Thoughts on Bengals Game.

[dakrider]

Hopefully Hamlin recovers and the Bills and Bengals meet in an Epic AFC Championship game!  Will render last nights game moot. 

[Fan in San Diego]

1 hour ago, BRH said:

If we could rewind to the Hamlin play and have him get up and be okay, but too injured to continue -- and I wish to hell we could -- that would have left us with a backup nickel corner, a backup to the backup to one safety, the other safety playing with a knee injury, the #1 corner still recovering from his own knee injury, and the #2 corner being either a rookie who has struggled to adjust to zone coverage or a guy who has struggled mightily at the point of catch all season long.

 

And we had already blinked on our first drive by running a throwaway play (because Allen couldn't hear the play coming in), then not connecting with Beasley, and then deciding to take three instead of going for the first down in the red zone.

 

You can think what you want about the Bills' offense making enough plays to win.  I know they were up to that challenge.  But unless the defensive line was eventually able to get home and rattle Burrow into sacks or errant throws, it really wasn't looking good at that point.

 

 

If that game had been in Cincinnati, I doubt the Pats even come close to a comeback.  We would have had a better chance, for sure.  And we righted the ship in similar conditions in Baltimore already this year.  But we were digging ourselves a pretty bad hole already.  Add to that the PI call on Tre and the momentum swing after we thought we had recovered a fumble that wasn't, and it just didn't look good.  Not saying we couldn't have won -- and I would never support giving Cincy a win because of eight plays -- but everyone has to admit that this was not one of our better starts, even taking into account our propensity to give up a first-drive score and take awhile for the offense to fully click.

We are a second half team anyways. Halftime adjustments would have been made.

[newcam2012]

2 hours ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

There's about a half dozen on this board who do not  believe it's a 4 quarter game.

No one is saying that. At least I'm not. I think you are taking many people's posts out of content. 

 

All we have to go by is the 5 minutes and change of the game. With respect, it certainly wasn't going as planned or hoped by Bills players or fans. That's the point I am making. From the start, the Bills D was getying gashed and smashed. Sorry, there is no other way to say it or see it.

 

Now, could the Bills come back and win the game? Absolutely they could have. We've seen it time and time again. This team is tough, resilient,  and does win close games.

 

However, the Bills were behind early, on the road, playing an excellent team with an elite QB and excellent receivers, and extremely banged up and thin in the secondary. Add that all up and it's a tough sell to me seeing the Bills win. 

[dave mcbride]

36 minutes ago, dakrider said:

Hopefully Hamlin recovers and the Bills and Bengals meet in an Epic AFC Championship game!  Will render last nights game moot. 

Everyone wants him to fully recover, but if he does there is ZERO chance he plays football again this season.

[newcam2012]

2 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

I’m dealing with many ‘friends’ who’ve been blasting the Bills Defense on the opening drive. Morons. Here’s my response:

 

“Get a grip. Cincy has a very dynamic offense. Very best trio of WRs and a Super Bowl QB. Everyone who follows the Bills closely knew it would be a barn burner between Allen & Burrow. It was developing exactly as anticipated. Allen threw a ***** pas that Beasley managed to get open to make the catch but isn’t 7’ tall..”

 

Damn. They’re worse than this lot!

Here is the issue with what you said. Prior to the game, so many here refused to acknowledge or see exactly what you said about Cinci.

That includes you too sir.

 

I

 

[BillsfaninSB]

3 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

No one is saying that. At least I'm not. I think you are taking many people's posts out of content. 

 

All we have to go by is the 5 minutes and change of the game. With respect, it certainly wasn't going as planned or hoped by Bills players or fans. That's the point I am making. From the start, the Bills D was getying gashed and smashed. Sorry, there is no other way to say it or see it.

 

Now, could the Bills come back and win the game? Absolutely they could have. We've seen it time and time again. This team is tough, resilient,  and does win close games.

 

However, the Bills were behind early, on the road, playing an excellent team with an elite QB and excellent receivers, and extremely banged up and thin in the secondary. Add that all up and it's a tough sell to me seeing the Bills win. 

I agree with you.  I was getting a bad vibe before the game and during.  It felt like the Colts game last year.   Things were just not going to go their way last night. 

[newcam2012]

2 hours ago, Einstein said:

 

Well I never said that, so… ok.

 

But yeah the Patriots didn’t lose 2 defensive starters before the end of the 1st quarter either.

 

.

Agree what baffles me is that the Bills D were getting blasted by the Bengals with their best line up. Yet, people think the Bills D is going to step up being down 2 starters in the secondary. Maybe I just don't know football. 

[NewEra]

8 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

No one is saying that. At least I'm not. I think you are taking many people's posts out of content. 

 

All we have to go by is the 5 minutes and change of the game. With respect, it certainly wasn't going as planned or hoped by Bills players or fans. That's the point I am making. From the start, the Bills D was getying gashed and smashed. Sorry, there is no other way to say it or see it.

 

Now, could the Bills come back and win the game? Absolutely they could have. We've seen it time and time again. This team is tough, resilient,  and does win close games.

 

However, the Bills were behind early, on the road, playing an excellent team with an elite QB and excellent receivers, and extremely banged up and thin in the secondary. Add that all up and it's a tough sell to me seeing the Bills win. 

And all you have to realize is…… that doesn’t mean a dam thing. It only means that they played well for 8 plays.  Sure they could keep it up.  Or our D could also step up and make plays.  The crappy Cinci OL showed you 8 plays.  They were going to get bested on, at least, a handful of plays.  Those plays can lead to turnovers and end drives. 
 

8 plays is 8 plays.  You can’t draw any conclusions based on 8 plays.  Any sane human being would tell you the same.  
 

but yeah, Cinci played well on O for 8 plays.  Our O did exactly what they needed to for 10 plays and then S Brown missed a blitzer and Josh/Cole misfired.   Cinci would inevitably have drives that end in similar fashion.  And our offense would inevitably score more than a couple TDs. 

[Motorin']

5 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

Agree what baffles me is that the Bills D were getting blasted by the Bengals with their best line up. Yet, people think the Bills D is going to step up being down 2 starters in the secondary. Maybe I just don't know football. 

 

I really have no idea how you can spend an ounce of energy bantering about x' and O's right now. Too soon man, too soon. 

[Drew21PA]

We only got 3 but I liked where it was going 

[dave mcbride]

15 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

No one is saying that. At least I'm not. I think you are taking many people's posts out of content. 

 

All we have to go by is the 5 minutes and change of the game. With respect, it certainly wasn't going as planned or hoped by Bills players or fans. That's the point I am making. From the start, the Bills D was getying gashed and smashed. Sorry, there is no other way to say it or see it.

 

Now, could the Bills come back and win the game? Absolutely they could have. We've seen it time and time again. This team is tough, resilient,  and does win close games.

 

However, the Bills were behind early, on the road, playing an excellent team with an elite QB and excellent receivers, and extremely banged up and thin in the secondary. Add that all up and it's a tough sell to me seeing the Bills win. 

Here’s the thing about the NFL that we know all too well: early on, a team looks great and on the road to victory. But then — in a sport with a 100 percent injury rate for players — injuries happen and players go down. Burrow gets hurt; Chase gets hurt; the Bengals lose yet another corner; you name it — all of these things happen regularly every week. It’s impossible to predict the outcome of 7-3 game less than 9 minutes in unless it’s a really good team playing at home against a bad team. 

[newcam2012]

2 hours ago, SCBills said:

 

My pushback would be that the Bills season-long data would tell you they adjust.   For better or worse.. that's the Bills Defense this year. 

I don't dispute that. However, the Bills were going to be down 2 starters in the secondary and have Tre White looking average at best. I'm not convinced lots of adjustments would have slowed the Bengals down. Imho, the Bills just didn't have a healthy enough defense to stop them. I would have had little confidence they would have made the big plays when needed. Sure I could be wrong. I think it's safe to say the Bills defense got worse not better after losing 2 starters. 

 

If the Bills were going to win it was because of the offense. They would have have to played exceptionally well which is viable. Plays like the Beasley missed pass wouldn't have cut it. 

2 hours ago, Caesar said:

I don't disagree with this comment, that said the Bengals DC is perhaps the best in the league with halftime adjustments - thus at the least there would had been some offset.

Bingo. I already said this. 

2 hours ago, BuffaloRebound said:

The only thing I took from the first 10 minutes of the game is that the Bengals had a plan to go right at Tre White, and were so confident in that plan succeeding that they elected to receive the opening kickoff.  

The Bengals attacked the Bills secondary With all their weapons. It wasn't just a Chase show. If it was I'd be more inclined to think the Bills could step up and stop them. Burrows has his way picking apart the Bills secondary finding the open receiver. 

[newcam2012]

1 hour ago, Sharky7337 said:

What is really concerning to me, is the bills defense is supposed to be a good unit, and the Bengals absolutely said we don't think they are and just totally disrespected them in a sense by wanting the ball first. 

 

That says to me that our defense isn't worth the money and investment we have in it right now.

 

 

The defense when healthy is elite. However, with the injuries the Bills have I think they are good to very good. It clearly shows when they play inferior teams. However, I really don't trust this defense to stop quality playoff offenses. That's exactly what we saw for 5 minutes in Cinci. 

[newcam2012]

25 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

Our special teams still suck despite the investment year after year.

Gets me a little upset that the Bills kept Kumerrow and let Hodges walk. 

[BigAl2526]

5 hours ago, NewEra said:

The bengals had 8 plays on offense…..

 

an nfl game has multiple twists and turns.  Game plans change.  Coaches adjust.  We can’t tell much of anything based on what we saw.  

Agreed.  Frazier has made adjustments in the past against teams that started out like a juggernaut.  There's no way to know whether he could have done so this time or not.

Edited January 3, 2023 by BigAl2526

[newcam2012]

25 minutes ago, Motorin' said:

 

I really have no idea how you can spend an ounce of energy bantering about x' and O's right now. Too soon man, too soon. 

I respect that. 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

43 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

No one is saying that. At least I'm not. I think you are taking many people's posts out of content. 

 

All we have to go by is the 5 minutes and change of the game. With respect, it certainly wasn't going as planned or hoped by Bills players or fans. That's the point I am making. From the start, the Bills D was getying gashed and smashed. Sorry, there is no other way to say it or see it.

 

Now, could the Bills come back and win the game? Absolutely they could have. We've seen it time and time again. This team is tough, resilient,  and does win close games.

 

However, the Bills were behind early, on the road, playing an excellent team with an elite QB and excellent receivers, and extremely banged up and thin in the secondary. Add that all up and it's a tough sell to me seeing the Bills win. 

I still don’t really agree with this even with the 5 minutes we saw…the bills oline was dominating and the bengals oline was holding on for dear life. If the bills can run the football they are nearly impossible to stop and it was much more likely the bills were going to get home for a big time sack than the bengals.  
 

that game was far from a likely loss 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[BillsBy50]

Who could’ve guessed this travesty would bring out all the in-house Mafia haters claiming Bills were gonna get smoked in this game based on TEN MINUTES OF FOOTBALL??

[newcam2012]

26 minutes ago, NewEra said:

And all you have to realize is…… that doesn’t mean a dam thing. It only means that they played well for 8 plays.  Sure they could keep it up.  Or our D could also step up and make plays.  The crappy Cinci OL showed you 8 plays.  They were going to get bested on, at least, a handful of plays.  Those plays can lead to turnovers and end drives. 
 

8 plays is 8 plays.  You can’t draw any conclusions based on 8 plays.  Any sane human being would tell you the same.  
 

but yeah, Cinci played well on O for 8 plays.  Our O did exactly what they needed to for 10 plays and then S Brown missed a blitzer and Josh/Cole misfired.   Cinci would inevitably have drives that end in similar fashion.  And our offense would inevitably score more than a couple TDs. 

Of course we are playing he said she said. Of course we are speculating. Of course no one knows how the game would have ended. However, I just can't refuse to acknowledge what I saw in the game 5 minutes or not...I can't help but think Bengal fans and players think they have the better team. 

[Loyal BF]

It’s close to irrelevant what happens on the first drive of the game.

 

Cincy did exactly the same thing (but much more) against NE, going up 22-0, and maintained the lead until about 4 min left in the 3rd quarter.

 

Then, they allowed the anemic Pats offense (and a pick 6) to roar back and scored the next 18 points.  NE was about to get the winning TD when they fumbled the ball at the Bengal’s 8 yard line with 55 seconds left.

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by Loyal BF