Not News - This roster just isn't good enough.

[Nextmanup]

The overall talent level of the team is not nearly as bad as people think in this thread.

 

It's still good enough to do some serious damage in the playoffs, just as it did last year.

 

The question is whether or not we peak and get some good coaching at the right time.

 

We aren't that far away.

 

 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

8 hours ago, gobills404 said:

This roster is objectively better than the one that went 13-3 and made it to the AFCCG. This team is just comically inconsistent, prone to getting punched in the mouth, and loves shooting itself in the foot. To me that falls squarely on coaching.

 

While the results certainly are not there, you could argue, the biggest weakness last year was the D line, he used the first two round picks, brought in Obada, and got Star back.  Rest of unit basically the same.  Defense IMO overall is better this year.  Even last night gave up over 200 yards on the ground, but that was the entire yards gained for NE so can't fault last night too much.  Certainly the Indy game the defense was gashed both running and enough passing ,as was in the Tenn game.

 

Offensively brought the same team back, the one that went 13-3 and was the #2 rated offense last season in a year with limited money.  On paper hard to argue with that, however the results are nothing like last year, mainly on the offensive line and to a lesser degree RB.  They weren't all that great last year either.

 

Not sure I'd say it's objectively better, but not any worse.  Is it coaching or have the players just somehow regressed, aged fast, effects of Covid, etc??

[RevWarRifleman]

11 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

Back in March, I started a topic: "I'm Not Sure We Will Repeat as AFCE Champs"

 

I was concerned about a few things including our poor OL and lack of a running attack.  And while a few brave souls agreed with me, I was assaulted by the mob.  My football wisdom was doubted.  My intellect insulted.  My manhood questioned.  Worst of all, I even had my Bills Mafia membership card revoked!

 

https://www.twobillsdrive.com/community/topic/231992-not-sure-we-will-repeat-as-afce-champs/

 

Yet today I read that the suicide hotline in Buffalo is experiencing a spike in calls while fans want McDermott, Daboll, and every other Bills coach drawn and quartered - and then fired.   

 

I hated watching the Pats beat us last night but I'm not pulling my hair out.  I never shared the Super Bowl expectations of my Mafia brothers and sisters (if I can still claim a familial relationship after being expelled from the club).  I just never believed this roster was good enough.

 

And, look, I'm not knocking Beane.  Today's roster is better than the one he inherited.  But he - clearly - has more work to do before the Bills can make a Super Bowl run.

 

 

 

After watching last night's game, I thought of the Bills as Ebenezer Scrooge in crying out "I'm NOT the man I used to be! I'm NOT the man

I used to be"!!!

[Pete]

18 hours ago, freddyjj said:

Not sure it's that bad.  Loved Archie but surprised he only won 35 of 140 starts in his career and only made 2 Pro Bowls.  Never made the playoffs either as was only bright light on some bad teams in NOLA, HOU and MInny.

Definitely not that bad- it’s slight hyperbole to make a point.  Archie had no one.  Bills have talent, just not on oline.  I’m sick of seeing Josh getting clobbered. The Bills line can’t block Jacksonville.  Even bad teams tee off on Josh.  Manning was big, tough, fast, canon armed- but he was a broken horse after awhile.  That would be tragic if that happened to Josh

[muppy]

13 hours ago, JohnBonhamRocks said:

Agree with OP but especially as to our lines - give me an off-season full of big uglies!

Mean Big Ones the uglier the better. Did you see the team photo montage intros for the pats*

 

I rest my case.

 

m 

[hondo in seattle]

On 12/7/2021 at 6:15 PM, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

While the results certainly are not there, you could argue, the biggest weakness last year was the D line, he used the first two round picks, brought in Obada, and got Star back.  Rest of unit basically the same.  Defense IMO overall is better this year.  Even last night gave up over 200 yards on the ground, but that was the entire yards gained for NE so can't fault last night too much.  Certainly the Indy game the defense was gashed both running and enough passing ,as was in the Tenn game.

 

Offensively brought the same team back, the one that went 13-3 and was the #2 rated offense last season in a year with limited money.  On paper hard to argue with that, however the results are nothing like last year, mainly on the offensive line and to a lesser degree RB.  They weren't all that great last year either.

 

Not sure I'd say it's objectively better, but not any worse.  Is it coaching or have the players just somehow regressed, aged fast, effects of Covid, etc??

 

I get what your saying - that the team on paper looks like it should be at least as good as the 13-3 squad we fielded last year.  Statistically, our D is better than last year.  

 

But I think last year - credit the coaches - we beat some teams we weren't actually better than.

This year - blame the coaches - we lost some game to teams we weren't worse than.

 

Also, even though the offensive line roster didn't change much, our OL is performing even worse this year than last year.  Is that a Bobby Johnson thing or something else?

 

 

[GunnerBill]

On 12/7/2021 at 3:16 PM, NewEra said:

Knock him.  
 

Past success doesn’t allow free passes in the present.  I love Beane.  I don’t want him (or McD) fired.  Yet his decisions along the DL, OL and RB position during his tenure have kept us from winning a SB (last year and looks worse this year).

 

He chose this IOL. They can’t open any holes in the run game.  He chose the RBs that aren’t decisive (and talented) enough to be productive behind this OL.  He paid the DL big bucks to be an average DL (which led to our OL being somewhat neglected this offseason).

 

he deserves criticism.  He doesn’t deserve to be fired.  

 

This is absolutely it. All the talk of firings and hot seats is silly. Overall Beane has still done a very good job. He has made some mistakes though and those have shown up on the field this season.

[hondo in seattle]

On 12/7/2021 at 10:04 AM, Pete said:

we have this young stud at QB, and we never had a plan to protect Josh.  Very myopic IMO.  It reminds me a little of Archie Manning- all the talent in the world, but he ran for his life most every play.

 

I was a bit of an Archie Manning fan back in the day.  One of the best QBs of his era but never had a team around him.  Constantly got knocked on his ass.  Never experienced a winning season in his decade as the Saints QB.  

 

 

[hondo in seattle]

12 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

This is absolutely it. All the talk of firings and hot seats is silly. Overall Beane has still done a very good job. He has made some mistakes though and those have shown up on the field this season.

 

After all those years of irrelevance and misery, I certainly don't want to fire Beane or McD.   And I assume they both went into this season wide eyes open, knowing the deficiencies of the squad.  They're smart football guys who, jointly, transformed the Bills into a playoff contender - if not yet a Super Bowl contender.  

 

So I give them both a lot of credit.  Yet I do find it perplexing that Beane made so little attempt to improve the OL.  I get that draft and cap resources are limited.  I get that the offense scored a lot of points last year with the same line.  But I personally worried about the OL all offseason.  Beane should have worried more.

 

I still have hope for this season - we'll see if McD can right the ship.  And I'm really curious to see what Beane will do in the offseason.

 

 

[oldmanfan]

People act like children around here sometimes, and if you’re on the Bills Mafia Facebook page it’s even worse.  Here’s the reality:

 

1. Our team is set up to throw the ball on offense and stop the pass on defense.  We will defeat teams that have liabilities in pass defense.  We will struggle against teams that are set up to run the ball.

 

2.  We are not tough enough up front on either side of the ball.  The primary issue on the O line is that Dawkins is still affected by Covid, Williams regressed after last year, and Feliciano has been hurt and Brown was an idiot.  On D Star was an idiot, Zimmer went down, and Harry has a PCL.  We won’t be able to fix some of these till after the season, but if you recall Beane brought tons of O line guys into camp.  They need to fix the O line by drafting.

 

3.  Coaching has been suspect.  Could we have schemed better in some games?  Yeah.  Daboll and Frazier have to figure out answers to the run game but with the personnel up front solutions may be limited.

 

It would not surprise me in the slightest if we go undefeated the rest of the way nor would it surprise me if we go 3-2.  It’s a weird year in the league.

[colin]

i think we have a very good roster, but our allocations/where we got lucky just aren't balanced.

 

rookie RT is perhaps our best o lineman, which is saying a lot because he didn't play for a year and is raw.  the rest of the line has issues, and it seemed like we had solid back ups before, but now w guys like ford totally regressing, we can't afford an injury.

 

our DL is stacked, tons of picks and the most money in the nfl in it.  the issue is our two highest paid guys, houghs and addison, are old as dirt and not impact players.  our top DT, Star, got sick at a bad time.  aside from that, we have a ton of picks and money invested in part time players.  i get the reason for the rotation, but we have so much depth at the same positions and no one seems to be breaking out, so you have high picks and big salaries on the bench by design.  those picks and salaries could have been put to better use on starters at our thinner positions.

 

we get outstanding db play, really think our coaches might be the best there, but our depth is a touch thin as we may see w tre being hurt.

 

TE, RB, they just need upgrades, just a dearth of ability there.  LB im actually good w.  WR we are kinda monster, but again depending on our formation, guys are on the bench a lot.  davis i think is our future, doesn't get enough burn, sanders is old and like replacement level for us (davis or diggs fill in for him and have the same impact or greater), bease looks hurt, and we benched our speedy gadget guy.

 

i really hope we can improve by re allocating money on non starters (DL rotation, klien and mattawitch who are OK but get way too much to ride the pine, sanders) and sign like 2 high impact players and draft to fill in the rest.

 

shorter version: we have way too much draft and cap capital sitting in depth.

[Big Turk]

Basically the difference between us being 10-2 and 7-5 is a handful of plays in the 4 close games we had.  Last year, we made those plays.  This year we haven't.  

 

Don't really think it has to do with the roster as much as it does our performance and execution in key situations.

[muppy]

1 hour ago, Big Turk said:

Basically the difference between us being 10-2 and 7-5 is a handful of plays in the 4 close games we had.  Last year, we made those plays.  This year we haven't.  

 

Don't really think it has to do with the roster as much as it does our performance and execution in key situations.

and coaching/ gametime adjustments/planning added but otherwise I concur absolutely correct imo

Edited December 9, 2021 by Muppy

[mjd1001]

This has been covered over and over but this is a new thread to me so here goes:

 

Its the OL.  Is every other single position on the team perfect? No, but the OL is the issue on this team.  They can't run block at all. I truly do not think the RBs aren't good enough, other than an occasional missed read (which happens to just bout all RBs), they are fine.  The OL just is awful at run blocking. They were bad last year and might be even worse this year.

And as far as pass blocking, they are average-to-below average there. Josh Allen and his mobility save this line from looking bad in pass protection. But watch most games...more often than not by the time he takes a 3 or 5 set drop, he already has to pay attention to where the pressure is coming from.

If this OL was average-to-good so many other problems on this team would either go away or we wouldn't notice them.

[Big Turk]

1 minute ago, mjd1001 said:

This has been covered over and over but this is a new thread to me so here goes:

 

Its the OL.  Is every other single position on the team perfect? No, but the OL is the issue on this team.  They can't run block at all. I truly do not think the RBs aren't good enough, other than an occasional missed read (which happens to just bout all RBs), they are fine.  The OL just is awful at run blocking. They were bad last year and might be even worse this year.

And as far as pass blocking, they are average-to-below average there. Josh Allen and his mobility save this line from looking bad in pass protection. But watch most games...more often than not by the time he takes a 3 or 5 set drop, he already has to pay attention to where the pressure is coming from.

If this OL was average-to-good so many other problems on this team would either go away or we wouldn't notice them.

 

Last year they were good to great pass blocking and especially at blitz pickups, this year not so much.

Also were better run blocking last year...not great but certainly not atrocious like they are this year.

[mjd1001]

4 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

Last year they were good to great pass blocking and especially at blitz pickups, this year not so much.

Also were better run blocking last year...not great but certainly not atrocious like they are this year.

For sure they were not good to great at pass blocking.  Allen covered up for a lot of their lack of talent there. Average, maybe, but there were dozens and dozens and dozens (it not more) plays were pass protection broke down and Allen saved them.

[Sharky7337]

Color me surprised you got flamed by Homer's on this board. 

[Big Turk]

10 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

For sure they were not good to great at pass blocking.  Allen covered up for a lot of their lack of talent there. Average, maybe, but there were dozens and dozens and dozens (it not more) plays were pass protection broke down and Allen saved them.

 

Go back and watch those games.  When teams blitzed the OLine literally swallowed them up like an amoeba and the RB's stonewalled the blitzing players. Allen would have all day back there even when they blitzed.  

 

You are making up a narrative that is convenient rather than one based on what actually happened.  

[SCBills]

 

26 minutes ago, Sharky7337 said:

Color me surprised you got flamed by Homer's on this board. 

 

I'm definitely not a homer.  We have serious flaws, and are now without one of our best players.   

 

That said, please tell me what AFC teams stand in our way that we simply don't have a strong enough roster to beat?

 

-We beat KC. 

 

-We went down to the wire with a fully healthy Titans team.  

 

-Baltimore has a ton of injuries, a bad defense and Lamar still struggles to throw the ball.  

 

-Chargers?  They are West Coast Bills. 

 

-Bengals, Pats, Steelers, Browns?  You don't think we have enough on this roster to beat them?  We lost to two of those teams, by one score, due to execution - not talent. 

 

Now if you, or the OP, would like to tell me the coaching and/or players mental ability to execute could hold us back... I'd agree.  Those two aspects of this team are very much in question right now. 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2021 by SCBills

[Logic]

2 hours ago, Big Turk said:

Basically the difference between us being 10-2 and 7-5 is a handful of plays in the 4 close games we had.  Last year, we made those plays.  This year we haven't.  

 

Don't really think it has to do with the roster as much as it does our performance and execution in key situations.

This is a key point.

Convert the 4th down in Tennessee and score on one of the 4th quarter red zone trips against the Pats and the Bills are likely 9-3 today, with the top seed in the AFC.

Now, I get it: If my aunt had nuts she'd be my uncle. Wins are wins and losses are losses.

Still, this team is a few poorly executed plays away from being set up for a first round bye in the playoffs and home field throughout.

Alas....