The root source of D problems is the D Line

[Toyo321]

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

Watching the first two drives of 49ers/Rams and this is exactly what San Fran's defense did. That strategy got them two 3 and outs to start the game. Stafford can't find passing windows and already has two almost INTs.

 

I'm no expert on what the exact right strategy should have been but clearly we had the wrong strategy. I don't think the commonly used excuse of "the Rams offense when healthy is unstoppable" is correct. They certainly don't look it tonight.

 

EDIT: Now three 3 and outs to start the game...

 

2nd edit: FOUR 3 and outs to start the game. Stafford is holding the ball unable to find anyone open. My god our defensive coaching really blew that game.

 

Yeah our D is horrendous and always has been, this bend don't break Zone defense is a absolute S*** show, 49er's are showing how a real D plays.  Our D is soft as hell.

[Solomon Grundy]

On 12/9/2024 at 7:13 AM, Tortured Soul said:

Why do people think we couldn’t stop the run? Rams ran for 3.3 YPC.

This equates to a 1st down every possession 

[Solomon Grundy]

On 12/9/2024 at 10:25 AM, Simon said:

 

This is simply not true.

Oliver had 3 tackles, led the team in QB hits and could be seen several times successfully anchoring against doubles and hustling downfield to run down ballcarriers.

Rousseau's only "play" was a single assisted tackle in the 4th qrtr (it was not a tfl) and he could be seen multiple times standing around unengaged, waiting for his teammates to finish plays.

Oliver has not been good this year, but he was not the problem yesterday.

If Rousseau's play was as you say, then I blame McDermott for not sitting him on the bench.

[Richard Noggin]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

So yea I agree on the secondary. I don't see the Rams as a team that terrify me over the top. Kupp and Nacua are not those type of players. So I'd have tried to flood short and intermdiate zones and clog it all up. Just put more guys into shorter spaces for Stafford to diagnose and disect. 

 

On the blitzes... they did try some 6 man pressures. The issue is just the Bills are not a blitzing team. Once you are relying on asking your players to do something that isn't their stock in trade to make a difference you are grabbing at desperation already IMO.

 

Bernard and Milano have each flashed serious ability rushing the passer, albeit very sparingly. There is some aptitude there. And I suspect Douglas and Bernard could do a little something downhill as well. 

 

But I do agree that the Bills are not designed to be a heavy pressure team. 

 

I think we all clearly wish they'd be more aggressive at the LOS against receivers more often. Those clean releases and off coverages get eaten alive by the top offenses (especially when combined with a lack of pressure). 

[Kelly to Allen]

1 hour ago, Toyo321 said:

Yeah our D is horrendous and always has been, this bend don't break Zone defense is a absolute S*** show, 49er's are showing how a real D plays.  Our D is soft as hell.

 

 

I mean it's been horrendous in the playoffs. But if that's when your defense is terrible, that's all that matters 

 

McDermott's defense gets a pass all the time in the 20 AFC championship which is also ridiculous. The very next week, Tampa found a way to play good defense. And the bills defense was healthy....

 

 

1 hour ago, Solomon Grundy said:

If Rousseau's play was as you say, then I blame McDermott for not sitting him on the bench.

 

This is kinda delusional. Rousseau has had a dominant year. Von Miller has had dominat moments as a situational pass rusher. Same for Ed Oliver 

 

The question is will that happen in the playoffs 

Edited December 13 by Kelly to Allen

[GunnerBill]

8 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

Watching the first two drives of 49ers/Rams and this is exactly what San Fran's defense did. That strategy got them two 3 and outs to start the game. Stafford can't find passing windows and already has two almost INTs.

 

I'm no expert on what the exact right strategy should have been but clearly we had the wrong strategy. I don't think the commonly used excuse of "the Rams offense when healthy is unstoppable" is correct. They certainly don't look it tonight.

 

EDIT: Now three 3 and outs to start the game...

 

2nd edit: FOUR 3 and outs to start the game. Stafford is holding the ball unable to find anyone open. My god our defensive coaching really blew that game.

 

 

Haven't watched last night's game yet, but it was pretty clear to me that was the adjustment to make. The people screaming about blitzing and man coverage scream about that every week. I call it the Madden effect. In real football desperately throwing blitzes around as a last resort rarely works. 

 

My overall take is Sunday was a combination. It was certainly a coaching failure on defense but it was the case we were just out executed too. Timing up the blitzes better so that Stafford can't fake you out every time, that's execution. Players have to be better there. They have to recognise early in the game it is what he is trying to do and they have to hold their nerve to go late. And Taron Johnson just got got. He was outplayed, dominated, and well beaten. Could scheme have helped, possibly, but Taron just lost his 1v1 matchup convincingly and when one of your better players does that, you are in for a tough day. Taylor Rapp particularly struggled as well. I thought the Rams, who obviously know him well, did a good job of getting his eyes in the wrong place and then exposing him. The touchdown run to the outside was an example but there were others where they fooled him and then he was late to his gap. 

 

But the coaching is a wider concern, because this is twice now for Babich (Sunday and Baltimore) where when they have struggled early he has mad bad panicky adjustments and been unable to stem the bleeding. His more man and blitz adjustment just resulted in getting us even more shredded. It made conceptually no sense to me. Stafford wanted to work in the short and intermediate spaces and you are opening those gaps up wider by bringing the players who should be there to pressure. It made the windows for those throws from Stafford as big as anything and he shredded them. I think McVay and Monken have both set him traps and he has fallen into them. Young coordinator, still learning, but (and I know I am about the only person on this entire forum who misses him) there is zero chance Leslie Frazier makes those mistakes IMO. 

Edited December 13 by GunnerBill

[Matt_In_NH]

Been looking at this thread for a while.  What in the world is a root source?

[colin]

So, in 2017 the bills had a rag tag team on D but scrapped together a flukey 9-7 record and got to the tourney, where the d played great but the tyrod O was cheeks.  

 

in 2018, we started to see a pattern that would continue until now on D.  we faced baltimore to start, peterman had his famous 0.0 passer rating game (i remember throwing like 8 incomplete passes and nothing else would have created a better stat, he might be the worst performing nfl qb i've ever heard of).  The d was on easy mode and the ravens just targeted edmunds who was out of position in our "all parts must be in place" D and just walked on us.

 

The next game rivers and the colts went to buf, the career of josh allen started with very little fanfare, and we were obliterated by the rivers passing attack in the first half.  then davis retired at the half (lol, the most bizarre thing ever!) and our D in the second half and for the majority of the rest of the season was at the top of the NFL in yards allowed, and for the most part in scoring as well.  I remember being shocked at how a pretty rag tag squad (poy and hyde were known as former scrubs who played on their heads, rather than the all pros they became) of aging vets and a couple talented guys (our dline was headed by rookie harrison phillips, lorax, kyle williams, and free agents trent murph and star, and we had 2nd year tre white and rook edmunds) just frustrated nfl teams constantly allowing few big plays and forcing punts and timely turnovers.  

 

this pattern of being totally solved and blown to pieces in a couple games and being basically lights out the rest of the time continued until this very day, even with josh allen maturing from a lost uber talent raw guy behind some of the most garbage OLs and with the lowest level of skill talent around him to the FarvElway he was always meant to be with a dominant line and a mix of some real talent and lots of overperforming jags.

 

McD clearly has something on D.  He's had too much success against too many teams in too many games to be a rex ryan or jom shwartz who piles up mega stats when the D is 65% of the cap and is executing a very specific scheme well, but the complete lay downs from the first couple drives to the buzzer have still been there on D, even with what is basically the best player ever leading the scariest O on the planet.

 

the bottom line for the McD skeptics is that given we have a nuclear bomb on O, we do not accept a D that is structured to maximize the average result on D if it leads us to games vs good teams (particularly in the playoffs where he has never beaten a 4th seed or higher) where the D will squander any level of play by the O, including literal all time dominant performances, let alone a less than cosmic performance from 17.  we simply don't believe that this is the way it must be.  he must adapt his concept of complimentary football to include  moving out of his comfort zone on D in order to have an answer for the Rams of last week, KC of several playoffs, and cincy in the home divisional game where instead of accepting a slow and steady death he makes some kind of move (not just in game, but in prior preparation) to change his focus to doing what had to be done with who he has on the team to get allen the ball back so he can continue to make the greatest plays anyone has ever seen from an NFL QB, even if it means allowing more frequent deep passes.  his tendency to sort of desperation dial up poor blitzes and last ditch coverage changes as a half measure while still being crippled by his fear of players making mental errors forcing him to start aj klien over a talented dorian williams has ended at least 3 pristine chances at a super bowl in the past several seasons of allen's record run at QB. 

 

he can't win them all, but he must win one, and soon, or else he's simply the modern shottenhiemer who's playing for a good loss to the champion.

[Pete]

How does San Fran hold Rams to 12 points?  NFL makes zero sense 

[HappyDays]

4 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Haven't watched last night's game yet, but it was pretty clear to me that was the adjustment to make. The people screaming about blitzing and man coverage scream about that every week. I call it the Madden effect. In real football desperately throwing blitzes around as a last resort rarely works. 

 

My overall take is Sunday was a combination. It was certainly a coaching failure on defense but it was the case we were just out executed too. Timing up the blitzes better so that Stafford can't fake you out every time, that's execution. Players have to be better there. They have to recognise early in the game it is what he is trying to do and they have to hold their nerve to go late. And Taron Johnson just got got. He was outplayed, dominated, and well beaten. Could scheme have helped, possibly, but Taron just lost his 1v1 matchup convincingly and when one of your better players does that, you are in for a tough day. Taylor Rapp particularly struggled as well. I thought the Rams, who obviously know him well, did a good job of getting his eyes in the wrong place and then exposing him. The touchdown run to the outside was an example but there were others where they fooled him and then he was late to his gap. 

 

But the coaching is a wider concern, because this is twice now for Babich (Sunday and Baltimore) where when they have struggled early he has mad bad panicky adjustments and been unable to stem the bleeding. His more man and blitz adjustment just resulted in getting us even more shredded. It made conceptually no sense to me. Stafford wanted to work in the short and intermediate spaces and you are opening those gaps up wider by bringing the players who should be there to pressure. It made the windows for those throws from Stafford as big as anything and he shredded them. I think McVay and Monken have both set him traps and he has fallen into them. Young coordinator, still learning, but (and I know I am about the only person on this entire forum who misses him) there is zero chance Leslie Frazier makes those mistakes IMO. 

 

This is a good week to get that gameplan right because I think conceptually you have to defend the Lions in the same way you want to defend the Rams. I just listened to Joe Marino's breakdown of the Lions and they are apparently dead last in deep throw % at just over 6%. I'm sure part of that is because they are playing with a lead so often but still it is not something you really have to worry about with them even though Jameson Williams certainly has that ability. This is a game where we should be willing to bring a safety down, focus on shutting down the run, and flood the intermediate zones. If we get beat deep once or twice so be it, all that means is Allen is back on the field right away. We cannot have another week where the opposing QB looks comfortable all day and finds easy reads on every single dropback.

 

Joe Marino made another good point that the Lions are so aggressive on 4th down that you can't play the "rally and tackle" style of defense on 3rd down, like we did against the Rams on 3rd and 17. I want to see McDermott/Babich step out of their comfort zone. Don't come into the game playing conservative waiting to see what the Lions do before panic adjusting to telegraphed blitzes. At least make it a challenge on them and live with the result.

[GunnerBill]

12 minutes ago, Pete said:

How does San Fran hold Rams to 12 points?  NFL makes zero sense 

 

Haven't seen the game but part of the answer to why San Fran always do well against McVay is that McVay is basically running Shanahan's plays. Nobody understands that offense as well as Kyle Shanahan and he understands how to stop it too.

[colin]

14 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

This is a good week to get that gameplan right because I think conceptually you have to defend the Lions in the same way you want to defend the Rams. I just listened to Joe Marino's breakdown of the Lions and they are apparently dead last in deep throw % at just over 6%. I'm sure part of that is because they are playing with a lead so often but still it is not something you really have to worry about with them even though Jameson Williams certainly has that ability. This is a game where we should be willing to bring a safety down, focus on shutting down the run, and flood the intermediate zones. If we get beat deep once or twice so be it, all that means is Allen is back on the field right away. We cannot have another week where the opposing QB looks comfortable all day and finds easy reads on every single dropback.

 

Joe Marino made another good point that the Lions are so aggressive on 4th down that you can't play the "rally and tackle" style of defense on 3rd down, like we did against the Rams on 3rd and 17. I want to see McDermott/Babich step out of their comfort zone. Don't come into the game playing conservative waiting to see what the Lions do before panic adjusting to telegraphed blitzes. At least make it a challenge on them and live with the result.

 

 

I agree with this completely.  Sadly, i've not seen much from mcd to show that he will go against type, but it's pretty obvious at this point that our d is soft and does poorly when it does not get turnovers.

[Lothar]

6 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Haven't watched last night's game yet, but it was pretty clear to me that was the adjustment to make. The people screaming about blitzing and man coverage scream about that every week. I call it the Madden effect. In real football desperately throwing blitzes around as a last resort rarely works. 

 

My overall take is Sunday was a combination. It was certainly a coaching failure on defense but it was the case we were just out executed too. Timing up the blitzes better so that Stafford can't fake you out every time, that's execution. Players have to be better there. They have to recognise early in the game it is what he is trying to do and they have to hold their nerve to go late. And Taron Johnson just got got. He was outplayed, dominated, and well beaten. Could scheme have helped, possibly, but Taron just lost his 1v1 matchup convincingly and when one of your better players does that, you are in for a tough day. Taylor Rapp particularly struggled as well. I thought the Rams, who obviously know him well, did a good job of getting his eyes in the wrong place and then exposing him. The touchdown run to the outside was an example but there were others where they fooled him and then he was late to his gap. 

 

But the coaching is a wider concern, because this is twice now for Babich (Sunday and Baltimore) where when they have struggled early he has mad bad panicky adjustments and been unable to stem the bleeding. His more man and blitz adjustment just resulted in getting us even more shredded. It made conceptually no sense to me. Stafford wanted to work in the short and intermediate spaces and you are opening those gaps up wider by bringing the players who should be there to pressure. It made the windows for those throws from Stafford as big as anything and he shredded them. I think McVay and Monken have both set him traps and he has fallen into them. Young coordinator, still learning, but (and I know I am about the only person on this entire forum who misses him) there is zero chance Leslie Frazier makes those mistakes IMO. 

I agree somewhat but it's also why I'd like to see Elam getting more reps. It's important to have man corners when we pay teams like the Rams. Joe Marino mentioned coming into this game that Stafford was 30th or 31st coming into this game against man to man. Our primarily (very good) zone corners got beat by even better zone busting receivers and a head coach completely in his bag. This was one of the few games where Babich and McD had no answers.

[Mango]

1 hour ago, Pete said:

How does San Fran hold Rams to 12 points?  NFL makes zero sense 

 

Pouring rain helps. 

[NeverOutNick]

The D line didn’t get pressure, Hamlin needs to be benched and McD needs someone to punch him in the face with in game decisions 

[finn]

10 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

This is a good week to get that gameplan right because I think conceptually you have to defend the Lions in the same way you want to defend the Rams. I just listened to Joe Marino's breakdown of the Lions and they are apparently dead last in deep throw % at just over 6%. I'm sure part of that is because they are playing with a lead so often but still it is not something you really have to worry about with them even though Jameson Williams certainly has that ability. This is a game where we should be willing to bring a safety down, focus on shutting down the run, and flood the intermediate zones. If we get beat deep once or twice so be it, all that means is Allen is back on the field right away. We cannot have another week where the opposing QB looks comfortable all day and finds easy reads on every single dropback.

 

Joe Marino made another good point that the Lions are so aggressive on 4th down that you can't play the "rally and tackle" style of defense on 3rd down, like we did against the Rams on 3rd and 17. I want to see McDermott/Babich step out of their comfort zone. Don't come into the game playing conservative waiting to see what the Lions do before panic adjusting to telegraphed blitzes. At least make it a challenge on them and live with the result.

If this is the case, maybe it's opportune that Bishop may be replacing Hamlin, who plays really far back. A faster, more athletic free safety playing more aggressively in tandem with Rapp (if he plays), Bernard and Milano against the middle-field routes Goff prefers might slow the Lions down. Could be vulnerable deep, but if that's really a Goff weakness, it might be where they roll the dice. I'm most worried about their play action after a few successful run gains.

 

Frankly, the only way I see the Bills stopping the Lions' offense is via tipped passes, forced fumbles, and calculated gambles that lead to interceptions. Taron is pretty much their only big-play guy, so I'm hoping he makes the difference. They might need to stop them just a few times to allow Allen to do his thing and pull this thing off.

 

Of course, that still leaves special teams and McDermott's game management....

[ProcessTruster]

ah I see this board still having trouble moving past the Rams game........ was just checking in to observe the continuing meltdown of the famous bills mafia in the face of some adversity... what a bunch of whiners

[CircleTheWagons99]

On 12/11/2024 at 10:17 PM, klos63 said:

Babisch is the DC and play caller.

It's still McD's defense. 

[Amorgus]

2 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

This is a good week to get that gameplan right because I think conceptually you have to defend the Lions in the same way you want to defend the Rams. I just listened to Joe Marino's breakdown of the Lions and they are apparently dead last in deep throw % at just over 6%. I'm sure part of that is because they are playing with a lead so often but still it is not something you really have to worry about with them even though Jameson Williams certainly has that ability. This is a game where we should be willing to bring a safety down, focus on shutting down the run, and flood the intermediate zones. If we get beat deep once or twice so be it, all that means is Allen is back on the field right away. We cannot have another week where the opposing QB looks comfortable all day and finds easy reads on every single dropback.

 

Joe Marino made another good point that the Lions are so aggressive on 4th down that you can't play the "rally and tackle" style of defense on 3rd down, like we did against the Rams on 3rd and 17. I want to see McDermott/Babich step out of their comfort zone. Don't come into the game playing conservative waiting to see what the Lions do before panic adjusting to telegraphed blitzes. At least make it a challenge on them and live with the result.

Absolute truth. Lions go for it on 4th down when they're on their own 30 yard line and have a lead. Team Kamikaze isn't going to give the Bills D the chance to bend. It's either break or don't. 

[SCBills]

Year in, year out, our DL is garbage when it matters, yet people still want to pay Rousseau 25M per…

 

Im going to need to see something from this DL moving forward before I feel comfortable investing in any of these players.  
 

Rousseau is very good.. and maybe he’s worth that to a lot of teams.. imo, unless he becomes a guy who can actually make game changing plays when it matters, I’m not sure he’s worth that to a team that has to pay an elite QB.  
 

Luxury players vs Necessary players.  
 

And right now, we have zero “necessary” players on this DL. 
 

Either step up this postseason or I’m ready to blow up the DL.   Re-sign Cooper & Hollins and the Offense is basically set… then explore trades for Oliver and Rousseau and invest heavily in the DL via the draft and get new FA/young blood in here. 
 

Or they can finally step up and I’ll be cheering as loud as anyone to extend Rousseau and appreciate the guys like Jones, Oliver and AJ who are under contract next year. 
 

Im still open to the fact these guys have upside, but I have exactly zero patience for this constant letdown of a unit. 
 

 

Edited December 13 by SCBills