were on Feliciano's chest rolled up to his face mask.  I don't think the DT expected his upper body to bend like that. 

 

So where Feliciano used to be a mauler in the run game and Singletary would find nice holes between him and Dawkins, those plays no longer work. 

Running to the right side where Brown and Williams switched roles also hasn't worked well because they haven't played together to communicate enough. I think Brown is a mauler and will help, but I'm not sure Williams at RG has long term benefits.  You can't run straight up the gut, because Morse is weak, surround by out of place or weak guards. 

 

Boettger is serviceable and I think the line we saw yesterday is our best combo. How they hold up to an elite defense in the playoffs is the real question. 

 

The best thing they did was get Breida involved and spread out the offense, but as we saw, effective as Breida was, he fumbled. This is why he is inactive. A costly fumble in a playoff game is deadly. I've been screaming for Breida all year and when he scored twice, all I could think of is "what the hell is wrong with Daboll and McD keeping him on the bench. 

 

After the fumble I realized this must be his liability and it happens enough in practice to keep him off the field on Sunday. 

 

What SCBills said about TE is spot on too. Would have been good to keep Holiister or even Lee Smith around. Knox stepped up but when he was out, we saw how shallow our depth is. 

 

Every team has some depth issues somewhere and if the starters are hurt, that team can get exposed. With Edmonds and Star out, we still held up pretty well on D. With Brown and Knox out, our offense suffered.  It's almost surreal to say that Knox is now a key to our offense, but he just might be. 

 

I would expect to address OL and TE very early in the draft next year. 

 

The good thing I saw yesterday was that the Bills found a mismatch and kept exploiting it. Jets had no one who could come close to guarding Diggs and  

Josh kept feeding him. We need more of that. find the mismatch and exploit it. When the defense figures it out, scheme up plays to create the next on. We have enough weapons on offense to do this.

 

Either way, it was great not to see any resemblance of that J-ville nightmare pop up in this game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 11/9/2021 at 8:07 AM, SCBills said:

When you break down the OL player by player, it looks better than what we’ve seen as a whole.  

When healthy, with Williams and Feliciano at Guard, this OL has potential to be good - especially if they could ever develop some continuity.  
Our OL depth is an absolute disaster though.  In a perfect world, Feliciano would be a backup, but he’s currently the weak link at starter when healthy.  Anything after Feliciano is barely playable at the moment. 
TE is an extension of the OL.  Knox is fantastic, but again, the depth is brutal.  Sweeney is an entire struggle bus out there. 

 

To me, as much as I love Feliciano as a person, he has lost a bit since his pec injury.  I don't see the same upper body push. A lot of times his legs are holding up but his upper body is getting pushed back.  The most obvious was when he drew the hands to the face penalty on a pass play and they showed the replay in slow motion. His feet were planed and he had great technique, but as the DT was pushing and his upper body kept sliding back until the hands that were on Feliciano's chest rolled up to his face mask.  I don't think the DT expected his upper body to bend like that. 

 

So where Feliciano used to be a mauler in the run game and Singletary would find nice holes between him and Dawkins, those plays no longer work. 

Running to the right side where Brown and Williams switched roles also hasn't worked well because they haven't played together to communicate enough. I think Brown is a mauler and will help, but I'm not sure Williams at RG has long term benefits.  You can't run straight up the gut, because Morse is weak, surround by out of place or weak guards. 

 

Boettger is serviceable and I think the line we saw yesterday is our best combo. How they hold up to an elite defense in the playoffs is the real question. 

 

The best thing they did was get Breida involved and spread out the offense, but as we saw, effective as Breida was, he fumbled. This is why he is inactive. A costly fumble in a playoff game is deadly. I've been screaming for Breida all year and when he scored twice, all I could think of is "what the hell is wrong with Daboll and McD keeping him on the bench. 

 

After the fumble I realized this must be his liability and it happens enough in practice to keep him off the field on Sunday. 

 

What SCBills said about TE is spot on too. Would have been good to keep Holiister or even Lee Smith around. Knox stepped up but when he was out, we saw how shallow our depth is. 

 

Every team has some depth issues somewhere and if the starters are hurt, that team can get exposed. With Edmonds and Star out, we still held up pretty well on D. With Brown and Knox out, our offense suffered.  It's almost surreal to say that Knox is now a key to our offense, but he just might be. 

 

I would expect to address OL and TE very early in the draft next year. 

 

The good thing I saw yesterday was that the Bills found a mismatch and kept exploiting it. Jets had no one who could come close to guarding Diggs and  

Josh kept feeding him. We need more of that. find the mismatch and exploit it. When the defense figures it out, scheme up plays to create the next on. We have enough weapons on offense to do this.

 

Either way, it was great not to see any resemblance of that J-ville nightmare pop up in this game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 11/9/2021 at 8:07 AM, SCBills said:

When you break down the OL player by player, it looks better than what we’ve seen as a whole.  

When healthy, with Williams and Feliciano at Guard, this OL has potential to be good - especially if they could ever develop some continuity.  
Our OL depth is an absolute disaster though.  In a perfect world, Feliciano would be a backup, but he’s currently the weak link at starter when healthy.  Anything after Feliciano is barely playable at the moment. 
TE is an extension of the OL.  Knox is fantastic, but again, the depth is brutal.  Sweeney is an entire struggle bus out there. 

 

To me, as much as I love Feliciano as a person, he has lost a bit since his pec injury.  I don't see the same upper body push. A lot of times his legs are holding up but his upper body is getting pushed back.  The most obvious was when he drew the hands to the face penalty on a pass play and they showed the replay in slow motion. His feet were planed and he had great technique, but as the DT was pushing and his upper body kept sliding back until the hands that were on Feliciano's chest rolled up to his face mask.  I don't think the DT expected his upper body to bend like that. 

 

So where Feliciano used to be a mauler in the run game and Singletary would find nice holes between him and Dawkins, those plays no longer work. 

Running to the right side where Brown and Williams switched roles also hasn't worked well because they haven't played together to communicate enough. I think Brown is a mauler and will help, but I'm not sure Williams at RG has long term benefits.  You can't run straight up the gut, because Morse is weak, surround by out of place or weak guards. 

 

Boettger is serviceable and I think the line we saw yesterday is our best combo. How they hold up to an elite defense in the playoffs is the real question. 

 

The best thing they did was get Breida involved and spread out the offense, but as we saw, effective as Breida was, he fumbled. This is why he is inactive. A costly fumble in a playoff game is deadly. I've been screaming for Breida all year and when he scored twice, all I could think of is "what the hell is wrong with Daboll and McD keeping him on the bench. 

 

After the fumble I realized this must be his liability and it happens enough in practice to keep him off the field on Sunday. 

 

What SCBills said about TE is spot on too. Would have been good to keep Holiister or even Lee Smith around. Knox stepped up but when he was out, we saw how shallow our depth is. 

 

Every team has some depth issues somewhere and if the starters are hurt, that team can get exposed. With Edmonds and Star out, we still held up pretty well on D. With Brown and Knox out, our offense suffered.  It's almost surreal to say that Knox is now a key to our offense, but he just might be. 

 

I would expect to address OL and TE very early in the draft next year. 

 

The good thing I saw yesterday was that the Bills found a mismatch and kept exploiting it. Jets had no one who could come close to guarding Diggs and  

Josh kept feeding him. We need more of that. find the mismatch and exploit it. When the defense figures it out, scheme up plays to create the next on. We have enough weapons on offense to do this.

 

Either way, it was great not to see any resemblance of that J-ville nightmare pop up in this game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[billsfan1959]

1 hour ago, eball said:

So…we good now?  Last week’s board was a joke.  I hope some people learned their lessons.

 

What's funny is that there were maybe 8-10 posters who just overwhelmed this board with their outrage over anything and everything to do with this team. Today, you would think they would be here celebrating a pretty good all around showing by their team. Yet, you see only a brief post here and there from some of them and none from most of them.

 

Oh, and my guess is they didn't learn their lesson and will be out in full force after the next bad game...

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by billsfan1959

[TampaBillsJunkie]

On 11/9/2021 at 8:07 AM, SCBills said:

When you break down the OL player by player, it looks better than what we’ve seen as a whole.  

When healthy, with Williams and Feliciano at Guard, this OL has potential to be good - especially if they could ever develop some continuity.  
Our OL depth is an absolute disaster though.  In a perfect world, Feliciano would be a backup, but he’s currently the weak link at starter when healthy.  Anything after Feliciano is barely playable at the moment. 
TE is an extension of the OL.  Knox is fantastic, but again, the depth is brutal.  Sweeney is an entire struggle bus out there. 

 

To me, as much as I love Feliciano as a person, he has lost a bit since his pec injury.  I don't see the same upper body push. A lot of times his legs are holding up but his upper body is getting pushed back.  The most obvious was when he drew the hands to the face penalty on a pass play and they showed the replay in slow motion. His feet were planed and he had great technique, but as the DT was pushing and his upper body kept sliding back until the hands that were on Feliciano's chest rolled up to his face mask.  I don't think the DT expected his upper body to bend like that. 

 

So where Feliciano used to be a mauler in the run game and Singletary would find nice holes between him and Dawkins, those plays no longer work. 

Running to the right side where Brown and Williams switched roles also hasn't worked well because they haven't played together to communicate enough. I think Brown is a mauler and will help, but I'm not sure Williams at RG has long term benefits.  You can't run straight up the gut, because Morse is weak, surround by out of place or weak guards. 

 

Boettger is serviceable and I think the line we saw yesterday is our best combo. How they hold up to an elite defense in the playoffs is the real question. 

 

The best thing they did was get Breida involved and spread out the offense, but as we saw, effective as Breida was, he fumbled. This is why he is inactive. A costly fumble in a playoff game is deadly. I've been screaming for Breida all year and when he scored twice, all I could think of is "what the hell is wrong with Daboll and McD keeping him on the bench. 

 

After the fumble I realized this must be his liability and it happens enough in practice to keep him off the field on Sunday. 

 

What SCBills said about TE is spot on too. Would have been good to keep Holiister or even Lee Smith around. Knox stepped up but when he was out, we saw how shallow our depth is. 

 

Every team has some depth issues somewhere and if the starters are hurt, that team can get exposed. With Edmonds and Star out, we still held up pretty well on D. With Brown and Knox out, our offense suffered.  It's almost surreal to say that Knox is now a key to our offense, but he just might be. 

 

I would expect to address OL and TE very early in the draft next year. 

 

The good thing I saw yesterday was that the Bills found a mismatch and kept exploiting it. Jets had no one who could come close to guarding Diggs and  

Josh kept feeding him. We need more of that. find the mismatch and exploit it. When the defense figures it out, scheme up plays to create the next on. We have enough weapons on offense to do this.

 

Either way, it was great not to see any resemblance of that J-ville nightmare pop up in this game.