Random thoughts on the Bengals game

[LABILLBACKER]

4 minutes ago, Maine-iac said:

After a quick look we had the same number of drives as the Bengals.  Almost the same number of first downs.  Similiar 3rd down efficiency.  Big difference was time of possession and 2 turnovers.  Kincaid doesn't fumble it's entirely possible that we win this game even with the offense again looking like it doesn't want to score for 2 quarters.  

I'm so tired of almost. This whole season has been almost.  These coaches starting with McD & Dorsey are really bad.  Gabe and Spencer are worthless.  And sorry Simon but our DT's played poorly tonight. Losing Milano and DQ completely shifted this season.

[Bookie Man]

For all the bitching I did in the GDT, we actually had a decent shot of winning that game despite all of the negative things. 

 

- We played a red hot team, who just went on the road and dominated SF. 

- Lost turnover battle 0-2 (once deep on their side)

- Got jobbed with a few calls (The grounding at the half knocked us out of FGR)

 

We looked like crap and didn't play with juice, but it was still a winnable game. Not happy, just trying to be level headed. Still not a Dorsey fan. Defense has a lot of chinks in the armor, but held their own at the end of the day. Need to rip off 2 or 3 in a row. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Alpo Chino

[Simon]

Just now, Mango said:

Cook as a threat in the passing game should make Gabe what everybody wants him to be, an opportunistic receiving threat. 
 

With the amount of targets between Diggs/Kincaid, there should have been more opportunities than we actually capitalized on in the one. I used rewind on a few drives, there were certainly opportunities, but A22 is way more accurate.  

 

Yeah, he's much more effective when he gets the ball already in space.

There's some hay to be made out there but I'm losing confidence in our OC to be open to more change.

[Bermuda Triangle]

Just now, Simon said:

 

I had actually left the room at that point so didn't watch the sequence live.

I'm not too upset about not trying a Hail Mary at halftime. 🤷‍♂️

Hail Marys against us seem

like they’re always an adventure ….never know what can happen.  

[Einstein]

To add to the coaching comments:

 

- We took far too long to adjust from zone to man. Burrow is a cerebral QB and will pick a zone apart. He struggles far more in man coverage.

 

- We eventually began playing base-man in the second half and the Bengals only scored 3 points.

 

Burrow was 21-26 (81%) for 220 yards against zone and prior to that last pass was 9-17 (53%) for 85 yards against man.

 

Its just frustrating to see the coaching staff take so long to adapt.

 

I mentioned this on the very first drive:

 

[Riverboat Ritchie]

4 minutes ago, Draconator said:

I'm feeling better about this team than I have since the beginning of the Jacksonville game. I'm not saying we are going to win the Super Bowl, but I have more hope we will come around and make a run at it. 

I wish I had your optimism. They were clearly much better than us.  At no point in that game other than when we matched their score did I think we could win. We stuck and will be for a while. 

[Simon]

4 minutes ago, LABILLBACKER said:

  And sorry Simon but our DT's played poorly tonight. 

 

Ed (and Linval in his snaps) were both strong tonight.

But Settle was invisible and Phillips was awful, imo.

[Mango]

1 minute ago, Simon said:

 

Yeah, he's much more effective when he gets the ball already in space.

There's some hay to be made out there but I'm losing confidence in our OC to be open to more change.

I agree. I’ve been a little bit of a Dorsey defender. But I’m coming around to getting my pitchfork. 
 

I do think there is something else going on with this team outside of McD/Dorsey. If it takes moving on from one, both, or whole FO change, it is what it is. But some things just don’t make sense. Diggs, Allen, Davis, Shakir, Cook, 3/5 OL, and even Dorsey were all so much better as a unit last season. 

[Einstein]

3 minutes ago, Alpo Chino said:

 

- Lost turnover battle 0-2 (once deep on their side)

 

And one of those were deep in Bengals territory!

 

It has been over a month since we last forced an INT. We really need to create some more turnovers of our own, while reducing the turnovers we … well …  turn over.

 

It’s incredible we kept the game so close. I was also happy to see shades of the 2021 offense come out with the Allen designed run and the quick hitters in the 4th quarter. Where was that all game!?

 

 

[Simon]

3 minutes ago, Beast said:

The Bills were repeatedly punched in the mouth the first half and took it like a freckle faced kid on the playground getting bullied by his nemesis.

 

This is 100% pure horseshit.

Take it somewhere else.

[Einstein]

6 minutes ago, LABILLBACKER said:

And sorry Simon but our DT's played poorly tonight. 

 

No they weren’t.

 

Mixon finished with 2.6 ypc and the Bengals were getting little to no push in the middle.

 

[Bookie Man]

1 minute ago, Einstein said:

 

And one of those were deep in Bengals territory!

 

It has been over a month since we last forced an INT. We really need to create some more turnovers of our own, while reducing the turnovers we … well …  turn over.

 

It’s incredible we kept the game so close. I was also happy to see shades of the 2021 offense come out with the Allen designed run and the quick hitters in the 4th quarter. Where was that all game!?

 

 

Wow I didn't realize that. That is a problem. Stems from not being able to generate any type of pressure with our front 4. 

[Bermuda Triangle]

3 minutes ago, Einstein said:

 

And one of those were deep in Bengals territory!

 

It has been over a month since we last forced an INT. We really need to create some more turnovers of our own, while reducing the turnovers we … well …  turn over.

 

It’s incredible we kept the game so close. I was also happy to see shades of the 2021 offense come out with the Allen designed run and the quick hitters in the 4th quarter. Where was that all game!?

 

 

Aside from a near punch out by Douglas, did we even come close to forcing a TO?

[buffblue]

28 minutes ago, Simon said:

Frustrating game (again) and a bad loss for seedings.

But it's not the end of their run. They lost by 6 to a desperate, playoff-caliber team at their house in primetime. That happens to good teams, too.

I will say I did like their attitude tonight. They've been intimidated by the Bengals in the past and they absolutely were not tonight. It was their guys doing some ducking tonight and their guys taking home extra ice after the game.

 

>Who'd have ever thought our defense would desperately need Terrel Bernard going forward? Because they do. They really do.

 

> Thrilled with what I saw from both of our new acquisitions tonight. No way you could take Dane off the field the way he was attacking, but I'd have liked ot see Linval taking more of Jordan Phillips' snaps, who was a liability tonight.

 

> Most pissed about the leg whip. I think it was Hendrickson AGAIN (it was the RDE) going after Allen's lower legs on a freaking dirtbag play that causes real injuries. I hope he gets drunk and gets rolled in town tonight.

 

>Diggs and Kincaid are a nice duo for Josh. I'd really like to see Shakir more involved as the 3rd guy. Those two threats from Diggs/Kincaid can be leveraged to create space in various parts of the field that Shakir can take advantage of. Wasting more key downs on Gabe Davis is never productive.

 

> The DLine is going to take a ton of flak, but they won the trench most of the night. That ball was gone as soon as his back foot hit and they knew they were going to keep having success attacking the Bills "linebackers" and struggling safeties as soon as Bernard went down.

 

> There are too many good players on this team to look like that over extended stretches. This is not as well-coached a team as it should be, particularly on offense. I don't want to see anybody fired tomorrow, but I would not shed any tears if they went in a different direction at OC this offseason.

 

>Interesting night for both the Bills OT's. Anybody going to call out Dawkins for his borderline Jawaan Taylor impersonation tonight? Not to his face, though. And I also wondered several times tonight if Linval can just start at Tackle and play two ways.

 

 

 

 

Seemed like Dawkins was really timing the snap well. He did set back off the line a bit tonight, but nowhere near Taylor level. I honestly thought he was excellent and neutralized Hendrickson for most of the game

[Simon]

14 minutes ago, Beast said:

What do you mean take it somewhere else? They were dominated big-time and the time of possession was as lopsided as I can ever recall.

 

Seriously, take it somewhere else? Why, because you’ll ban me because you don’t like my opinion?

 

Get over yourself.

 

I’m sure I’ll be shown the door now, right Simon? 

 

The one and only caveat I get for busting my ass to keep this place clean is the right to run my own occasional thread.

Don't bring the bullspit in here.

 

13 minutes ago, buffblue said:

Seemed like Dawkins was really timing the snap well. He did set back off the line a bit tonight, but nowhere near Taylor level. I honestly thought he was excellent and neutralized Hendrickson for most of the game

 

Yeah I was exaggerating for humor, but he was definitely toeing (or not toeing) the line all night.

[BuffaloRebound]

2 minutes ago, Bermuda Triangle said:

Aside from a near punch out by Douglas, did we even come close to forcing a TO?

Jackson almost had Int before Hyde came in late. Rousseau got his hand on ball.  Burrow faced some pressure and was knocked to the ground semi regularly.  It didn’t feel like he was comfortable back there after 1st 2 drives.  And their running game was complete non-factor.  I was pleasantly surprised by our defense.  Our offense on the other hand looked bad for majority of game.  

[strive_for_five_guy]

For everyone saying the Bills are done, we just lost by less than a TD to one of the other top AFC teams in their place on a Sunday night.  Their crowd was as loud as any I can remember for an opposing team.  Sucks to be 5-4, but don’t count this team out yet.  We win the next two (DEN & NYJ), who cares about Philly, and then beat KC out of the bye, we will be at worst 8-5, feeling good and ready for our stretch run.  We were 7-6 just two years ago, ended up winning the division and were only 13 seconds from hosting the AFC Championship.  Anyone throwing in the towel already can get lost!

Edited November 6, 2023 by strive_for_five_guy

[Warcodered]

3 minutes ago, strive_for_five_guy said:

For everyone saying the Bills are done, we just lost by less than a TD to one of the other top AFC teams in their place on a Sunday night.  Their crowd was as loud as any I can remember for an opposing team.  Sucks to be 5-4, but don’t count this team out yet.  We win the next two (DEN & NYJ), who cares about Philly, and then beat KC out of the bye, we will be at worst 8-5, feeling good and ready for our stretch run.  We were 7-6 just two years ago, ended up winning the division and were only 13 seconds from hosting the AFC Championship.  Anyone throwing in the towel already can get lost!

Yeah the 3 guys we brought in around the trade deadline get integrated into the team our MLB comes back from concussion, we perform some sort of exorcism to get rid of whatever ***** bad luck demon is stalking the team, and the defense looks a lot better. The offense, go up tempo for ***** sake.

[Gunsgoodtime]

It was about as I expected tonight honestly.  I will just leave it at that.

[HappyDays]

4 minutes ago, strive_for_five_guy said:

we just lost by less than a TD

 

I think the close game narrative is a little disingenuous given that the Bengals kneeled out their final drive.