The ease of 3rd & long against the Bills

[HoofHearted]

36 minutes ago, 3rdnlng said:

A more experienced DB in that 4th and long that Jefferson made that miraculous catch on in the Vikings game would have punched it out instead of trying to intercept it. A breakup on 4th down would have given us better field position than an interception. That would have basically ended the game. 

No doubt.

[K-9]

3 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

TBH, the coverage is there and usually very tight. I chalk it up to just some really great throws lately, and some bad luck. On that Cooper TD, Johnson had his arm between Cooper and the ball and he is still caught it. What else is he supposed to do? 

Yeah, it’s nice that we have guys in position to make plays but as to what else are they supposed to do? 
 

How about making the mother F ing play! Between last week and this week, our DBs simply can’t make a big play when it’s needed and that doesn’t bode well considering we will be facing some more very good receivers but in the weeks to come.

[Simon]

45 minutes ago, 3rdnlng said:

A more experienced DB in that 4th and long that Jefferson made that miraculous catch on in the Vikings game would have punched it out instead of trying to intercept it. A breakup on 4th down would have given us better field position than an interception. That would have basically ended the game. 

 

I'm gobsmacked that I cannot find a Tom Jackson "Knock it down!" meme. 

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

2 minutes ago, K-9 said:

Yeah, it’s nice that we have guys in position to make plays but as to what else are they supposed to do? 
 

How about making the mother F ing play! Between last week and this week, our DBs simply can’t make a big play when it’s needed and that doesn’t bode well considering we will be facing some more very good receivers but in the weeks to come.

there was one play last week where the ball was tipped in mid air, then the DB stuck his arm in at the catch and tipped it again, and Jefferson still caught it. I mean, what else can you do?

 

I go back to maybe it’s time to just grab and hold more. Force these refs to call it. Our receivers are constantly getting grabbed, and we never get those calls. 

[K-9]

1 minute ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

there was one play last week where the ball was tipped in mid air, then the DB stuck his arm in at the catch and tipped it again, and Jefferson still caught it. I mean, what else can you do?

 

I go back to maybe it’s time to just grab and hold more. Force these refs to call it. Our receivers are constantly getting grabbed, and we never get those calls. 

Good players, when in a position to make a play, make a play more often than not. It’s for that reason that I can’t say our CBs are good. They’re adequate and that just won’t cut it consistently. That’s also why they won’t get the benefit of the doubt when they clutch and grab. 

[Ethan in Cleveland]

Seems to me they are leaving Taron Johnson on an island to help the outside guys. Even then the safeties are rotating over late. McD and Frazier have mixed it up with some man coverage. But still for the most part they are a zone coverage team on third down and opposing offenses seem to be able to line up their #1 WR against the Bills weak point. Maybe that is just coincidence.  

I would be fine if they only rushed 3 and dropped 8 on some of these really long distances. 

The Milano blitz worked but they got beat on the blitz yesterday too.

Get White, Edmunds, and Rousseau back and things will get better.

[DrPJax]

7 hours ago, Success said:

I feel like this goes back to the Houston playoff game.  The Bills seem to give up more 3rd and double-digit yards than any team I've seen.

 

Note: this is not a scientific observation.  There are probably stats for this, but I don't know where to find them.  

 

But man, does it seem like that's a bad down for us. I feel more confident when the other team has 3rd and 5 than 3rd and 14.  

 

What gives?  Am I overreacting?  

Not overreacting!  Our dbs are terrible tracking the ball , rarely make PBU’s , drop too far off receivers and give up the first down marker , then are poor tacklers with bad pursuit angles.  There’s a reason they currently are all low round draft picks.  We miss poyer, hyde , white , and even Elam should be better. Currently we lack a #1 cb or shut down corner so we get exposed on these long distance downs , esp as our line can’t get home to finish sacks either. Bad situation. Frazier can’t keep sitting back until we beat healthy, or this will continue. 

[Nitro]

More line stunts might help the pass rush.  Too many times it was straight bull rush up the middle and wide attack by the DEs with easy throws or scrambles

[JoshAllin]

If the secondary was healthy and not filled with backups, Von would have 16 sacks by now and the dline would be surging. There's so much he could do right now givin the situation and still hold them as the top 3 defense in the league

[JohnNord]

10 hours ago, buffblue said:

Dane is consistently in good coverage but rarely makes a play on the ball. Getting his head turned would certainly help

This is the problem.  If Dane gets his head around, some of those catches are incomplete

[SUNTANBILLS FAN]

Two words " Frazier sucks"

[Bookie Man]

SEND THE HOUSE

[zow2]

9 hours ago, BuffaloRebound said:

How many of those passes even get thrown if there’s a fear of getting picked off?  Hyde, Poyer, and White were ballhawks. Now we’re down to Poyer when he’s not injured.  

 

Taron is a pretty good ball hawk too.  He aggressively goes after it if a possible INT is there.  Otherwise I agree, the other guys just try to cover.  They don't go after it.

[Matt_In_NH]

Maybe Tre will be “ready” soon

[pocoboy]

12 hours ago, Success said:

I feel like this goes back to the Houston playoff game.  The Bills seem to give up more 3rd and double-digit yards than any team I've seen.

 

Note: this is not a scientific observation.  There are probably stats for this, but I don't know where to find them.  

 

But man, does it seem like that's a bad down for us. I feel more confident when the other team has 3rd and 5 than 3rd and 14.  

 

What gives?  Am I overreacting?  

 

I think teams have begun to realize that our current starters at corner are deficient at breaking up passes. Ever since the opponents started attacking more down the field on 3rd down, it's shown these guys aren't good at reading the receiver's eyes to react to the arriving pass.

 

 

 

[HoofHearted]

12 hours ago, Roundybout said:

I think the guys on WGR put it really well tonight: 

 

Frazier still calls a defense as if he has every one of his starters playing, including White and Hyde, and won't scheme anything different. He puts an insane amount of responsibility on his players, even lesser players like Jaquan Johnson. 

 

It doesn't work. We have the talent still, but he isn't using it right. I don't know if it was him or McD that called the blitzes later, but they worked really well and made Brissette uncomfortable. 

The guys on WGR couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re playing extremely simplistic right now with all these guys in compared to what we’ve done in the past with Poyer and Hyde in to disguise coverages.

 

The pressure stuff stands out when it works because of the big negative plays. We blitzed and played man in the first half of the game as well and got burned on it multiple times (Taron Johnson gave up a touchdown when we were in man).

 

The point is we’re running these pressures consistently throughout games. People only notice when we get sacks though.

[TheBrownBear]

14 hours ago, TheCockSportif said:

I'm not sure if coaching can help this, but certainly a viewing of the movie "The Exorcist" could be a guide.  Talk about head on a swivel...

I'd sign up for this, and maybe the occasional spider walk and projectile vomiting in the face of the opponent's no. 1 WR, but that's as far as I'm willing to go with The Exorcist style of defense.

[HoofHearted]

To the people talking about this being a scheme issue… it’s not. We’re littered with back-up players in the backend of our defense and have been for extended periods of time this season. I did some digging. This year we are currently the 11th worst defense in conversion rate on third and longs (3rd and 7+). However since McDermott got here the Bills rank 9th in the league in the same metric.

 

 

I think what gets lost on a lot of people here is how important Poyer and Hyde are to our defense, not from an ability standpoint, but from a mental standpoint. Our ability to be extremely simple with our scheme but show multiple different pre-snap looks out of the same call because our Safety tandem is intelligent enough to handle multiple different disguise looks is invaluable to our defense in those situations.

 

Sitting at the game yesterday there was very little disguising going on in the back end. We telegraphed all game when we were in 3 vs when we were in man based on alignments and stances. Poyer at times was telling Hamlin where to line up or cheat to.

 

We don’t have the players on the back end to rush 6 and sit in man coverage behind it on 3rd and longs. However without the ability to show one coverage look pre-snap and move to an entirely different coverage post-snap we’re making it easy for opposing QBs to diagnose what we’re in.

 

Unfortunately that’s just where we’re at with so many injuries. Only so much we can do right now. Have to slow the bleed - force teams to be patient and take the underneath throws all game - and hope they make mistakes along the way.

Edited November 21, 2022 by HoofHearted

[Bob in STL]

15 hours ago, Success said:

I feel like this goes back to the Houston playoff game.  The Bills seem to give up more 3rd and double-digit yards than any team I've seen.

 

Note: this is not a scientific observation.  There are probably stats for this, but I don't know where to find them.  

 

But man, does it seem like that's a bad down for us. I feel more confident when the other team has 3rd and 5 than 3rd and 14.  

 

What gives?  Am I overreacting?  

I think you are over-reacting but he bottom line is we have played this season with mostly all backups in the secondary and even down to 3rd team players.  They held up for awhile and they are finally showing a few cracks. 

 

We need more heat on the QB to help the young and inexperienced secondary.