The two-point conversion fail

[Spiderweb]

19 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

A few comments about the 2-point conversion fail:

 

1) McKenzie was taking a lot of grief after the game for going to the corner, as opposed to Scooting upfield and kind of diving in. There is no chance for him to do it on this play. He had no angle other than the corner.

 

2) if you want to blame someone, blame Gilliam. Gilliam blocked the safety, but tried to just blow him up, as opposed to engaging him in a block. The safety just bounced off of him, and made it to the corner to get McKenzie.

 

3) Broader issue. I know the math said to go for 2, but in a game when you aren’t playing your best, you are playing an inferior opponent, and there is a full quarter and a half, why go for two? I would argue that you have to just keep accumulating points. 
 

the 2-point play is at 9-minute mark here:

 

 

 

Had Gilliam mad a better block, McKenzie gets the 2 points. It was that simple.

[Negan]

McKenzie should have tried to hold the ball out and risk the fumble, cause who cares if he fumbles on a two point conversion.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Negan

[Ralonzo]

19 hours ago, FireChans said:

You’re wrong. The math is the math for a reason in a situation like that. 
 

Good decision. Decent playcall. Players didn’t execute. Oh well. 

 

The "math charts" were created to be a guide for the 4th quarter. Before that, it's commonly understood that there's too much game left to need to chase points, particularly for the team leading.

[wagon127]

9 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

But there is a difference. If you're up by 13 and you get one more FG drive you've put the opponent in a position where they need 2 TD drives with successful 2 point conversions just to tie the game. All these analytics based decisions seem to forget that you will get other possessions that will change the math. Case in point the Browns had an outside chance to win this game if they recovered the onside kick all because we didn't take the easy XP. It's stupid to worry about the score margin with a full 20 minutes to go. Take points while you can until you're forced to be aggressive. Football has become so needlessly complicated.

Let me know when Buffalo going for 2 in the 3rd quarter eventually costs them a game then. I prefer they keep doing what they are doing. They won by 8.... 

 

I believe, attempting to go up by 14 was the simple solution. 

[FireChans]

48 minutes ago, Ralonzo said:

 

The "math charts" were created to be a guide for the 4th quarter. Before that, it's commonly understood that there's too much game left to need to chase points, particularly for the team leading.

It’s commonly understood by who lmao.

 

Being up 14 > being up 13. Forever and always. Easy call.

 

The math is the math for a reason. So folks who don’t understand math can’t go, “ah but that feeling in my gut!”

[Golden*Wheels]

21 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

1) McKenzie was taking a lot of grief after the game for going to the corner, as opposed to Scooting upfield and kind of diving in. There is no chance for him to do it on this play. He had no angle other than the corner.

 

Little as he is, he is allowed to try to go partway #28. I certainly feel he has a chance to just go vertical and be tough enough to get there. Do his instincts as a speed guy lead him to that? Prob not, and that's fair. And maybe then if he doesn't get it, I'm mad he didn't go to the edge. But I don't buy no chance. There's always a chance.

 

Sadly, his instincts didn't tell him to extend the ball on a play where there us next to nothing to lose. He really was prepping for the hit that shouldn't have been there thanks to Gilliam.

[DrDawkinstein]

I get the math behind the decision. Coaches have cards that have all the formulas of exactly when they should and shouldnt go for 2. So if it is one of those scenarios, I can justify listening to the formula.

 

However, if you need 2 TOUGH yards, then McKenzie is the last player who should be getting the ball. He doesnt have the mass or power to fight for extra inches. He has already illustrated this numerous times. He reminds me of Roscoe Parrish. Fast, agile, athletic, but doesnt have the mass to absorb hits in the NFL.

 

Not blaming it on McKenzie, he can't help his size.

 

If we were going to run, it should be a power run with the snap taken under Center to give the RB a chance to get a head of steam before hitting the line.

 

Or if we are going to run McKenzie outside, get him in motion so he already has momentum going.

 

I'm frustrated with once again leaving easy points on the field, and wish we would've just taken the 1. But I can justify that decision.

 

The playcall and personnel is my issue on this play. If we ran that with Hines, I'd bet he gets in simply due to having 30lbs and more power than McK.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

18 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

This is the second onside kick with 19 seconds left. Watch carefully how close the Cleveland player came to not only coming up with the ball but running it in for a TD. The Bills nearly blew another game.

Td is literally impossible on that play…kicking team can’t advance it.  Browns were gonna have to recover the onside kick then go 60ish yards with no timeouts in 19 seconds and come up with the two point conversion just to tie the game. wayyy less likely to happen than that goal line fumble against the Vikings and even that was extremely unlikely 
 

 

Idk if people just don’t know that rule or what but this game wasn’t even remotely close.  Being disappointed about beating arguably the best team in the trenches and the 4th ranked offense by 8 points due to 2 late garbage time tds doesn’t make a lot of sense to me 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[plenzmd1]

19 hours ago, I'm Spartacus said:

The math, the math, the math. Sometimes analytics is a pain in the a$$.

The problem is coaches don't listen to the math enough!

 

Historically( since the XP was moved) 2 pt conversion successful a little under 49% of the time, 1 pt conversion a little under 95% of the time.

 

The MATH says go for the 2 pt every single stinking time, plain and simple. But like they did with 4th down probabilities and going for it more , once coaches have some cover by some newer thinking analysts they will eventually adjust and go for mostly 2pt conversion except when a single point will  make it a two score game or 3 score game mid to late 4th. 

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

1 hour ago, Golden*Wheels said:

 

Little as he is, he is allowed to try to go partway #28. I certainly feel he has a chance to just go vertical and be tough enough to get there. Do his instincts as a speed guy lead him to that? Prob not, and that's fair. And maybe then if he doesn't get it, I'm mad he didn't go to the edge. But I don't buy no chance. There's always a chance.

 

Sadly, his instincts didn't tell him to extend the ball on a play where there us next to nothing to lose. He really was prepping for the hit that shouldn't have been there thanks to Gilliam.

I don’t know. I went back and watched it again, and the defender is on McK so fast and at such a tight angle that he has no chance to cut it up. He also really had no chance to even extend the ball, given the other defender coming in. 
 

I think the play was probably designed to be a race to the corner, and it would have worked easily if Gilliam had tried to engage on his block. 

[PromoTheRobot]

44 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Td is literally impossible on that play…kicking team can’t advance it.  Browns were gonna have to recover the onside kick then go 60ish yards with no timeouts in 19 seconds and come up with the two point conversion just to tie the game. wayyy less likely to happen than that goal line fumble against the Vikings and even that was extremely unlikely 
 

 

Idk if people just don’t know that rule or what but this game wasn’t even remotely close.  Being disappointed about beating arguably the best team in the trenches and the 4th ranked offense by 8 points due to 2 late garbage time tds doesn’t make a lot of sense to me 

What's the rule on advancing the ball is the receiving team is ruled to have lost possession of the ball?

 

[Shaw66]

37 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Td is literally impossible on that play…kicking team can’t advance it.  Browns were gonna have to recover the onside kick then go 60ish yards with no timeouts in 19 seconds and come up with the two point conversion just to tie the game. wayyy less likely to happen than that goal line fumble against the Vikings and even that was extremely unlikely 
 

 

Idk if people just don’t know that rule or what but this game wasn’t even remotely close.  Being disappointed about beating arguably the best team in the trenches and the 4th ranked offense by 8 points due to 2 late garbage time tds doesn’t make a lot of sense to me 

This thread is interesting because there are so many different issues going on at the same time.  I'll comment on a few. 

 

First, the bolded.   Yes, Bills controlled the game, but the two garbage time TDs bother me.   The Bills have shown over and over that they let teams back into the game late.   I think their defense gets too conservative, because they don't want to give up the big play, and the result is that they give up touchdown drives that do eat some clock but that require the team to make plays to win the game late.   That game should not have come down to recovering an onside kick, and that isn't the first time it's happened.   Did that style of play work against the Browns?  Yes.   Did it work against the Vikings?

 

I think people who are arguing that in the third quarter you always take the points don't understand analytics.  Good analytics allow you to understand the probabilities of winning the game if you get zero, one, or two points in that situation.   Someone told McDermott that the best probability of winning was going for two.   Those probabilities include the likelihood of all different kinds of things happening in the final 20 minutes.   I've always believed that you should take the points the game is giving you unless you need the points, so I would have kicked the extra point, but I understand that statistically, that was the wrong move.  After all, being ahead by 12 is no different from being ahead by 13, and being ahead 14 would have been much better.   So, I'm guessing McDermott made the right call.

 

EXCEPT, I'm not do sure the analytics include data about how horrible the Bills have been lately when they need two yards.   That's why going for it on fourth down against the Vikings was such a terrible decision.   The Bills had been awful all game when they needed two yards, and they had been the week before.   McDermott definitely should have taken the field goal. 

 

And I think that comes to the real point, which is that I think Dorsey is not getting the job done.   He has to have plays to get two yards and so far as I can tell, he doesn't.  That's a real indictment.   Okay coach, what do you have on third and two?   Well, he seems to have nothing.  

 

Sending McKenzie wide is just not the play.   McKenzie is not a guy who gets the last half yard.  He relies on his speed, and his speed alone.  That's my problem with Cook, too.   If you're going with a ball carrier in that situation, it has to be Motor.   He's the only choice.   Earlier in the season, they would throw a screen to Diggs.   If Diggs had run the play that McKenzie ran, I'd guess that Diggs would have scored.   He certainly wouldn't have run out of bounds.  Or Hines. 

 

If the Bills don't have the personnel to run that play successfully, then why are they running it?   It's on Dorsey.

 

And yes, Gilliam has to find a way to make the block.  

 

And yes, give credit too to the defense, but we don't care about the Browns.  We care about the Bills, and the Bills continue to underperform.   

 

One other thing.  Allen.  They're not giving the ball to Allen.  We haven't seen any power runs with him in a while.   Certainly his elbow is a concern.   But I also think that the Bills are still keeping plays in their pocket.   December games is when we're going to start seeing some more variety in the offense, and we're going to see them turn Allen loose on occasion.   

 

 

[LABILLBACKER]

1 hour ago, DrDawkinstein said:

I get the math behind the decision. Coaches have cards that have all the formulas of exactly when they should and shouldnt go for 2. So if it is one of those scenarios, I can justify listening to the formula.

 

However, if you need 2 TOUGH yards, then McKenzie is the last player who should be getting the ball. He doesnt have the mass or power to fight for extra inches. He has already illustrated this numerous times. He reminds me of Roscoe Parrish. Fast, agile, athletic, but doesnt have the mass to absorb hits in the NFL.

 

Not blaming it on McKenzie, he can't help his size.

 

If we were going to run, it should be a power run with the snap taken under Center to give the RB a chance to get a head of steam before hitting the line.

 

Or if we are going to run McKenzie outside, get him in motion so he already has momentum going.

 

I'm frustrated with once again leaving easy points on the field, and wish we would've just taken the 1. But I can justify that decision.

 

The playcall and personnel is my issue on this play. If we ran that with Hines, I'd bet he gets in simply due to having 30lbs and more power than McK.

30lbs....more power....and faster. 

[DrDawkinstein]

32 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

And I think that comes to the real point, which is that I think Dorsey is not getting the job done.   He has to have plays to get two yards and so far as I can tell, he doesn't.  That's a real indictment.   Okay coach, what do you have on third and two?   Well, he seems to have nothing. 

 

 

Lots of good points, but I want to focus on this one.

 

It's a much bigger problem than 3rd and 2. In the Vikings game we had 3 2nd half possessions in a row stall on 2nd and 2 because we couldnt pick up 6 effing feet on 2 tries. We get into short yardage situations and Dorsey calls plays that sends everyone 10-20 yards downfield. This continued all through the Browns game too.

 

For as complicated as modern NFL Xs and Os can be, football is still a simple game. Line up and move the frickin ball.

 

It blows my mind

[Golden*Wheels]

50 minutes ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

I don’t know. I went back and watched it again, and the defender is on McK so fast and at such a tight angle that he has no chance to cut it up. He also really had no chance to even extend the ball, given the other defender coming in. 
 

I think the play was probably designed to be a race to the corner, and it would have worked easily if Gilliam had tried to engage on his block. 

I get ya man my thing was just, sometime the play doesn't work and players have to adjust. I do think using his speed was the goal all along and expecting his little behind to bull rush in....heck it'd be second guessed even more than what went down.  

 

The more I watched the vid tho, the more I did get kinda mad that he didn't dive under the hit to the line, or just extend the ball. He literally pulls BACK from the goal line at the last second to get ready for the hit. Knowing even a fumble is super unlikely to hurt you there....dang. You gotta be willing to get lit up.

[colin]

5 hours ago, Boatdrinks said:

McKenzie needed to dive at the pylon.. he was far too uptight for a player of his build to score. The guy just seems to lack some situational awareness. 

 

 

honestly, that's the short of it.  dude just does not have good awareness.  he runs like hell, and if it leads him the right way, he's electric.  if he didn't run the right way, he's done.  he's never like read whats in front of him and done something.

 

the 4th down pic vs minni was tragic.  he runs himself out of bounds, freeing up the cb to pick the ball, and then he sits there after the interception.  total zero play.

[Shaw66]

5 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

Lots of good points, but I want to focus on this one.

 

It's a much bigger problem than 3rd and 2. In the Vikings game we had 3 2nd half possessions in a row stall on 2nd and 2 because we couldnt pick up 6 effing feet on 2 tries. We get into short yardage situations and Dorsey calls plays that sends everyone 10-20 yards downfield. This continued all through the Browns game too.

 

For as complicated as modern NFL Xs and Os can be, football is still a simple game. Line up and move the frickin ball.

 

It blows my mind

When they went for it on fourth down instead of kicking the field goal in the Vikings, I was screaming at them.   What possibly made them think they would convert on fourth and two from the seven when they had just failed on second and two and third and two?   If they had a play that would have worked on fourth and two, why didn't they run it on second down.  And they had already failed FOUR times on second or third and two or 1 in the second half!    

 

That's a huge failure.  

[dave mcbride]

On 11/21/2022 at 2:14 PM, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

Gilliam had a brutal day.   

 

He missed a number of blocks in limited opportunity.   He had one good block.........and got rather unfairly flagged for holding on it........which in large part turned what looked like a certain TD drive into a FG.   But when you suck at blocking and finally execute one I suppose it could seem suspicious. 

 

I never blame refs for a result,  you always have chances to make other plays and overcome bad calls.........but this was a particularly lopsidedly called game, IMO.

 

Just a lousy crew of officials that I hope we don't see again.

 

But I actually think the steady supply of adversity helped get them out of their funk and remain focused.    Officiating was part of that.

I honestly thought that was a blatant hold because while he started off well, he did what Dawkins did: got his arm around the defender's waist while taking him down. Easy call. Stupid on his part because he didn't need to. Same with Dawkins vs the Jets. Keep your damn hands in when you know you're taking a guy down! It's not that hard if you know the rules. And it's the sort of thing that's SO clearly visible to refs.

Edited November 22, 2022 by dave mcbride

[HappyDays]

5 hours ago, FireChans said:

Being up 14 > being up 13. Forever and always. Easy call.

 

Being up 8 > being up 7. You could use this logic to always go for 2 point conversions and 4th down attempts. Practically the game doesn't work that way. Stack points and worry about being aggressive when it becomes necessary.

[Gugny]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

When they went for it on fourth down instead of kicking the field goal in the Vikings, I was screaming at them.   What possibly made them think they would convert on fourth and two from the seven when they had just failed on second and two and third and two?   If they had a play that would have worked on fourth and two, why didn't they run it on second down.  And they had already failed FOUR times on second or third and two or 1 in the second half!    

 

That's a huge failure.  

 

This pissed me off more than I've been pissed about the Bills in years.  Huge failure is absolutely right.