Missed the game. Looking for a sober,accurate game recap. Maybe an impossible task. Can anyone help?

[dave mcbride]

My take: the loss of Daquon Jones has been a disaster for the Bills. His absence from the Bengals playoff game last season was a clear sign of how important he is to the success of this defense. With Oliver down too, the Bills interior d-line is simply not ready for prime time. Historically, Mac Jones has completely crumbled in the face of good interior d-line pressure, but there was none in this game--the DTs were terrible. And the DTs couldn't handle the run game either. The lack of any threat from the interior d-line led McDermott to rely on blitzing to get pressure, but that just created easy short, quick throws for Jones all game long, who had probably the best game of his career. The result: seven Patriots scoring drives, one punt, and one turnover (after a completion by Jones; Poyer punched the ball out in a very nice play). The Bills had seven scoring drives vs. the Pats in the January 2022 playoff games, as it happens. Even on the one  punt, it was fourth and less than one near midfield in the first quarter, and I was mildly surprised the Pats didn't go for it.

 

The offense had its ups and downs but in the grand scheme of things it was fine. It came through late and put them in the lead with less than two minutes to go.

Edited October 23, 2023 by dave mcbride

[Logic]

Thank you to all who replied.

Patching together some of the better responses, a pretty clear picture has been painted.

To me, it sounds like while the coaching/scheming was not perfect, it was execution that lost the Bills this game. A combination of being whipped in the trenches, dropped passes, penalties, and mistakes. Add that to the Pats likely playing with much more fire and urgency due to being 1-5, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Even so, it sounds like it took the Pats driving down field in a 2-minute drill to win the game, during which the Bills defense folded too easily.

Thanks again, everyone. Glad I missed this one 😅

 

[Big Turk]

24 minutes ago, Robert Paulson said:

both our lines were spanked by the Pats* lines.

 

everything else is play to play specifics but we are at 3 games in a row where our lines on both sides of the ball had their lunch money taken

 

until that is corrected it will be difficult to win-let alone dominate 

 

In the first half yes, 2nd half not so much.

[Bob in STL]

14 minutes ago, Logic said:

I missed the game yesterday. I never, ever, ever miss Bills games. On the rare occasions that I do, I used to be able to record them and watch them back later. No longer a possibility.

I already watched the highlights. I already read some of what's in the media about the game.

What I'm looking for is a sober, accurate recap of how the game really went from one of our many great posters here, who can keep emotion out of it to some degree. Not angry shouting and over-simplified Monday morning quarterback diatribes or crazy nonsense. I realize this may be an impossible task on this forum after a bad loss. But...I'm just very curious how this game went and how it wound up with the outcome it did.

What did the offense do well and not do well? Was Dorsey's playcalling and personnel usage diverse and interesting, or was it static and uncreative? Was the pass protection any good? How was the run game? How did Josh play? How did the defensive line do without Ed Oliver? Did Von Miller make any impact? Did Dorian Williams look decent? How did the corners play? Elam? Why were the Pats able to score so many points with such a moribund offense?

Any input and reasonable, non-emotionally-tinged information or recaps would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

We are not very good right now

 

First half: 

They scored on first drive

Allen threw a pick on his first play.

We ran #4 until it didn't work anymore

#13 did not show up again

#88 dropped another big one

The worst pass rush in the NFL had Allen running and throwing on the run

Allen has been told not to run down field and he left a lot of yards out there while throwing desperation passes to his uninterested cast 

We missed FG's

We scored 3 points in the 3 first half

 

second half:  

Our defense could not stop Mac Jones (I can't believe I said it) 

We had a lot of flags, especially defensive holding and PIbig 

The Pats* did the same thing without the flags

Allen missed on a wide open bomb

We missed the play of Milano, Jones, Oliver and Tre - but still should stop this terrible Pats* offense

We had no pass rush, the edge rush was non existent, when we blitzed they picked it up 

Poyer forced a fumble and Bernard recovered - other than that the defense made no plays and they were uninspired and terrible 

Diggs played hard and was doubled all day - he had a very nice TD run after catch though - other than that the offense made no plays and they were uninspired and terrible

We took the lead somehow and got the 2 points for 25-22 lead with less than 2 mins left - what could go wrong?  

Our defense promptly gave up 75 yards on 7 plays - the Pats* got half of the yards on the first play putting themselves in long FG range right off the bat, this was on a screen pass that they ran all game and we failed to cover 

The Pats* scored and won

Our defense gave up 29 points to a team that averaged 12 points per game

 

Afterwards our coach did not have answers, Allen did not have answers, neither did anyone else

 

We are not very good right now - we look like a run of the mill 0.500 team that can win or lose on any week to any opponent 

 

 

[Freddie's Dead]

The Bills are going nowhere with McDummy.  A simple statement of fact, devoid of emotion.

[34-78-83]

27 minutes ago, Logic said:

I missed the game yesterday. I never, ever, ever miss Bills games. On the rare occasions that I do, I used to be able to record them and watch them back later. No longer a possibility.

I already watched the highlights. I already read some of what's in the media about the game.

What I'm looking for is a sober, accurate recap of how the game really went from one of our many great posters here, who can keep emotion out of it to some degree. Not angry shouting and over-simplified Monday morning quarterback diatribes or crazy nonsense. I realize this may be an impossible task on this forum after a bad loss. But...I'm just very curious how this game went and how it wound up with the outcome it did.

What did the offense do well and not do well? Was Dorsey's playcalling and personnel usage diverse and interesting, or was it static and uncreative? Was the pass protection any good? How was the run game? How did Josh play? How did the defensive line do without Ed Oliver? Did Von Miller make any impact? Did Dorian Williams look decent? How did the corners play? Elam? Why were the Pats able to score so many points with such a moribund offense?

Any input and reasonable, non-emotionally-tinged information or recaps would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

I didn't see any such discussions on here yesterday unfortunately. It's been all the typical yelling from the mountain tops with unfounded takes and generalities, and lots of the posters who only come out in times like these from under their bridges, trying to claim their victory in saying that we were going to suck 3 months ago. YAY.

 

This is the general summary that my family and I discussed after the game, because my brother was unable to watch it as well like you:

 

- Josh threw a gift INT on our first play on offense. Starred down the WR and didn't see the DB peeling off of his underneath target to follow Josh's eyes. That cost us 7 pts.

- The offensive line couldn't pass protect to save their lives in the 1st quarter, and into the 2nd. That issue was present in the 2nd half as well, but not as prevalent.

- The D in the 1st half was solid but unspectacular. Slowly, over the course of the game, they tired and were taken further advantage of. The Interior D-line play was awful with both backups in there, and Ford.

- Josh missed on some key medium and deep medium throws as the game went along, but mostly got himself back in order and played well overall.

- Cook and Kincaid were excellent all game long (They went away from Cook a bit more once they were down 22-10, understandably).

- In the 2nd half, the offense finally got going and climbed all the way back in the game and took the lead. Key contributors there were Diggs, Kincaid, Shakir on a cpl plays, Murray on a cpl as well. Through that all though, Bass missed another FG and Knox dropped a key 4th and 2 pass that was right there for him...

- While the D was tiring and our blitzes weren't getting home, they still managed to force a fumble (Poyer) to secure the ball for the offense and the lead.

- The Pats had the ball last, and took it right down the field methodically with little resistance and punched it in with the TD to Gesicki for the win.

 

 

 

[TheBrownBear]

As others have said, Josh threw a bad pick to get us off on the wrong foot, and the lines were consistently blown up on both sides of the ball by the Pats.  Josh was a little more inaccurate than usual, but other than that, he played a good game after the interception.  He was running for his life on about 2/3 of his dropbacks, so the fact he managed to conjure up even 25 points was a bit of magic act in itself.  Still, despite getting pushed around by the Pats all day, our offense did a hell of a job clawing back and we had the game in our hands with 2:00 remaining.  The last defensive possession was one of the saddest I can remember in some time, up there with 13 seconds and other memorable failures over the years.  We provided zero resistance to the Pats.  It looked like Brady against the worst of our drought era teams. 

 

Other thoughts - Bass missed a makeable field goal in the first half and that probably cost us an additional three points later in the game, when our lack of confidence in him led us to go for it on 4th down from around the 32 or 33 yard line instead of attempting the field goal.  Knox had another huge drop on that play when he tried to body catch a short pass over the middle from Allen instead of securing it with his hands.  

 

Edit: Also wanted to add that, like the Jags and Giants games, our offense started clicking and moved much more easily when we were forced to pick up the pace and play with a sense of urgency.  If I'm Dorsey/McD, I'd seriously consider picking up the pace and some no huddle looks earlier in the game to get us in a rhythm.  I know our defense is depleted and needs rest and ball control and all that, yadda yadda yadda, but we are losing the TOP battle anyways, since we aren't finding a rhythm and stacking first downs in the first and second quarters.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by TheBrownBear

[Logic]

2 minutes ago, 34-78-83 said:

I didn't see any such discussions on here yesterday unfortunately. It's been all the typical yelling from the mountain tops with unfounded takes and generalities, and lots of the posters who only come out in times like these from under their bridges, trying to claim their victory in saying that we were going to suck 3 months ago. YAY.

 

This is the general summary that my family and I discussed after the game, because my brother was unable to watch it as well like you:

 

- Josh threw a gift INT on our first play on offense. Starred down the WR and didn't see the DB peeling off of his underneath target to follow Josh's eyes. That cost us 7 pts.

- The offensive line couldn't pass protect to save their lives in the 1st quarter, and into the 2nd. That issue was present in the 2nd half as well, but not as prevalent.

- The D in the 1st half was solid but unspectacular. Slowly, over the course of the game, they tired and were taken further advantage of. The Interior D-line play was awful with both backups in there, and Ford.

- Josh missed on some key medium and deep medium throws as the game went along, but mostly got himself back in order and played well overall.

- Cook and Kincaid were excellent all game long (They went away from Cook a bit more once they were down 22-10, understandably).

- In the 2nd half, the offense finally got going and climbed all the way back in the game and took the lead. Key contributors there were Diggs, Kincaid, Shakir on a cpl plays, Murray on a cpl as well. Through that all though, Bass missed another FG and Knox dropped a key 4th and 2 pass that was right there for him...

- While the D was tiring and our blitzes weren't getting home, they still managed to force a fumble (Poyer) to secure the ball for the offense and the lead.

- The Pats had the ball last, and took it right down the field methodically with little resistance and punched it in with the TD to Gesicki for the win.

 

 

 

Thank you for that.

It sounds like a very frustrating game to watch.

To go down by two scores to an inferior opponent, scratch and claw all the way back and take the lead...only to watch the putrid Pats offense march down field easily for the game winning score. 

Like I said above, I think I might be glad I missed this one.

[Warcodered]

1 hour ago, Logic said:

I missed the game yesterday. I never, ever, ever miss Bills games. On the rare occasions that I do, I used to be able to record them and watch them back later. No longer a possibility.

I already watched the highlights. I already read some of what's in the media about the game.

What I'm looking for is a sober, accurate recap of how the game really went from one of our many great posters here, who can keep emotion out of it to some degree. Not angry shouting and over-simplified Monday morning quarterback diatribes or crazy nonsense. I realize this may be an impossible task on this forum after a bad loss. But...I'm just very curious how this game went and how it wound up with the outcome it did.

What did the offense do well and not do well? Was Dorsey's playcalling and personnel usage diverse and interesting, or was it static and uncreative? Was the pass protection any good? How was the run game? How did Josh play? How did the defensive line do without Ed Oliver? Did Von Miller make any impact? Did Dorian Williams look decent? How did the corners play? Elam? Why were the Pats able to score so many points with such a moribund offense?

Any input and reasonable, non-emotionally-tinged information or recaps would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

The offense was actually okay in the game, they moved the ball essentially the whole game, but couldn't punch it in in the first half and the wind stole the ball on one of the FG attempts in the first half. The defense stayed in Buffalo, the Patriots punted twice and the only highlight from them was the fumble. The combination of the defense not showing up and that freak early turnover put us in an early 10pt hole in a slow moving game.

 

The offense did move the ball better and actually spread the ball around again. Still even if NE has still been decent in red zone defense this year, they're missing key guys and we've still got to punch it in better. Second half they picked up even more and started to punch it in. But until they could get that fumble we couldn't get the lead, and since they couldn't get a stop after that and we didn't have enough time to get the lead back here we are.

 

With the offense I liked that they were getting everyone involved and spreading it out more. The O-line was a rollercoaster at times they were good at other times they were terrible and Josh had to get into his bag of tricks. Not sure what's going wrong there it was just very inconsistent this game. D-line, I don't know maybe without Ed and Jones it was just much easier to come up with blocking schemes to take out our edge rushers too but no one did a damn thing. Didn't pay enough attention to Dorian Willams, I thought I saw him make a few plays at some point but I also know he got pulled so make of that what you will. If I had to guess why the Pats did so well passing the ball in this game it'd have to do with Mac being able to either have a tea party in the pocket or just dump it off against a blitz.

 

Overall half the team played alright while the Patriots played a decent game and took advantage of our mistakes and that will win you a football game, and for people that think Allen was disinterested we still should have won somehow because of leading that offense down the field quick twice at the end of the game. Like WTF are we talking about.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Warcodered

[Just in Atlanta]

In haiku:

 

Josh Allen neutered

Zero sacks but who’s counting

Dorsey is drowning

[bmur66]

Just consider yourself fortunate and move on with life.