Bills @ Bengals postgame thread

[MikePJ76]

8 hours ago, Richard Noggin said:

Kromer, Shula, Brady, and Boras are all experienced offensive coaches who have called plays. Fact.

None of them are coordinators with a scheme that they are masters of.  That is what Allen deserves.  They need a coordinator to come in who has a proven system, someone who is in demand.  Those guys have called plays and that is not what I am talking about and none of them were really that great at it and that is why they are position coaches here essentially.

 

This team went halfway in with a new philosophy.  They needed more tight ends who can block.  Last night we saw they are somewhere in between what they think they are and what they want to be.  That is in part the knox injury and on the coaches.  

 

the offensive line played the whole game going backwards at the snap.  That is an absurd way to play football in the nfl.

[pocoboy]

1 minute ago, Casey D said:

I did, but I agree that the performance, especially running the ball, leaves a lot to be desired.  OLs everywhere are not great however, and it is hard to have All-Pros at every position.  I think you and I agree, it's just that they thought they had fixed it but they have not.

 

The offensive conundrum at the moment is all on the relationship between Ken Dorsey and Josh Allen. Steps:

 

1) OC draws up plays that (presumably) each have a purpose/plan.

2) OC effectively communicates that purpose/plan to QB, so when each play is called the QB knows exactly how to maximize the play's effectiveness.

3) QB calls play

4) QB carries out instructions to maximize play.

 

There are some in-between points too - the blocking/protection, rushers, targets all have points that would synergize with the QB's points to bring about the best chance of a play to work.

 

I've long suspected that point #2 is the weak link.

[Bruffalo]

5 minutes ago, Casey D said:

Well they paid McGovern like he was good, and most reviews I saw of his play for Dallas were good.  The line seemed fine early on, but has regressed, like most of the team.

They've been figured out. When the fans can call out the tendencies of the OC with a high degree of accuracy imagine what a team doing 30+ hours of film study can do. 

Dorsey can't innovate or pivot in a meaningful way. Execution is part of it, but the execution is excruciatingly difficult when the other team knows exactly what you're trying to do.  It's why we look better up-tempo, because Dorsey has no time to call the same stupid shotgun run.   

[CincyBillsFan]

Just now, JohnBonhamRocks said:

Bills fans expect an offense with Allen, Diggs, and a first round pass catcher to be productive… and they should. For the last 4 games they have not scored more than 10 points in the first 3/4 of the game. That’s bad for any offense, and especially for one with a top 5 QB and without any significant injuries.
 

This defense, already decimated by injuries, is constantly on the field. Time of possession is wildly in opponents’

favor. Coach is doing no favors blitzing guys like Burrow when success has mostly been had against him by rushing three. But they held a top offense last night to an amount of points our offense should be able to match or best. Including basically shutting them down second half. 

Sure Allen and Diggs are top 5 but who else on the O is even above average? And yes I have high hopes for Kincaid but he's not there yet.

 

The injury's on D suck but when you put so many eggs in one basket and then drop the basket what do you expect to happen?

 

I think the difference between how I look at this and you do is that my expectation of the offense is a lot lower then yours is.  I can't help but notice that again our O line is below average; that we don't have any dangerous weapons beyond Diggs (Kincaid is getting close); the coaching is average at best and the franchise has made a conscious decision to focus more on the D then the O. 

 

Like a lot of Bills fans I was fooled by the sheer productivity and brilliance of Allen.  He fooled us into thinking we had a great offense instead of a unicorn at QB. And we've been warned by analyst after analyst who said that our inability to run the ball was not sustainable; that our over reliance on Allen was not sustainable; and that we had to improve our O line and get more play makers on the field.

 

We did try to address these short comings in the draft this year and it looks like it will pay off with Kincaid.  But it may be a case of to little to late.

 

 

 

[All_Pro_Bills]

Just now, pocoboy said:

 

The offensive conundrum at the moment is all on the relationship between Ken Dorsey and Josh Allen. Steps:

 

1) OC draws up plays that (presumably) each have a purpose/plan.

2) OC effectively communicates that purpose/plan to QB, so when each play is called the QB knows exactly how to maximize the play's effectiveness.

3) QB calls play

4) QB carries out instructions to maximize play.

 

There are some in-between points too - the blocking/protection, rushers, targets all have points that would synergize with the QB's points to bring about the best chance of a play to work.

 

I've long suspected that point #2 is the weak link.

I never liked the idea of coordinators sitting in the stands.  A very easy first step to improving the offense might be to bring Dorsey down from the sky box and have him on the sideline with the QB and the offense.  If there's a problem or some confusion face-to-face back-and-forth discussion is more effective.  And when Allen is on the sidelines sitting by himself instead of this the OC would be planted in the seat right next to him.  Focused and engaged. 

[Yockopondowsk]

This team got bad, real bad, real quick.  D has been a pushover for a while. Josh made up for it by heroics.  Dorsey put a sulky on a racehorse.  Don’t forget we would not have been successful w/o McD in the first place.  May not win another game. Who are they going to beat?  Already lost to the Pats. How bad is that?  I don’t know the answer.  

[The Frankish Reich]

30 minutes ago, Casey D said:

I did, but I agree that the performance, especially running the ball, leaves a lot to be desired.  OLs everywhere are not great however, and it is hard to have All-Pros at every position.  I think you and I agree, it's just that they thought they had fixed it but they have not.

Well they paid McGovern like he was good, and most reviews I saw of his play for Dallas were good.  The line seemed fine early on, but has regressed, like most of the team.

Maybe.

I'll admit, I'm not the obsessive fan who watches the All 22s. We have some of those here, and I appreciate their insights.

PFF scores so far (I don't think these take yesterday into account):

 

Good (70+): Dawkins (76.5), Brown (70!)

Average-ish (mid 60s): Morse

Poor: McGovern (58.6), Torrence (60.5)

 

Yes, take it with a big boulder of salt. But my eye test says the middle of the line is a consistent problem, and that Brown's mobility makes him a good run blocker while that same lean length compromises him in pass protection.

[May Day 10]

Sal is unlistenable right now.  Siezes on 1 mis-step of each caller to discredit and dismiss entire (legitimate) criticisms.  Also has go-to points that indicate everything is ok like they were 7-6 once in 2021.

 

Chris Brown was able to criticize this morning and he did not combust

[pocoboy]

7 minutes ago, May Day 10 said:

Sal is unlistenable right now.  Siezes on 1 mis-step of each caller to discredit and dismiss entire (legitimate) criticisms.  Also has go-to points that indicate everything is ok like they were 7-6 once in 2021.

 

Chris Brown was able to criticize this morning and he did not combust

 

Yeah it's tough to find optimism at the moment. You don't see a lot of urgency or drive on the field. Everybody looks tentative when the game is in the balance, afraid to make mistakes, but also wound so tight that mistakes are prevalent (see the 2nd half challenge last night).

 

I think McDermott knows he's losing the room. His "complementary football" line is pointing fingers. To call the guy who bails you out of many games the problem comes off as extremely defensive (no surprise for McDermott), as if he knows things are going into the ditch and he's blaming the driver when he was supposed to check the tire tread weeks ago.

[UKBillFan]

23 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Maybe.

I'll admit, I'm not the obsessive fan who watches the All 22s. We have some of those here, and I appreciate their insights.

PFF scores so far (I don't think these take yesterday into account):

 

Good (70+): Dawkins (76.5), Brown (70!)

Average-ish (mid 60s): Morse

Poor: McGovern (58.6), Torrence (60.5)

 

Yes, take it with a big boulder of salt. But my eye test says the middle of the line is a consistent problem, and that Brown's mobility makes him a good run blocker while that same lean length compromises him in pass protection.

Are we sure they haven’t muddled Brown and Torrence up?

Edited November 6, 2023 by UKBillFan

[Belgium_Bill]

A lot of doom and gloom across the Atlantic…

Bengals are (now, this month) a better team than the Bills, so losing this one away from home by 6 points was not that surprising to me.  Too many parts of our team are only average or at best just above average, including our D since Milano went down. 

The most frustrating part for me is that, when it matters, we cannot run on teams.  Yes there is the odd game where it works, but overall, the Bills “pure running game”, by which I mean the combo of OL/running back(s) excluding QB runs has been poor for the best part of a decade.  Have we really had a RB in the past 10 years that was in let's say the top 10 of NFL RB’s ? Not in my opinion anyway.

I’m still relatively optimistic about reaching the play-offs.  I considered winning one of the 3 super tough road games in this stretch (Bengals, Eagles, Chiefs) would do it, provided we took care of business we should take care off (not a given I know). And I personally thought that of those 3 games, current form considered, Bengals was the toughest challenge.

On the other hand one has to wonder what we could achieve in the play-offs, and if not making them would long term be a better thing for this team, in that it may lead to some more drastic changes.  We seem to be stuck in some sort of limbo of hanging onto hope that this roster/coaches combo will lead us to the Superbowl, but even good teams need to insert some spark from time to time to. What that spark is to be I have my opinion just like anyone on this board, but I suppose that’s food for approximately 758 threads over the coming months…

[Chandler#81]

This, in a nut shell!

https://x.com/alexbrasky/status/1721382415568900392?s=61

OUCH! That Hurts!🥺

https://x.com/rosstuckernfl/status/1721515753919152528?s=61

Edited November 6, 2023 by Chandler#81

[blitzboy54]

39 minutes ago, May Day 10 said:

Sal is unlistenable right now.  Siezes on 1 mis-step of each caller to discredit and dismiss entire (legitimate) criticisms.  Also has go-to points that indicate everything is ok like they were 7-6 once in 2021.

 

Chris Brown was able to criticize this morning and he did not combust

 

He is becoming John Murphy. I have wondered for a while if he can be impartial at all. He rides the team plane, as the sideline reporter the Bills help pay his mortgage. He gets short with anyone that isn't "it's gonna be fine". He just won't accept there are problems. 

[Brianmoorman4jesus]

Steve Tasker just has zero grasp of reality in anything he’s saying. The guy just keeps saying the bengals have answers. Dafuk are we supposed to just be good with that? We aren’t supposed to be upset that we don’t have them? The guy will say how good we are in one breath then just make it like it’s no surprise we lose to the Jets with Zach Wilson.

[May Day 10]

9 minutes ago, Brianmoorman4jesus said:

Steve Tasker just has zero grasp of reality in anything he’s saying. The guy just keeps saying the bengals have answers. Dafuk are we supposed to just be good with that? We aren’t supposed to be upset that we don’t have them? The guy will say how good we are in one breath then just make it like it’s no surprise we lose to the Jets with Zach Wilson.

 

 

He made some very good points with:

 

"They are going to play a lot of good football"

 

And

 

"They are going to win 'a ton' more games."

 

 

Hard hitting analysis right there

Edited November 6, 2023 by May Day 10

[May Day 10]

8 minutes ago, blitzboy54 said:

 

He is becoming John Murphy. I have wondered for a while if he can be impartial at all. He rides the team plane, as the sideline reporter the Bills help pay his mortgage. He gets short with anyone that isn't "it's gonna be fine". He just won't accept there are problems. 

 

His debate style/tactic is off-putting and transparent

 

Someone could call in and make a really good point, but slip up and say their red zone offense wasn't great or something.  Sal seizes on the mis-step, pointing out the rz offense is 4th in the league, say it loudly into the microphone 5 different ways for 4 minutes, and basically ignore ir gloss over the valid criticisms 

 

If someone does make an airtight call, he always "agree to disagree"

[HappyDays]

Here's a frustrating stat - McDermott blitzed Burrow on 30.4% of pass plays. On those plays he went 10/14 for 158 yards.

 

We're the only defense I see that regularly blitzes without getting home. It's crazy. Every offensive line picks up our blitz without issue, meanwhile our pass protection scheme constantly fails against the blitz.

[Low Positive]

Interesting day at TBD. Before the game, all we heard on here was that the Bills were going to get squashed because the Bengals are a bad matchup. Some said that it's not the end of the season even if they lose big. Then, the team goes out and loses by 6. Now, some people on here want to trade Josh Allen for picks. And this stuff is not coming from the usual suspects, but from usually positive posters. So, from what I gather, it would have been OK to lose by 24 but losing by 6 means fire everyone and trade the QB? 

1 minute ago, HappyDays said:

Here's a frustrating stat - McDermott blitzed Burrow on 30.4% of pass plays. On those plays he went 10/14 for 158 yards.

 

We're the only defense I see that regularly blitzes without getting home. It's crazy. Every offensive line picks up our blitz without issue, meanwhile our pass protection scheme constantly fails against the blitz.

They got there a number of times and Burrow just Mahomesed his way out of it.

[JohnBonhamRocks]

2 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

Here's a frustrating stat - McDermott blitzed Burrow on 30.4% of pass plays. On those plays he went 10/14 for 158 yards.

 

We're the only defense I see that regularly blitzes without getting home. It's crazy. Every offensive line picks up our blitz without issue, meanwhile our pass protection scheme constantly fails against the blitz.

Plus, hasn’t the book on beating Burrow largely been about rushing 3 and playing tight coverage?

[All_Pro_Bills]

9 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

Here's a frustrating stat - McDermott blitzed Burrow on 30.4% of pass plays. On those plays he went 10/14 for 158 yards.

 

We're the only defense I see that regularly blitzes without getting home. It's crazy. Every offensive line picks up our blitz without issue, meanwhile our pass protection scheme constantly fails against the blitz.

Once in a while they could try overloading one side of the formation to bring 4 of say 6 rushers from that side to overwhelm the blockers rather than nicely distribute the blitzes evenly across the line.