What the Ravens loss (and many other bad losses) should teach us

[corta765]

8 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

As someone said in the game thread … could the Dolphins go on a run and claim the division?

 

Im trying to get an early start on the bedwetters ..

 

I would say at this point were toast. The Dolphins obviously have all the momentum and the Bills have absolutely NO way of preventing them from catching us

[BigBuff423]

I think the other things the Ravens-Dolphins game was to highlight that the Dolphins Defense was actually pretty decent. Their Offense is putrid, especially without Parker and W. Fuller, not to mention I don't believe in either Tua or Brissett. But the Defense is what caused the Bills the greatest challenge and then some timely throws and Josh Allen doing Josh Allen things, provided the scoring. 

 

I don't know what the next 9 games hold, and playoffs presuming we get there, but I think this is all necessary for the mental part of a true contender to handle and overcome. Bucs last year lost to the Saints in Week 8, 38-3, and turned it on for the rest of the season. I know the Bills can do that as well....but will they? Let's find out.

[BillsFan619]

28 minutes ago, corta765 said:

 

I would say at this point were toast. The Dolphins obviously have all the momentum and the Bills have absolutely NO way of preventing them from catching us

Are you High Football IQ’s cousin?

 

I kid! I kid!

[corta765]

2 minutes ago, BillsFan619 said:

Are you High Football IQ’s cousin?

 

I kid! I kid!

 

As Dunkirk Don would say "follow the money" and you'll find the answer haha

[BillsFan619]

1 minute ago, corta765 said:

 

As Dunkirk Don would say "follow the money" and you'll find the answer haha

Are you admitting that you’re related to him as well? 😜🤣

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

9 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

As someone said in the game thread … could the Dolphins go on a run and claim the division?

 

Im trying to get an early start on the bedwetters ..

 

No - they're worse at running the ball than buffalo, and they don't have a QB to carry the O.  They've scored 20 or fewer points in 7 of 10 games, and they're statistically poor on both sides of the ball.  They're good at taking the ball away, but also good at giving it away.  

 

If their receivers get healthy i can see them making some more noise, but saints titans patriots to end the season likely kills it.  I wouldn't feel particularly confident against NYG or Carolina either.  

34 minutes ago, BigBuff423 said:

I think the other things the Ravens-Dolphins game was to highlight that the Dolphins Defense was actually pretty decent. Their Offense is putrid, especially without Parker and W. Fuller, not to mention I don't believe in either Tua or Brissett. But the Defense is what caused the Bills the greatest challenge and then some timely throws and Josh Allen doing Josh Allen things, provided the scoring. 

 

I don't know what the next 9 games hold, and playoffs presuming we get there, but I think this is all necessary for the mental part of a true contender to handle and overcome. Bucs last year lost to the Saints in Week 8, 38-3, and turned it on for the rest of the season. I know the Bills can do that as well....but will they? Let's find out.

 

They did a good job of crowding the LOS, and daring the ravens to adjust.  The ravens continued to run RPOs and run into a wall.   Kind of the exact opposite of what teams have been doing to buffalo - they were also attacking LJ in his drops with DBs.  

 

Its a smart strategy though - Roman loves to run out of condensed formations which makes crowding the line easier.  They should have spread out more to force them to adjust out of the blitz.

[ColoradoBills]

3 hours ago, Southern_Bills said:

Long season,  enjoy the games. No one knows how it ends regardless of the analytics they cite. They play for a reason. 

 

That's the fact Jack.  Problem is most fans don't want to believe it.

I never predict season records or scores of individual games.  It seems to me that all it does is cause fans to twist themselves to

prove some sort of a point that should never have been made in the first place.

 

Yes, just enjoy the games as they happen and go from there.

[CincyBillsFan]

9 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

There's so much pretzel twisting going on trying to justify the Bills loss that at this pace Ford will be regarded as the best guard in the league by Saturday.

It's not abut justifying the Bills loss but placing it into proper perspective.

 

[Ethan in Cleveland]

I agree with the OP premise

 

But the Bills aren't 7 - 1. They are 5-3 with only one win over a hood opponent.  

 

What we don't know is if the loss to the Jags is the anomaly or if the losses to the Steelers and Titans is the norm.  

 

We won't know until they play better teams. 

[atlbillsfan1975]

Great points @BillsFan619. There are roughly 1,500 men in the world capable of playing this sport any given year. When I started thinking about it that way, it really hit home why “any given Sunday” anyone can win/lose. 

[Brianmoorman4jesus]

If you are one dimensional you can be beat by anyone. That’s why all last year I kept saying….we need balance. I don’t care how great it was. I get it. Our offense scored a lot. I understand. But we are making ourselves one dimensional on purpose. That’s senseless. When a team stops our fastball, we don’t have another pitch. You need BALANCE to be great. You have to at least make a team respect the fact that you can do something else. I’m not asking for a 50/50 split but it can’t be like it is now. There is middle ground. The ravens are the same. If you don’t let Lamar beat you with his legs…you are good.

[Ross Murdock]

The Bills didn't show up. They were lazy, and were believing their press clippings that they were likely headed to SB. They got burned. Yes the O-Line is average at best, same with running backs, but this is essentially the same crew that went to AFC Championship game. I 100% trust coach that the issues will be addressed. I also believe that Josh is a superstar in the making. Were already taking him for granted. Bills likely to lose 5/6 games this year, not get a by which is almost meaningless, and might even be a detrimental in keeping momentum. Tampa never played at home in the playoffs. I see a Bills Titans Matchup once again in Nashville for the AFC. Game will be a tossup. I like our chances. Chill out. Bills are good-to-go.  

[billsfan1959]

1 hour ago, ScottLaw said:

Don’t think it’s any coincidence that offensive struggles the past couple games coincide with the offensive line injuries….. I mean the basically moved the ball at will against the Titans the week before the BYE with a healthy offensive line….. they just can’t afford anymore injuries to an already average AT BEST unit…. It’s a pretty awful unit when any of the starters go down. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope Feliciano gets healthy quickly and he ***** blows….

 

Absolutely right. When healthy and with everyone in the position they should be, the Oline is good enough - not great or even above average - but good enough  with a QB like Allen (and a top 10 defense) to put up enough points to win any game they are in. I also do not think it is any coincidence that their best offensive performances, IMO, have come with Brown starting. This line just does not have the depth to overcome injuries. 

 

I also would say the absence of Knox at the same has hurt as well. Having him as a receiving threat would have been nice while Allen was running for his life on Sunday.

[billsfan1959]

51 minutes ago, Ethan in Portland said:

I agree with the OP premise

 

But the Bills aren't 7 - 1. They are 5-3 with only one win over a hood opponent.  

 

What we don't know is if the loss to the Jags is the anomaly or if the losses to the Steelers and Titans is the norm.  

 

We won't know until they play better teams. 

 

Or, just maybe, the way they played over all in their five wins and the Titans loss (which they probably should have won - but still played well on the road against a team that probably played their best game of the season, and has the best record in the conference) is the norm...

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by billsfan1959

[hondo in seattle]

10 hours ago, BillsFan619 said:

I agree that there are flaws, bro. But every AFC contender has flaws (or in the Titans case an injury to a top player). Even with our flaws, we're still one of the most complete teams, if not the most complete team in the AFC.

 

It's hard for me to call this team "complete" when we can't run, can't block.  

[ngbills]

You have to look at the full picture. Are your wins all very close? Are your wins due to turnovers? Are your wins due to an imbalance - really good O or really good D? Is one player performing on another level? There are so many variables. If the Bills had looked near perfect and then randomly lose to the Jags then I think you cough it up to any given Sunday. But when you have legitimate flaws that have shown up on multiple game days then it is a deficiency that needs to be fixed or you are at risk of losing to any team. Right now the Bills look more like that. There have been games with good numbers. But a lot of that was due to both the schedule and defense helping the offense out a lot with great field position and keeping the other team off the field. But the O has really struggled even in those blow out games. The OL has struggled all season. The running game has not been established. The Allen / Diggs connection has not been there. It needs to be fixed vs just thinking its nothing and all teams lose. 

[prissythecat]

2 hours ago, corta765 said:

 

As Dunkirk Don would say "follow the money" and you'll find the answer haha

wasn’t it “connect the dots” lol

[John from Riverside]

The other team gets paid to play to

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

11 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

So? I didn't think the Ravens were a Super Bowl favorite prior to this game. Coming into the season I thought the Bills were a Super Bowl favorite. Now I am less sure. I thought the Bills were past pitiful offensive performances like that. Just because the Ravens lost to a bad team doesn't mean I feel better about our loss to the Jags.

 

Of course losing to the Jags doesn't mean our Super Bowl chances are zero but it exposed a couple serious flaws with this team. It is by far the worst loss of the McDermott era and the issues that lost us the game have been lurking behind the scenes all year long.

I mean we give the titans a free pass for losing to the jets because of injuries yet we were missing 2 starters on the offensive line and our best cover 2 beater this season Dawson Knox and our only running back that can block left the game with a concussion at halftime.  For a team that’s offensive line has struggled when completely healthy that’s a pretty devastating injury report. Are the issues lurking? We don’t know yet. We were dropping 30+ on everybody when Knox was healthy. If we get some of those guys back and still look bad then we can give up hope but I wouldn’t yet lol

what AFC front runner doesn’t have a terrible loss?

Edited November 12, 2021 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Gen2]

11 hours ago, What a Tuel said:

Bad things that happened this time last year :

 

Got blown out by Titans and Chiefs

Almost lost to the Fitzpatrick led Dolphins

Beat the 2-14 Jets 18-10

Almost lost a 25 point lead to the Rams

Almost lost to the Cam Newton led Patriots if it weren't for a last minute fumble

 

Bad things that happened this year so far:

 

Upset against the Steelers

Tough close loss against the Titans

Upset against the Jaguars

I get what you are trying to say ... but ...

 

Last year, getting blown out by the Titans & Chiefs was bad I agree, but that was only two games, and they're both darn good teams. The next 4 examples were WINS and in my humble opinion, a win is never a bad thing.

 

Now this year had we "almost lost" to the Steelers, and "almost lost" to the Jags and lost a tough close game against the Titans I could see where we improved from last year, but it seems we are turning our "almost losses" to upsets and "almost wins". I can comfortably dismiss the loss to the Steelers as first game of the season yada yada yada, I can easily dismiss the loss to the Titans as we don't match up well yada yada yada, but the #1 scoring team being unable to score a single touchdown against the Jags is just unfathomable.