Saffold said guys were "exhausted" this week and "out of gas"

[Arkady Renko]

And we wonder why players typically just give boring cliched answers 

[Beck Water]

On 1/28/2023 at 8:22 AM, PBF81 said:

Several thoughts here ...

 

First, this is somewhat insulting to the average Joe/Josephine that has to get up everyday and slog to work just to put food on the table or pay the rent/mortgage.  If they run out of gas, too bad, they have to do it anyway.  Maybe they have two jobs, single parent, etc.  Often very hard work or in the cold or dangerous as well.  etc. 

 

Yeah, I Hear You.  In the days of the stay-at-hom mother, to get the money to afford eyeglasses and dental care for her kids in the '60s, myMIL worked nights in an ER while caring for her elderly mother during the day.  She would see the kids off to school, take care of her mother, maybe get some dinner prep going, take a nap, get up to feed the kids lunch when they came home from school, take care of her mother, take another nap, get up to be with the kids and prepare dinner, serve dinner, and go to work.

 

She talked about being so tired she felt nauseous and would pull the wastebasket close to her chair in case she had to throw up.  But she did it, 5 days a week, for years.

 

I used to work 36 hrs straight at times and come home staggering.  I got pulled over by police once on suspected intoxication, he saw my employer ID and talked to me a little and told me he'd follow me home and just try to get more rest next time.

 

I don't want to minimize or blow off that these guys had a rough time this season and are playing with bumps and bruises, but as you say, they get paid to show up.  And this was the culmination of a whole season's work, the Division game for the right to represent the AFC in the championship.

 

What a hell of a time to "run out of gas", if that's what happened.

 

 

On 1/28/2023 at 8:22 AM, PBF81 said:

Lastly, this STILL doesn't explain the idiotic play-calling.  A good coach should be able to sleepwalk through a game plan.  Putting your zombied players in the best alignments to succeed is better than putting them in the worst, all but guaranteeing failure.  This is arguably the biggest problem here.  

 

I'm not entirely sure this is what happened.  Search for @HoofHearted here and look at his X's and O's he diagrams of some key defensive plays.  Plays that could have succeeded were called, and defensive players were out of alignment.  The DL got no "push".  The OL didn't block.  Sometimes Josh had open options underneath and threw deep. 

 

I'm sure there were some playcalls the coaches would like back, but I think there's at least, "plenty of blame to go around".

Edited January 31, 2023 by Beck Water

[boyst]

16 hours ago, ToGoGo said:

I paid $100 for a jersey. ENTERTAIN ME!!! NO EXCUSES!!! 

 

Lots of embarrassing and ignorant people in this thread. Making this all about themselves. 

 

Once in a lifetime adversity year. This team is tougher than 99.9% of you. Ever watch those hydraulic press videos. Everything has a pressure point before it breaks. Including most of the melonheads in this thread. 

 

SICK OF THE EXCUSES!!! FIRE SOMEBODY!! 

...this is tone deaf, bud.

 

thousands of us here have ordinary little people jobs, at least to the mind of sammy watkins. we deal with adversity like this in our normal lives, we deal with a lot of issues and do just fine. some of the folks here have jobs more dangerous or critical than just playing sportsball.

 

this team is tougher than 99% of us is a joke. they're not a team, they're individual players who must be judged on the merits of themselves.

 

they're just ordinary people who play sportsball real good.

[Thurman#1]

23 hours ago, Arkady Renko said:

And we wonder why players typically just give boring cliched answers 

 

 

This.

 

 

[Thurman#1]

9 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

Yeah, I Hear You.  In the days of the stay-at-hom mother, to get the money to afford eyeglasses and dental care for her kids in the '60s, myMIL worked nights in an ER while caring for her elderly mother during the day.  She would see the kids off to school, take care of her mother, maybe get some dinner prep going, take a nap, get up to feed the kids lunch when they came home from school, take care of her mother, take another nap, get up to be with the kids and prepare dinner, serve dinner, and go to work.

 

She talked about being so tired she felt nauseous and would pull the wastebasket close to her chair in case she had to throw up.  But she did it, 5 days a week, for years.

 

I used to work 36 hrs straight at times and come home staggering.  I got pulled over by police once on suspected intoxication, he saw my employer ID and talked to me a little and told me he'd follow me home and just try to get more rest next time.

 

I don't want to minimize or blow off that these guys had a rough time this season and are playing with bumps and bruises, but as you say, they get paid to show up.  And this was the culmination of a whole season's work, the Division game for the right to represent the AFC in the championship.

 

What a hell of a time to "run out of gas", if that's what happened.

 

 

 

I'm not entirely sure this is what happened.  Search for @HoofHearted here and look at his X's and O's he diagrams of some key defensive plays.  Plays that could have succeeded were called, and defensive players were out of alignment.  The DL got no "push".  The OL didn't block.  Sometimes Josh had open options underneath and threw deep. 

 

I'm sure there were some playcalls the coaches would like back, but I think there's at least, "plenty of blame to go around".

 

 

Yeah, they had to show up. But they did. That was not the problem.

 

I've also had jobs that required all-nighters and showing up the next day. I did it.

 

But like the Bills, I was there, but wasn't at my best. 

 

Very much agree with you that there's plenty of blame to go around. This wasn't on the coaches. It was on the coaches and the players. It was on everybody. Elam had a good game but I didn't see many others who did.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Thurman#1

[zow2]

Exhausted and out of gas?  Gimme a break.  More like unprepared and dominated. 

 

We are in the process of totally blowing our Super Bowl window.  Meanwhile the Chiefs, a team we have beaten in their house for 2 straight regular season games are going to their 3rd SB in 5 years.  THAT is taking advantage of the window.

[Thurman#1]

1 hour ago, zow2 said:

Exhausted and out of gas?  Gimme a break.  More like unprepared and dominated. 

 

We are in the process of totally blowing our Super Bowl window.  Meanwhile the Chiefs, a team we have beaten in their house for 2 straight regular season games are going to their 3rd SB in 5 years.  THAT is taking advantage of the window.

 

 

Like it or not, they were indeed out of gas. It wasn't one guy saying that, it was several.

 

That's what it looked like to me at the time.

 

Oh, and our Super Bowl window will last the length of Josh Allen's career.

[Mr. WEO]

On 1/30/2023 at 8:49 PM, ToGoGo said:

I paid $100 for a jersey. ENTERTAIN ME!!! NO EXCUSES!!! 

 

Lots of embarrassing and ignorant people in this thread. Making this all about themselves. 

 

Once in a lifetime adversity year. This team is tougher than 99.9% of you. Ever watch those hydraulic press videos. Everything has a pressure point before it breaks. Including most of the melonheads in this thread. 

 

SICK OF THE EXCUSES!!! FIRE SOMEBODY!! 

 

Dumbest thing ever posted on this site--and I don't say that lightly.

 

You know nothing of what anyone here faces or struggles through daily.  But I can assure you it isn't getting millions to play a game while working out in the gym all week, jumping in the charter jet and playing another game.  Didn't play so well? Emotionally exhausted?  Still feeling that effect of the snowstorms?  No problem, here's your game check.  Take a few months off to re-center yourself. 

 

Countless numbers of people got snowed in and didn't make it to work and didn't get paid.  The Bills had to take a few quick flights to Detroit.  10 people none of them Buffalo Bills or their kin) were killed and countless others affected in the Tops shooting.  Damar not only did not die, but made a miraculous recovery and was cheering on his teammates for both playoff games.

 

Your hero worship is showing....

[mjt328]

All this finger-pointing on WHY the Bills lost that game... I think there are multiple reasons, and all have some truth to them.

 

It's probably true that our locker room was emotionally exhausted.  Everyone points to the "adversity" they faced during the season with injuries, weather and Damar Hamlin.  But a lot of pressure also comes with being the Week 1 Super Bowl favorite as well.  What Rodger Saffold says doesn't make them mentally weak.  It's just a reality of how this team was overwhelmed by non-football things this season.

 

It's also true that our performance was negatively impacted by season-ending injuries to Von Miller and Micah Hyde.  Both are All-Pro talents, and you can't just replace them in the lineup.  We knew that when each guy went down.  And although the Bills were mostly healthy otherwise, the D-Line was pretty banged up.  We also badly missed Daquon Jones for that game.  Not to mention, Ed Oliver and Jordan Phillips playing through tough injuries.

 

That does NOT let the coaching staff off the hook for having such a bland and uncreative gameplan, against one of the league's premier offenses.  One game may be a fluke.  Two games may be a coincidence.  But after three straight years of this defense getting blasted in the playoffs, it's clear something is wrong at the top.  They better figure something out in the offseason to change things up, or it's going to happen again next year.

 

It also doesn't let Brandon Beane off the hook for his lackluster drafts recently.  All GMs make mistakes.  But when those mistakes start stockpiling, they deserve to be criticized for them.  The condition our offensive and defensive lines are currently in... that falls on his plate.  We know that he can build a roster from the ground-up, when he's got plenty of cap space and early draft picks.  But can he maintain a competitive team when we have neither?

 

[BarleyNY]

1 hour ago, zow2 said:

Exhausted and out of gas?  Gimme a break.  More like unprepared and dominated. 

 

We are in the process of totally blowing our Super Bowl window.  Meanwhile the Chiefs, a team we have beaten in their house for 2 straight regular season games are going to their 3rd SB in 5 years.  THAT is taking advantage of the window.

You can always tell the quality of a team by the quality of their excuses. Right? Isn’t that the saying? That’s why KC brought up their hobbled QB and injury riddled WR room at the press conference after they lost to the team that beat us. GMAFB. You can add “out coached” to unprepared and dominated.

[Beck Water]

1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said:

Like it or not, they were indeed out of gas. It wasn't one guy saying that, it was several.

 

That's what it looked like to me at the time.

 

Oh, and our Super Bowl window will last the length of Josh Allen's career.

 

Who said that besides Saffold?  Not that it matters too much, the team played like it's true.

 

It's not a matter of "liking".  It's a matter of fact. 

 

If a person really has a top-drawer mentality and wants to be the best, they dig deep and find something when they're already exhausted but it really matters - a life or lives are at stake, a one-time opportunity to use SOFTA experimental equipment, a critical milestone on a project that could save thousands of lives.  Oh heck - even a football game.

 

The fact is, if you've worked all year for something but you "run out of gas" when it's win or go home and your goal is in sight, that's not a championship mentality.

 

It's too bad Kansas City lost the AFCCG, but it's totally understandable that they were out of gas.  Their QB was playing on one leg.  They lost their best CB on the 4th defensive snap of the game.  Their best receiver had back spasms.  They lost their best WR halfway through the game and were down to scraps who couldn't get open.

 

Oh, Wait.

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Beck Water