Post-game thoughts after a disappointing loss

[Logic]

I'm just gonna get my thoughts out about this painful loss before I take some time away from this forum. It takes me a while to get over season ending losses, so I'm gonna take a break for a bit, and I'll be back for free agency and draft season. Until then...

Right now, I'm not angry, I'm just really disappointed. What a painful way for this season to end. After a season in which the Bills only ever really beat themselves and lost just three games by a combined eight points, the Bills picked a hell of a time to get thoroughly dominated on both sides of the ball. This loss is so disappointing, so painful, exactly for that reason: because the Bills were just thoroughly and absolutely dominated. This game was never really close. The Bills never really had a chance. With as talented a team as they are -- that was a really painful and deflating way for the season to end.

As Brandon Beane is fond of saying, playoff losses show you where you're NOT as a football team. They show you where you're lacking. Well, what did today's loss show us?

 

To start with, this was a total team loss. No one unit or coach or player is solely to blame. From the front office, to the coaching staff, to the players, everyone shares the blame for this loss. 

If you want to understand the main reason the Bills lost the game, just look at the battles in the trenches. The Bills were outclassed convincingly on both the offensive and defensive lines. This is a failure of the front office -- Yes, of Brandon Beane, who we all love. So much draft capital and money spent on the defensive line, and they couldn't even SNIFF Burrow today. Yes, Jones and Miller were out, but that's no excuse. The Bills still boasted multiple 1st round players on the d-line. Couldn't stop the run, couldn't pressure the passer. Absolute domination. The front office also deserves blame for the mediocre-at-best offensive line they trotted out there this season, which was soundly beaten multiple times by Cincinnati defensive linemen. Brandon Beane needs to take a long hard look this offseason at the offensive line and yes, somehow, again, at the defensive line.

Next up we have the coaches. It is hard to conclude anything other than this: The Bills offensive and defensive coaching staffs were BOTH outcoached today. The offense lacked creativity, rhythm, reason. The defense -- which, yes, was without some key players -- looked absolutely toothless. When you boast defensive minds like Sean McDermott and Leslie Frazier, getting out-schemed and beaten as badly as they were today by the Cincy offense simply should never happen -- injured players or not. Today saw total failures of coaching on both sides of the ball.

Lastly, the players deserve blame. For as much as I can say about the personnel and the coaching, at the end of the day, it's up to the players to make the plays. The offensive linemen got whipped all day. The defensive linemen got driven off the ball all day. The corners and linebackers had multiple coverage mixups. The receivers dropped passes. The quarterback missed open receivers or went big play hunting at inopportune times -- again. 

The bottom line is this: Despite a season with many highs and many great moments and a 13-3 record, all of the Bills' season-long deficiencies caught up with them today. The sky is not falling, and the Bills are likely to be playoff and title contenders for years to come. But unless they want to exist a Groundhog's Day of painful yearly playoff exits, they're going to have to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and figure out a way to fix the multiple things that ail them. 

Personnel, coaching, execution in big moments, all of it needs to be better. It was a hell of a season, and I'm proud of the Bills for weathering an insane amount of adversity to make it to the Divisional round of the playoffs. But that's not enough for me, and I know it's not enough for the players and coaches either. It's up to them to figure out how to make sure it doesn't happen again in 2023.

[Coach Tuesday]

Oh so now it’s ok to be critical of the team @Logic?

[oldmanfan]

An old fashioned ass kicking plain and simple.  Out muscled, outcoached, out everythinged.

[Big Turk]

I just think they were spent. They looked spent. They looked flat and they looked like the tank was on E. 

 

People may say otherwise but based on the accumulation of things week after week to overcome, at some point you just have nothing left to give.

 

I can't be mad at them. They went thru so much this year, probably more than any team in history when you look at everything combined.

 

Hamlin is OK, that's good enough for me. 

 

They need to sort things out, figure out what they are going to do and come up with ways to overcome their shortcomings which look far bigger than they did at the start of the season right now.

[BillsFanSD]

Couldn't agree more.  Very nice write-up.

 

My only caveat would be that this seemed to be "one of those days" in terms of it being a total team breakdown.  And the Bengals are a very good team.  Let's hold off drawing sweeping conclusions from this one game in particular.  But man, we've had issues with both lines all season . . . 

[Buckets]

ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

 

 

I'm better now.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Buckets
Ad I'm better now

[No_Matter_What]

We had a hard look in the mirror last year and brought Von Miller. Unfortunately for us, he wasn't here when it mattered.

 

I know I am in a minority here but I wouldn't draw any significant conclusions from this loss. Our season was extremely derailed by the first Cincy game, we haven't recovered from that and it showed today. There were other things also but this one was the most important imo.

[Logic]

2 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

Oh so now it’s ok to be critical of the team @Logic?

It's ALWAYS okay to be critical of the team.

What I usually find undesirable to read or interact with are the "everything is exclusively awful all the time" pessimists, who are just as upset after Bills WINS as we all are right now.

I'm an eternal optimist. If I clash with anyone on these forums, it's usually the eternal pessimists.

At the end of the day, feel however you want. This is America and I'm not your dad.

[RiotAct]

we’re never winning a Super Bowl.  That’s a given at this point.  This was our year, and we blew it.

 

 

We are Charlie Brown incarnate!!!!

[Coach Tuesday]

2 minutes ago, Logic said:

It's ALWAYS okay to be critical of the team.

What I usually find undesirable to read or interact with are the "everything is exclusively awful all the time" pessimists, who are just as upset after Bills WINS as we all are right now.

I'm an eternal optimist. If I clash with anyone on these forums, it's usually the eternal pessimists.

At the end of the day, feel however you want. This is America and I'm not your dad.

Nope you’re not my dad but missing from your accountability list is yourself, one of several folks here who shouts down anyone who points out a flaw until YOU are ready to have an honest conversation.  It’s exhausting.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Coach Tuesday

[stevestojan]

Anyone else strangely calm after this? Maybe I’m getting used to it or maybe I just never saw a path to beat the Bengals. 
 

But I’m over it already. I do think changes need to be made at the very highest levels, but I’m not going to let this ruin my day. 
 

Maybe next year. 

[dhgold]

+1 for all the negative things OP said -- Bengals kicked Bills collective asses, particularly in the trenches and coaching staffs.

 

What a pile of crap.

[DuckyBoys]

Manhandled once again  Watching the small defense once again get punished in the big game.  This offseason you got to get bigger and more physical on both the O line and D line  Also how has McDermott not fixed the tackling  Its been steadily getting worse

[MAJBobby]

So glad they got run out of the stadium if they were losing. Exposes how bad the construction of this team is. Need a real OL, Real WR2  protect Josh and Give Josh weapons. We have the worst Weapons group in the playoffs this year and one of the worst OLs. Stop spending All you premier assets in Defense. They are irrelevant in the Modern NFL when facing a top end Offense.

[Coach Tuesday]

Just now, stevestojan said:

Anyone else strangely calm after this? Maybe I’m getting used to it or maybe I just never saw a path to beat the Bengals. 
 

But I’m over it already. I do think changes need to be made at the very highest levels, but I’m not going to let this ruin my day. 
 

Maybe next year. 

I’m sorry I won’t get to watch Josh for nine months.  And I feel bad for him because his organization hung him out to dry this year.  But today wasn’t really a surprise.

[muppy]

7 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

An old fashioned ass kicking plain and simple.  Out muscled, outcoached, out everythinged.

we a a fanbase need to acknowlege as TRUTH what you wrote. PUNTO.

[SectionC3]

6 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

I just think they were spent. They looked spent. They looked flat and they looked like the tank was on E. 

 

People may say otherwise but based on the accumulation of things week after week to overcome, at some point you just have nothing left to give.

 

I can't be mad at them. They went thru so much this year, probably more than any team in history when you look at everything combined.

 

Hamlin is OK, that's good enough for me. 

 

They need to sort things out, figure out what they are going to do and come up with ways to overcome their shortcomings which look far bigger than they did at the start of the season right now.

Agreed.   Standing in the stadium today I felt they were gassed.  Everything seemed forced.  They gave everything they had this year in the face of a mass shooting, Matt Araiza, weather, injury, asinine travel, more bad weather, and a near death experience on the field.  Not to mention the offense was a patchwork mess with the new coordinator.   On to next year.  

[FireChans]

5 minutes ago, Logic said:

It's ALWAYS okay to be critical of the team.

What I usually find undesirable to read or interact with are the "everything is exclusively awful all the time" pessimists, who are just as upset after Bills WINS as we all are right now.

I'm an eternal optimist. If I clash with anyone on these forums, it's usually the eternal pessimists.

At the end of the day, feel however you want. This is America and I'm not your dad.

 

2 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

Nope you’re not my dad but missing from your accountability list is yourself, one of several folks here who shouts down anyone who points out a flaw until YOU are ready to have an honest conversation.  It’s exhausting.

Preach!

 

The Bills had 3 "team wins" on the year, all in September. Rams, Steelers, Titans.

 

Other than that, they couldn't put together 4 good Q's of executing in all 3 phases ALL YEAR.

 

This ass-kicking was chickens coming home to roost.

[BillsFanSD]

2 minutes ago, stevestojan said:

Anyone else strangely calm after this? Maybe I’m getting used to it or maybe I just never saw a path to beat the Bengals. 
 

But I’m over it already. I do think changes need to be made at the very highest levels, but I’m not going to let this ruin my day. 
 

Maybe next year. 

Same.  Sadly, this game was never really in doubt, which makes it a lot easier to swallow.

[PatsFanNH]

6 minutes ago, Logic said:

I'm just gonna get my thoughts out about this painful loss before I take some time away from this forum. It takes me a while to get over season ending losses, so I'm gonna take a break for a bit, and I'll be back for free agency and draft season. Until then...

Right now, I'm not angry, I'm just really disappointed. What a painful way for this season to end. After a season in which the Bills only ever really beat themselves and lost just three games by a combined eight points, the Bills picked a hell of a time to get thoroughly dominated on both sides of the ball. This loss is so disappointing, so painful, exactly for that reason: because the Bills were just thoroughly and absolutely dominated. This game was never really close. The Bills never really had a chance. With as talented a team as they are -- that was a really painful and deflating way for the season to end.

As Brandon Beane is fond of saying, playoff losses show you where you're NOT as a football team. They show you where you're lacking. Well, what did today's loss show us?

 

To start with, this was a total team loss. No one unit or coach or player is solely to blame. From the front office, to the coaching staff, to the players, everyone shares the blame for this loss. 

If you want to understand the main reason the Bills lost the game, just look at the battles in the trenches. The Bills were outclassed convincingly on both the offensive and defensive lines. This is a failure of the front office -- Yes, of Brandon Beane, who we all love. So much draft capital and money spent on the defensive line, and they couldn't even SNIFF Burrow today. Yes, Jones and Miller were out, but that's no excuse. The Bills still boasted multiple 1st round players on the d-line. Couldn't stop the run, couldn't pressure the passer. Absolute domination. The front office also deserves blame for the mediocre-at-best offensive line they trotted out there this season, which was soundly beaten multiple times by Cincinnati defensive linemen. Brandon Beane needs to take a long hard look this offseason at the offensive line and yes, somehow, again, at the defensive line.

Next up we have the coaches. It is hard to conclude anything other than this: The Bills offensive and defensive coaching staffs were BOTH outcoached today. The offense lacked creativity, rhythm, reason. The defense -- which, yes, was without some key players -- looked absolutely toothless. When you boast defensive minds like Sean McDermott and Leslie Frazier, getting out-schemed and beaten as badly as they were today by the Cincy offense simply should never happen -- injured players or not. Today saw total failures of coaching on both sides of the ball.

Lastly, the players deserve blame. For as much as I can say about the personnel and the coaching, at the end of the day, it's up to the players to make the plays. The offensive linemen got whipped all day. The defensive linemen got driven off the ball all day. The corners and linebackers had multiple coverage mixups. The receivers dropped passes. The quarterback missed open receivers or went big play hunting at inopportune times -- again. 

The bottom line is this: Despite a season with many highs and many great moments and a 13-3 record, all of the Bills' season-long deficiencies caught up with them today. The sky is not falling, and the Bills are likely to be playoff and title contenders for years to come. But unless they want to exist a Groundhog's Day of painful yearly playoff exits, they're going to have to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and figure out a way to fix the multiple things that ail them. 

Personnel, coaching, execution in big moments, all of it needs to be better. It was a hell of a season, and I'm proud of the Bills for weathering an insane amount of adversity to make it to the Divisional round of the playoffs. But that's not enough for me, and I know it's not enough for the players and coaches either. It's up to them to figure out how to make sure it doesn't happen again in 2023.

The Bills were missing 2 starters on their D line while Cincy was down 3 starters on the O line.  That should have been advantage Bills. 
 

10 Runs for the entire game, in a very snowy game is beyond mind blowing. 
 

That said the last 3 games the Bills seem to me to be out of steam. They could have lost all 3 and the Pats and are not that good period this year and the Phins without Tua been toothless.. My point? It seems after the terrible injury the Bills never fully regrouped as a team and just seemed emotionally and physically drained.