Bills players were done with this year

[Billzgobowlin]

The more I think about it the Bills players wanted to put this year behind them.  Did they play less than their best?  Absolutely not.  But for a team that has faced so much between a missed Christmas, Dawson's brother passing away, to the Tops shooting, to Damar, to Hyde their defensive leader being out this year, to Dane's potential career ender, to Von Miller the other defensive leader being out, to playing 10 away games, to always playing short in the defensive secondary (no Poyer and Hyde for multiple games along with playing rookies at DB), to even Josh's shoulder injury.  I would say they were emotionally spent.  Could they have beat Jacksonville this week?  Maybe but I'll tell you as a fan there is some sort of relief that they finally get to lick their wounds and heal.  They are absolutely done.  The Marv Levy quote states this year perfectly "Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew said. I am hurt, but I am not slain. I'll lay me down and bleed a while, And then I'll rise and fight again."

 

Let's get behind them next year for the best is yet to come.  They get 13-3 this year with all this going on, they will be better for it next year.

[SCBills]

Two games from the Super Bowl and they just decided it’s too much?

 

If that’s the case, they are mentally weaker than I thought .. and we need an even bigger house cleaning. 
 

They got punched in the face by a better coached, tougher team. 
 

Once they got dazed, they had no plan.  No coaches that could help.  Just had to take the beating. 
 

There are no excuses.  It was embarrassing for every single person involved in this organization.  
 

It’s the type of loss, in Year 3 of contending, that precedes change. 

[Billzgobowlin]

Just now, SCBills said:

Two games from the Super Bowl and they just decided it’s too much?

 

If that’s the case, they are mentally weaker than I thought .. and we need an even bigger house cleaning. 
 

They got punched in the face by a better coached, tougher team. 
 

Once they got dazed, they had no plan.  No coaches that could help.  Just had to take the beating. 
 

There are no excuses.  It was embarrassing for every single person involved in this organization.  
 

It’s the type of loss, in Year 3 of contending, that precedes change. 

Don't misunderstand what I said.  They didn't decide it was too much.  I honestly believe they played their hearts out but I think they were emotionally spent.  Might not be something you understand but this team has lived off of passion and yesterday they died because of lack of it. 

[97bills]

Here come the excuses….  We’ve seen this for the last few years… in big games can’t stop the run and can’t get no pressure. CIN knew that … so guess what here comes there run game , and burrow has all day. We got our a$$ kicked hard. And what’s sad is this team has a lot of holes to fill. 

[SCBills]

Just now, Billzgobowlin said:

Don't misunderstand what I said.  They didn't decide it was too much.  I honestly believe they played their hearts out but I think they were emotionally spent.  Might not be something you understand but this team has lived off of passion and yesterday they died because of lack of it. 

Are they really that passionate?  I guess that can come out in different ways.  Josh is .. Diggs is .. Rest of the team come across as front runners and soft sometimes. 
 

The dancing and goofball shtick is fun when they’re winning .. then comes along a team of actual tough guys with grit who talked their ish all week and we get rocked. 

[Billzgobowlin]

2 minutes ago, 97bills said:

Here come the excuses….  We’ve seen this for the last few years… in big games can’t stop the run and can’t get no pressure. CIN knew that … so guess what here comes there run game , and burrow has all day. We got our a$$ kicked hard. And what’s sad is this team has a lot of holes to fill. 

Again no excuses.  They lost and they deserved to lose.  They didn't play with passion.

1 minute ago, SCBills said:

Are they really that passionate?  I guess that can come out in different ways.  Josh is .. Diggs is .. Rest of the team come across as front runners and soft sometimes. 
 

The dancing and goofball shtick is fun when they’re winning .. then comes along a team of actual tough guys with grit who talked their ish all week and we get rocked. 

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that locker room last week.  I bet it just wasn't a focused Josh which generally brings up others around him.  He got shook in Cincy if not before and the team other than Hines against the Patriots didn't show they wanted to play.  I honestly believe the best thing for them this offseason is a mental reset.  No excuses just optimism for the future

[nucci]

Trying to figure out why the Tops shooting would affect their play?

[SCBills]

4 minutes ago, Billzgobowlin said:

Again no excuses.  They lost and they deserved to lose.  They didn't play with passion.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that locker room last week.  I bet it just wasn't a focused Josh which generally brings up others around him.  He got shook in Cincy if not before and the team other than Hines against the Patriots didn't show they wanted to play.  I honestly believe the best thing for them this offseason is a mental reset.  No excuses just optimism for the future

I do agree that the team never got their focus back after the first Cincy game. 
 

People forget how much of a struggle the Pats game was if not for two Hines returns.   
 

The Miami game, we all thought was a one-off, was probably more a function of the team being in trouble.  
 

Then obviously yesterday was an absolute pathetic performance .. worst of the year.  

[mjt328]

The signs of this loss coming were apparent way back in October.  

But anyone in Bills Mafia who suggested this team wasn't Super Bowl caliber was told they were being too critical.

 

Regardless of W-L record or what DVOA says, I've been holding this team to a "Super Bowl or bust" standard since Week 1.  Time and time again, they failed the eye test.  With each passing week, it became painfully clear this team wasn't as good as their record. 

 

I'm upset, but not surprised.  I haven't really enjoyed this season since Minnesota in Week 10, because that was the moment in my heart that I realized it wasn't happening this season.  Every week I hoped they would prove me wrong.  Instead, they just confirmed we were in for a disappointing finish.

 

[Giuseppe Tognarelli]

Oh brother. I knew this kind of crap would come out. "Too much adversity, I'm still proud of this team, Go Bills!"

 

Yesterday was inexcusable and there need to be consequences.

[Lieutenant Aldo Raine]

Well, most posters stated we won our Super Bowl with Hamlin pulling through, and could care less how the season ended. 

[McBean]

30 minutes ago, Billzgobowlin said:

The more I think about it the Bills players wanted to put this year behind them.  Did they play less than their best?  Absolutely not.  But for a team that has faced so much between a missed Christmas, Dawson's brother passing away, to the Tops shooting, to Damar, to Hyde their defensive leader being out this year, to Dane's potential career ender, to Von Miller the other defensive leader being out, to playing 10 away games, to always playing short in the defensive secondary (no Poyer and Hyde for multiple games along with playing rookies at DB), to even Josh's shoulder injury.  I would say they were emotionally spent.  Could they have beat Jacksonville this week?  Maybe but I'll tell you as a fan there is some sort of relief that they finally get to lick their wounds and heal.  They are absolutely done.  The Marv Levy quote states this year perfectly "Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew said. I am hurt, but I am not slain. I'll lay me down and bleed a while, And then I'll rise and fight again."

 

Let's get behind them next year for the best is yet to come.  They get 13-3 this year with all this going on, they will be better for it next year.

They’ll be worse if McDermott is HC and continue to not build around 17. 

The reasons above should’ve been used as fuel to win it all.

 

Weak post.

[Barnaby Wilde]

Excuses. None of this ever dissuaded anybody from ridiculous super bowl talk this year.  Josh just crapped the bed.  I support Diggs.  Josh needs to get off Kyle Brandt and stop wasting time reviewing movies with that loser.

[jamiezzz]

8 minutes ago, nucci said:

Trying to figure out why the Tops shooting would affect their play?

I wonder the same thing.   Sabres players endured the same travesties as the Bills, minus Hamlin.  I see if there was a different outcome for D-Ham, but before the next game, he was on his way to recovery.  Just clean out the coaching staff. Giants won 4 games prior to Daboll going there.  A good coach can turn this talented roster around.

[H2o]

Yesterday was not their day. From that opening drive where Allen missed Diggs for what possibly would have been a TD, that was it. The snow seemed to effect us more than it effected them. The disparity in talent between their complete skill group and ours was evident. The schemes were vanilla on both sides of the ball. It was just a bad game all the way around. Allen's missed throw to Diggs, the Davis drop, the double standards in penalties called by the refs in many instances (no, I'm not saying this was the deciding factor only a reality if you paid attention yesterday), they just looked beaten after the Bengals went up 14-0. They had some chances to get back in it, but would either shoot themselves in the foot or coaching wouldn't sack up to take a chance to swing momentum. The defense had 0 answers yesterday and that falls squarely on BOTH McDermott and Frazier. We've seen this "bend, but don't break" mentality for the last 7 years now. It's not bad during the regular season. Come Playoff time though, it's not getting it done once we get to the best teams in the conference. They need to do some truly deep self reflection this offseason and make some serious changes. 

[McBean]

3 minutes ago, Reverse Meathead said:

Excuses. None of this ever dissuaded anybody from ridiculous super bowl talk this year.  Josh just crapped the bed.  I support Diggs.  Josh needs to get off Kyle Brandt and stop wasting time reviewing movies with that loser.

No, Josh needs to be meeting with the Pegulas today and tell them to choose: him or McClappy. 
 

 

[Ray Stonada]

15 minutes ago, SCBills said:

I do agree that the team never got their focus back after the first Cincy game. 
 

People forget how much of a struggle the Pats game was if not for two Hines returns.   
 

The Miami game, we all thought was a one-off, was probably more a function of the team being in trouble.  
 

Then obviously yesterday was an absolute pathetic performance .. worst of the year.  

 

 

When you go through trauma like seeing what happened to Damar--he dropped dead on the field and was rescuscitated for 9 minutes in front of them!--you need to lean on your older leaders on the field. It didn't help that Micah and Von, the two wisest elders of the bunch, were out for the year by that point.

 

 

 

 

[Barnaby Wilde]

4 minutes ago, H2o said:

Yesterday was not their day. From that opening drive where Allen missed Diggs for what possibly would have been a TD, that was it. The snow seemed to effect us more than it effected them. The disparity in talent between their complete skill group and ours was evident. The schemes were vanilla on both sides of the ball. It was just a bad game all the way around. Allen's missed throw to Diggs, the Davis drop, the double standards in penalties called by the refs in many instances (no, I'm not saying this was the deciding factor only a reality if you paid attention yesterday), they just looked beaten after the Bengals went up 14-0. They had some chances to get back in it, but would either shoot themselves in the foot or coaching wouldn't sack up to take a chance to swing momentum. The defense had 0 answers yesterday and that falls squarely on BOTH McDermott and Frazier. We've seen this "bend, but don't break" mentality for the last 7 years now. It's not bad during the regular season. Come Playoff time though, it's not getting it done once we get to the best teams in the conference. They need to do some truly deep self reflection this offseason and make some serious changes. 

They won't sack the coaching staff because the Pegulas just don't have the wherewithal to figure it out.

[Dan Darragh]

No excuses necessary.  The defensive coaching staff was awful two straight years in the divisional round.  Whatever else gets fixed, it's the definition of insanity to try the same thing over and over and expect a different result.  The fact that we almost won last year is a testament to the offensive coaching staff that has since moved on to New Jersey.

27 minutes ago, SCBills said:

I do agree that the team never got their focus back after the first Cincy game. 

Let's be honest here.  Except for one game against the worst team in the league, the Bills didn't have a good game since the Pittsburgh game on October 9. That's more than 3 months.  And now we can be sure that if the Damar incident hadn't happened, we'd have been torched by the Bengals on that Monday night.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Dan Darragh

[The Firebaugh Kid]

47 minutes ago, SCBills said:

Two games from the Super Bowl and they just decided it’s too much?

 

If that’s the case, they are mentally weaker than I thought .. and we need an even bigger house cleaning. 
 

They got punched in the face by a better coached, tougher team. 
 

Once they got dazed, they had no plan.  No coaches that could help.  Just had to take the beating. 
 

There are no excuses.  It was embarrassing for every single person involved in this organization.  
 

It’s the type of loss, in Year 3 of contending, that precedes change. 

PREACH. MIC DROP. 

Ya'll seen that schedule next year? 

We aren't good enough, schematically and talent wise. 

Yo can't just ride 17 to the trophy.