McD will be the scapegoat to hide the real issue this week

[Real McClappy]

How is he a scapegoat being our Defensive HC?

[DeepPass]

1 hour ago, Cray51 said:

Fans are already piling on McD for his end of game decisions (accepting the penalty with 5 minutes left and the TO after the sneak).  I think there is fair criticism to both plays, however those two decisions are NOT why we lost the game. 

 

Defense today:

11-15 on third down conversions (was 11-12 with about 5 minutes left in the game

1-1 on fourth down

0 sacks

38:30 time of possession for the Rams

457 total yards allowed

 

The game wasn't lost in the last 5 minutes, it was the poor playcalling by Babich and execution in the first 55 that really hurt us.

Thank you for the very logical explanation. The Bills D has been soft all season and the Rams didn't give up turn-overs like the 49ers did. 

[DaVinci]

Here is a Defensive accolade 

 

The Bills are the first team in NFL history to score 6+ TDs without a turnover but lose the game.

[Ga boy]

1 hour ago, The Jokeman said:

Stafford is a debatable HOF, Macias and KIPP are too end WRs and their RB was like 4th in rushing coming into the game. That offense hasn't been healthy all season until today.

This.  Rams offense couldn’t play a better game than today.  They made 4-5 unbelievable plays.  The Bills offense could’ve been better in the 1st half.  It will be interesting to see if Rams play is sustainable.  I don’t see Detroit being able to match what we saw today, but we’ll see.  

[BigAl2526]

I agree with the OP.  When your offense scores 42 points with no turnovers, you expect to win.  The Blocked punt and resulting touchdown didn't help, but the defense looked porous the whole game.  Running the ball is becoming more fashionable and Buffalo's defense is not built to handle it.  Matthew Stafford also played a strong game.  He threw very accurately.  Lastly, I thought the officiating was very inconsistent.  They made a bunch of ticky tack calls and then later in the game they let some more obvious penalties go uncalled.  DBs in particular didn't know if they were going to get called for having their hands on the receivers or not.  On one occasion, they missed an obvious false start on a play where the Rams made a big chunk of yards. 

[Shortchaz]

Whole offseason needs to be used on upgrading the defense. 

[Jerome007]

1 hour ago, stlbills13 said:

Rasul got dominated all day. That worries me. Then he got hurt. The defensive line may as well not have made the trip. The play calling was awful too. There were 3 huge coaching blunders in the last 5 minutes but the defensive performance was historically bad 

My son sure wasn't crying tears for Douglas. But to me, interior  DLine are worrisome, have been all year. Remember when losing DaQuan Jones seemed a big loss? Now we don't even know he's there.

 

OLine could passprotect super well, but the run game never took off, at all. 

 

Josh had a great game, except when throwing while running. He usually is soooo good at that, yet he was off target all day on those. 

[jkeerie]

1 hour ago, Fleezoid said:

The defense was gashed all day by a 6-6 team. That's coaching. Or a crappy roster. One of those is true. 

 

That 6-6 team may well have been 10-2 or better had their offense been healthy all season.  They finally got their starting WRs and their starting O line back.

[nedboy7]

34 minutes ago, jkeerie said:

That 6-6 team may well have been 10-2 or better had their offense been healthy all season.  They finally got their starting WRs and their starting O line back.

that was as good as an offense as any in the NFL. That’s not a 6-6 team 

[vincec]

1 hour ago, folz said:

 

Funny, when the defense does well, we hear how Babich has been an improvement over McD calling the game, more aggressive, etc.. When the defense goes poorly, Babich is a puppet of McD.

I honestly thought the defense was better last season with McDermott calling the plays. More aggressive and more effective when blitzing. This defense looks a lot like Leslie Frazier’s.

[Eastport bills]

I listened to Sean’s post game presser and it sounded like he didn’t understand calling a TO was effectively giving up. Then he said that they didn’t have enough men on the field to rush the punter. I love the guy and the players play hard for him but he is not buttoned up at crucial times in big games. 

[Beck Water]

3 hours ago, Cray51 said:

Fans are already piling on McD for his end of game decisions (accepting the penalty with 5 minutes left and the TO after the sneak).  I think there is fair criticism to both plays, however those two decisions are NOT why we lost the game. 

 

Defense today:

11-15 on third down conversions (was 11-12 with about 5 minutes left in the game

1-1 on fourth down

0 sacks

38:30 time of possession for the Rams

457 total yards allowed

 

The game wasn't lost in the last 5 minutes, it was the poor playcalling by Babich and execution in the first 55 that really hurt us.

 

Someone, I think it was @GunnerBill, said that a team has to get 4 stops to have a chance of winning.

 

Well, hell, 2 stops would have done it tonight.
 

On defense, they got 2 stops and forced 2 punts

On defense, we limited them to 1 FG and forced 1 punt

And that is the difference in the ballgame.

 

27 minutes ago, vincec said:

I honestly thought the defense was better last season with McDermott calling the plays. More aggressive and more effective when blitzing. This defense looks a lot like Leslie Frazier’s.

 

It has been very aggressive at times.  Against KC, they were relentless.

Edited December 9 by Beck Water

[WinterSoldier17]

2 hours ago, Chicharito said:

Soft zone killed us today. I don’t understand why you stay in that the look when they had us beat all game in it.

This ^
 

To keep doing the same thing over and over again that is killing us, is maddening. Change some things up! Make some adjustments in real time! Admit to yourself it’s NOT working.

[NoName]

I think the real issue with Mcdermotts defense is how teams can dictated the time of possession by running on the defense.  

[LABILLBACKER]

3 hours ago, Buddy Hix said:

You think Babich is more than a McD puppet? Like I’m sure he calls his own plays, but I’m also sure the gutless bend but don’t break/deep safeties is all McD’s wishes.

McD always has and always will be a micro manager.  This is HIS defensive scheme and formation. And it has been since 2017.  DC's come and go and pretend to be in charge but Sean runs the show. The yearly failings of his defense are forever embedded in him.

5 minutes ago, NoName said:

I think the real issue with Mcdermotts defense is how teams can dictated the time of possession by running on the defense.  

Yeah, because he's obsessed with drafting undersized Dlineman. If you think today is the last time our D gets embarrassed,  you're delusional. 

[Turbo44]

7 minutes ago, NoName said:

I think the real issue with Mcdermotts defense is how teams can dictated the time of possession by running on the defense.  

 I think the rams averaged Les than 4 yards per carry. Bigger issue was total lack of pass rush and defensive scheme. Stafford is  below average qb when pressured and is much better playing vs zone. Where was Rousseau and any DE or DT today? Certainly not near Stafford. One thing Phillips can do is rush the QB and we sit him. One thing Elam can do is play man and we sit him. And we stubbornly play zone on around 80% of plays. Plain stupid decisions and coaching 

[GreggTX]

We need to make a serious attempt to upgrade in the trenches. We are too soft. I know we play nickel and light boxes, but Jones only makes an occasional play. Oliver might as well stay on the bench for all he contributes. Von just doesn't have much gas left in the tank any more. Epenesa is worthless. At least Rousseau is pretty good. So 3 of our 4 starters on the DL need BIG upgrades. We need serious competition at both Guard spots as well. Neither Torrence nor Edwards are even average. We've got to get tougher in the trenches.

[UKBillFan]

7 hours ago, Cray51 said:

Babich called a poor game and the team didnt execute.  Against the Chiefs Babich implemented plenty of man coverage and it helped.  Tonight, he played wayyy too much off man zone, allowing the screen and jet sweep game to work, and then sat back in zone on 3rd down and let Stafford pick them apart.

 

People can say McD's scheme, Babich is a puppet blah blah.  Babich called a bad game.  He is responsible for the playcalling on D.

 

And McDermott is head coach, furthermore a head coach from the defensive side of the game. If he doesn't like what Babich is calling he can and should take over.

[colin]

I'm super mad at McD for what I consider to be clear and obvious errors last night:

 

1.  Time out after the sneak.  Just spike the ball if you have to, and have it ready to go before the first sneak was called.  if we had 3 time outs we can kick it deep and stop then on an obvious run 3 times and have the ball back w about 40ish seconds, maybe near mid field.  At that time of the game that was about a 40%+ chance of winning given that allen was unstoppable.  9 men on the punt and the punt block deserve mention as some shocking fundamental issues on special teams.  The poor kick coverage and kick return stats were also problems.

 

2.  The D gameplan/coverage.  We did go to some man and got flagged for horrible holding and pass intro, so he did kinda do something there.  What really happened is he went from making it super easy to run to easy for them to pass.  The whole scheme on D was weak and set us up to fail vs Stafford who is statistically the best qb in the nfl vs zone.  The blitzing seemed like a tacked on after thoughts -- always obvious, always back 7 guys coming up the middle.  No disguise which he has a rep for.

 

3.  Playing Milano.  He might be able to come back, but it's clear he is not ready yet.  Williams is at least fast and physical.  He likely would have made a couple of plays vs the run or just ran someone down in the pass game and made a tackle short of the sticks.  He woulda made mistakes mentally, but we forced this team to punt one single time as it was.

 

 

Now, it has been historically true that mcd has been able to make chicken salad out of chicken poop on D a few times.  Poy and hyde came in as no ones and balled out.  that tyrod lead team that went to the playoffs had a lot of luck w turnovers and such, but he really did get a squad of zeroes to play beyond their means.  He's made Hamlin almost look like a starting NFL safety, and has gotten really good games out of Rapp, and made 6th round pick benford and old vet douglas too.  this is largely because of preparation and scheme.  He's certainly had success w the players we have had on D.

 

Now, we have a ton of dead cap, and have just giant contracts on players (von, knox, milano, dquan, to a certain extent chris samuel and ed oliver) who simply do not make meaningful contributions to the team.

 

The upside, and it sucks because we are wasting yet another all world season by the qb, is that once we can clear these contracts we have room to upgrade lots of positions.  The downside, aside from the putrid performances we've had in the playoffs on D and this year vs baltimore and the rams, is that mcclapper has too much influence on who gets drafted and signed and we over draft or over pay Scheme fit guys instead of talent because of McDs stubborn nature.  his D needs a top flight run and pass beating off ball MLB and some really talented D linemen who can disrupt vs the run and pass.  talent at corner is important too.

 

The entire NFL, particularly our own O, has adjusted from seeking constant deep passing to constructing teams that beat deep shell zone coverage because that's the recipe that has caused the 2017-2022 mega offenses to falter.  McD between the low quality roster and his scheme, not to mention having a rookie DC with a small veteran D, has not shown enough ability to come of of type and adjust to that.  Real talent would hep us there, but given McD is a pure D coach who stays up at night scared of deep passes, I wonder if he can make the adjustments even with the necessary added talent.  

 

Another playoff exit with a lay down like we had last night on D and I will put the long term D shortcomings on him squarely.

 

 

 

 

[SydneyBillsFan]

Yes, the defence was putrid.

 

But that does not take away from the fact that when it comes to game day situational awareness, McDermott is the Eberflus of the AFC!