All-22 Grades for Bills/Ravens (The Athletic)

[HappyDays]

https://theathletic.com/3660688/2022/10/05/bills-all-22-film-review-ravens?source=user-shared-article

 

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1. Milano took over the game on defense

 

He was a dominant force, especially in the second half, and was one of the most significant reasons the Bills could keep the Ravens in check to mount their comeback.

 

Against the run, Milano’s speed and instincts consistently filled the run lane, sometimes firing in to make the stop. He was constantly in a position to make a tackle by beating the blocker to the spot or shedding the block to get free. His stop on second-and-goal from the 1-yard-line to help force a 3-yard loss was the perfect example of his speed, instincts and striking power to make a big play at a big moment. And if it wasn’t Milano making the tackle, he angled his body to force an opposing runner into his teammates. All of this is without mentioning how well he took away receivers in his zone area and feeling when a receiver relocated to his area.

 

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3. A better, but not a standout day for the offensive line

 

The majority of their difficulties, which isn’t a complete surprise given the other three games, was as run blockers. While they weren’t running the wide zone concepts that generated minimal yards, they still had trouble getting a proper push up front.

 

The guard play was again the biggest issue for the Bills. Left guard Rodger Saffold had his best total game of the season but still had some problems sustaining his blocks in the run game. It wound up being a passable day, which is far better than the rest of the season. For the third time in four games, right guard Ryan Bates struggled significantly and was at the bottom of our player grades this week. Bates is having difficulty keeping defenders from using their length against him, and it’s allowing the opponent to get wide and force the run another way. The longer this keeps up with Bates, the more you have to wonder if they’ll look to make a change at some point. He definitely flashes potential as a pass blocker, but he hasn’t had an all-around game to this point in the year. On the positive side, right tackle Spencer Brown had a nice game and one of his best of the early season, a performance the Bills hope he can build on after a treacherous Week 3 in Miami.

 

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4. Davis didn’t look like himself near the end of the game

 

When watching him on film, specifically in the second half, he seemed to be laboring a bit and wasn’t nearly the effective route runner he has worked so hard to become over his first two seasons. Something just didn’t look right, and likely because of it, his ability to separate waned.

 

At least to me, the film showed the Gabe Davis in Week 4 was a bit removed from the same dynamic Gabe Davis from Week 1.

 

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5. Ravens looked content to contain quite a bit

 

Instead of selling out to get into the backfield and possibly leaving themselves vulnerable to Allen breaking the pocket, the Ravens deployed their edge rushers in more of a contain role to confine the quarterback in the pocket as best they could. The Ravens knew the blitz-heavy schemes they threw at Allen in the past weren’t effective any longer. So, playing to some of their injury weaknesses, they took the pressure off those pass rushers to get to Allen, which helped limit some early-game momentum for the Bills.

 

Top 5 grades:

1) Matt Milano (A-)

2) Von Miller (A-)

3) Jordan Poyer (A-)

4) DaQuan Jones (B+)

5) Josh Allen (B+)

 

Bottom 5 grades:

1) Ryan Bates (C-)

2) Prince Emili (C)

3) Gave Davis (C)

4) Damar Hamlin (C+)

5) AJ Epenesa (C+)

[17islongenough]

Did he say anything about Hamlin. I thought he played decent 

[HappyDays]

1 minute ago, 17islongenough said:

Did he say anything about Hamlin. I thought he played decent 

 

Gave him a C+ with the 4th worst ranking on the team. Hamlin has been passable, that's about as much as you can reasonably expect.

[TPS]

He also said Spencer Brown had a good game, so hopefully we are at least decent at the key OL positions (OTs and C)

[Richard Noggin]

That's funny: you omit point #2, "2. The unsung hero on 2nd-and-goal," which is in fact my favorite analysis in this piece. It's about Brandin Bryant being the real reason Milano was able to make that 2nd-and-goal from the 1 yard line. Bryant logs a heck of a rep in beating/occupying an eventual triple team. 

 

[Don Otreply]

6 minutes ago, Richard Noggin said:

That's funny: you omit point #2, "2. The unsung hero on 2nd-and-goal," which is in fact my favorite analysis in this piece. It's about Brandin Bryant being the real reason Milano was able to make that 2nd-and-goal from the 1 yard line. Bryant logs a heck of a rep in beating/occupying an eventual triple team. 

 

This right here is the type of thing that a lot of folk can miss noting when only being focused on the end result, if Bryant doesn’t make the play he does, we may very well have seen a different outcome in the game, just shows how important doing ones 1/11th is to a games outcome.

[Einstein]

57 minutes ago, 17islongenough said:

Did he say anything about Hamlin. I thought he played decent 

 

These are rankings per Joe Buscaglia. They care very little weight.

[Coach Tuesday]

If Milano can stay healthy all season (big if, given his history), he may be named to the All Pro team.

[Big Turk]

30 minutes ago, Einstein said:

 

These are rankings per Joe Buscaglia. They care very little weight.

 

I only really noticed Hamlin twice...the first time was him coming up to make a tackle on the RB as the outside contain guy but he lost contain and the RB bounced outside for like 15 yards and a first down.

 

The other was the play where he came up on 3rd and goal on Jackson to make the tackle

 

[Allen2D̶i̶g̶g̶s̶TBD]

We need to sign a receiver so we can let Gabe Davis' ankle heal properly. 

[JaBu]

3 hours ago, Allen2Diggs said:

We need to sign a receiver so we can let Gabe Davis' ankle heal properly. 

 

However he was listed as FP, Full Participant, on WED. injury report. So he must be near healed up. I'm wondering if those 88 snaps he took in Miami really drained him and had a lasting effect. Diggs constantly took himself out of that game and afterwards had 2 IV's, yet Gabe played virtually every offense snap.

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2022 by JaBu

[Richard Noggin]

1 hour ago, Allen2Diggs said:

We need to sign a receiver so we can let Gabe Davis' ankle heal properly. 

 

What about Davis being listed as a Full Participant in Wednesday's injury/practice report, which is in contrast to his DNP or LP statuses the past couple weeks, especially on Wednesday? Also, did you hear Bulldog on WGR today stress how much better Davis looked at practice compared to the last couple weeks? 

 

It is possible that Gabe Davis has avoided another setback and is in fact feeling better this week. Sure would be nice.

[billsfan89]

3 hours ago, 17islongenough said:

Did he say anything about Hamlin. I thought he played decent 

 

I thought Hamlin was solid but it is hard to tell how good a player plays in coverage on many plays because of camera angles. That being said a C+ in all 22 is a fairly average game so that grade being in the bottom 5 mainly speaks to how very few players had subpar games. 

[TheBrownBear]

Signed up for the NFL+ service and I love the all-22 film.  One thing I noticed with this game is how often there were fairly clear cutback lanes that were missed by our backs.   Devin had a few that would have gone for nice gains if he'd read them correctly.  A guy like Shady would have turned them into 10-20 yard runs.

[NewEra]

3 hours ago, Richard Noggin said:

That's funny: you omit point #2, "2. The unsung hero on 2nd-and-goal," which is in fact my favorite analysis in this piece. It's about Brandin Bryant being the real reason Milano was able to make that 2nd-and-goal from the 1 yard line. Bryant logs a heck of a rep in beating/occupying an eventual triple team. 

 

All the props to Bryant for making that play…. But props to Milano for being a heating seeking missile.  Dude is noticeably more explosive than ever.  Let’s hope he holds up after delivering all these smacks.  All Pro

[Scott7975]

47 minutes ago, NewEra said:

All the props to Bryant for making that play…. But props to Milano for being a heating seeking missile.  Dude is noticeably more explosive than ever.  Let’s hope he holds up after delivering all these smacks.  All Pro

 

True.  I think its no coincidence though that all of our LBers look better since dumping Star L. though.  We have much better line play so our backers are also playing to potential.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Scott7975

[GunnerBill]

I wasn't as high as Joe on Spencer Brown. I thoughy he struggled some again. I agree with him that the LT-LG-C part of the line played well. Thought the right side (both of them) struggled.

[jletha]

I think our guards are a big reason we havent been able to push downfield lately. I know theres chatter that we need to run the ball to get defenses our of Cover 2 but Im skeptical that would even work. I think we will need to be able to generate explosive plays schematically with defenses in cover 2 and that involves longer developing plays. Getting healthy at WR will help but the O-line needs to hold up better.

[Warriorspikes51]

6 minutes ago, jletha said:

I think our guards are a big reason we havent been able to push downfield lately. I know theres chatter that we need to run the ball to get defenses our of Cover 2 but Im skeptical that would even work. I think we will need to be able to generate explosive plays schematically with defenses in cover 2 and that involves longer developing plays. Getting healthy at WR will help but the O-line needs to hold up better.

Wasn't Bates playing LG last year when he was good?

[jletha]

5 minutes ago, Warriorspikes51 said:

Wasn't Bates playing LG last year when he was good?

YEs but then we signed Saffold who is better at LG so we slid Bates to RG.