79 points against in two weeks

[Augie]

1 hour ago, Sweats said:

 

 

 

Oh, you know all those threads will be starting soon.......

 

When we win they have to quietly bide their time until we lose a game. Then the flood gates open. I swear some look forward to being proven right by the Bills losing in the playoffs. Personally, I enjoyed last night immensely. The Lions are the #1 team in terms of points scored/game for a reason. I’m not surprised they put up points, but I liked that we had a decent cushion most of the time. 

[Sweats]

6 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

When we win they have to quietly bide their time until we lose a game. Then the flood gates open. I swear some look forward to being proven right by the Bills losing in the playoffs. Personally, I enjoyed last night immensely. The Lions are the #1 team in terms of points scored/game for a reason. I’m not surprised they put up points, but I liked that we had a decent cushion most of the time. 

 

 

 

 

And i can't argue.

 

Our O dominated the Lions all game long, but i just think our D needs to be tightened up a bit. Our last 3 games should give McD and Babich a chance to straighten out the D before the post season.

 

We weren't going to stop Detroit from scoring, but i believe if our D was playing better, we could have limited them to not having a nail biter at the end.

[JohnNord]

37 minutes ago, Brianmoorman4jesus said:

The teams that get to and win the super bowls, make stops. It’s not complete liability defenses that ride on their offense. It’s harder to score in the playoffs. That’s why you need to rely on both sides of the ball. I’m not saying we can’t and I’m not saying we won’t, but it needs to get fixed now. Winning yesterday was great. The week before hurts a little less and I’m thrilled at how locked in our offense has been…giving to 40+ in back to back weeks is inexcusable. Fix the defense now. 

That’s what the coaching staff will certainly be working on.  It will help having experienced starters in the secondary back on the field in a few weeks.  
 

This unit will never be a top defense but they also aren’t going to give up this many points each week.  
 

 

[CaseyatBat]

Can't expect the offense to put up 50 every week. The defense is a concern

[Success]

Our defense feasts on the more average teams of the league.

 

When it comes to the better teams, we give up 90 points in 2 weeks.  That really isn't sustainable - or explainable. We have better personnel than that, and a defensive HC.  

 

I hope they can figure it out, because in the playoffs, we'll get more teams like the last 2 weeks than the ones we see in the AFCE and in most of the rest of the season.

 

[Jauronimo]

14 hours ago, Ben said:

We beat the NFC number one seed on the road. It was closer than it should have been but we really should feel good about this.

It looked a lot closer than it was.  This game was effectively over after Detroit failed to recover the onside kick.

[flmike]

14 hours ago, oldmanfan said:

Did you look at the other D on the field tonight?

Missing a lot of players too

[gonzo1105]

5 minutes ago, Success said:

Our defense feasts on the more average teams of the league.

 

When it comes to the better teams, we give up 90 points in 2 weeks.  That really isn't sustainable - or explainable. We have better personnel than that, and a defensive HC.  

 

I hope they can figure it out, because in the playoffs, we'll get more teams like the last 2 weeks than the ones we see in the AFCE and in most of the rest of the season.

 

 

The good news for us is that the AFC, with maybe the exception of the Ravens and the Bengals(who aren't going to make the playoffs) are the only two team's in the AFC that has the offensive firepower that the Lions and the Rams have in terms of capability.  I mean the Chiefs are struggling on O, I don't think anyone fears Pittsburgh's offense. The Chargers are limited with weapons, the Broncos are employing a rookie QB, and the Texans struggle when you get them away from home. I'm not saying we're going to walk through the playoffs by any means but when it comes to dynamic offenses in the AFC there are very few that can match the Bills or even come close.

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

Baylon Spector played 18 snaps and... i felt like he was targeted on half, and missed tackles... it was really bad.  

 

He sucks in coverage. He is a special teamer who can play in a pinch if a team wants to run it. If they want to throw it watch out. He is in trouble.

[DapperCam]

The Rams game was bad, but this Lions game was just kind of weird.

 

Bills were up 2-3 scores the entire game pretty much, so it was 3 quarters of pseudo-garbage time. Most of the Lions points came in the 4th quarter where the Bills defense let them trade yards for time.

 

If anything it was a coaching issue where they got a little bit too soft too soon.

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

We started off the game playing a lot more man and sending extra rushers, and it worked great. Then whenever we'd go up by 3 scores, we'd go into a soft shell and let them right back into the game. And I'm not talking about the end of the game. I'm talking like 2nd quarter.

 

That's my main beef in this great win. We dont stick to our guns, play to win, and put our heels on their throat. Once we get any type of lead, we go soft, play to "not lose", which just allows the other team to move right down and score.

 

Then once the other team was back close, we'd go back to man/blitzing and shut it down again.

 

I don't think we did do that though in the 2nd quarter. I think there is a baked in assumption amongst our fanbase that every time a team moves the ball against us we must be in soft zone and everytime we get a stop we are blitzing and playing man and it just isn't true. 4th quarter we did go to a lot of softer zones. That IS true. I think they were burned on the long St Brown TD and decided to go more cautious. It was a bit too early to start counting possessions to my eye but there you go. 

[DrDawkinstein]

2 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I don't think we did do that though in the 2nd quarter. I think there is a baked in assumption amongst our fanbase that every time a team moves the ball against us we must be in soft zone and everytime we get a stop we are blitzing and playing man and it just isn't true. 4th quarter we did go to a lot of softer zones. That IS true. I think they were burned on the long St Brown TD and decided to go more cautious. It was a bit too early to start counting possessions to my eye but there you go. 

 

I appreciate the deeper discussion. I'll have to watch the replay this week, but pretty sure we backed off on the Lions 3rd and 4th possessions. Basically their first 2 TD possessions when we were up 14-0 and 21-7, bringing it to 21-14.

 

Then we'd tighten back up and run more man/pressure once it was back to a 1-score game.

 

And dont get me wrong. I understand the Lions have the #1 offense, and we werent going to shut them out. It's just annoying watching us move away from what was working so early in the game just because we jumped out to a decent lead.

[gonzo1105]

8 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I don't think we did do that though in the 2nd quarter. I think there is a baked in assumption amongst our fanbase that every time a team moves the ball against us we must be in soft zone and everytime we get a stop we are blitzing and playing man and it just isn't true. 4th quarter we did go to a lot of softer zones. That IS true. I think they were burned on the long St Brown TD and decided to go more cautious. It was a bit too early to start counting possessions to my eye but there you go. 

 

I agree with you. I mean I don't think the St. Brown TD should have had that reaction as we literally tipped the football and had 3 men around the football. If anything it was a great concentration catch and a great play by the Lions more than a Bills mistake. My big issue is the soft zone to burn time is they still allowed way too much chunk plays. The goal is to give up 7-8 yards a play not 12-15.

[GunnerBill]

2 minutes ago, gonzo1105 said:

 

I agree with you. I mean I don't think the St. Brown TD should have had that reaction as we literally tipped the football and had 3 men around the football. If anything it was a great concentration catch and a great play by the Lions more than a Bills mistake. My big issue is the soft zone to burn time is they still allowed way too much chunk plays. The goal is to give up 7-8 yards a play not 12-15.

 

Yep, as well as going to it arguably a drive too soon the bolded is also true. The soft zone is to force the underneath stuff, if every throw is a first down and they are still marching downfield in 2 and a half minutes then you are not really getting the job done. 

[GerstAusGosheim]

2 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Leslie is by far the best of the 3 defensive coordinators we have had in the McDermott era. I'm 100% with you there. He got ridiculous unfounded hate from many.

 

It's crazy that the Bills had the #1 and #2 ranked D in 2021 and 2022, and when the Bills O only scored 10 measly points vs the Bengals in the playoffs, Leslie got fired and Dorsey kept his job. This isn't always ranked as high as Sean's other mind boggling blunders like :13, but it should be. 

 

[26TrapDraw]

Realize it was against the Lions and we have injuries in the secondary BUT with everyone back, will we be able to fix the non existent pass rush, a really soft zone and the inability to stop an elite run game?

We better because I don't think the 40 points a game is sustainable ( Although if anyone can do it it's Superman Allen).

If we just outscore everyone and win a SB everyone here would be good. Fingers crossed I guess

[GunnerBill]

15 minutes ago, GerstAusGosheim said:

 

It's crazy that the Bills had the #1 and #2 ranked D in 2021 and 2022, and when the Bills O only scored 10 measly points vs the Bengals in the playoffs, Leslie got fired and Dorsey kept his job. This isn't always ranked as high as Sean's other mind boggling blunders like :13, but it should be. 

 

 

Leslie didn't get fired. He walked away. I know people doubt that but I promise you it's true. 

[2003Contenders]

4 hours ago, gonzo1105 said:

 

I agree with you. I mean I don't think the St. Brown TD should have had that reaction as we literally tipped the football and had 3 men around the football. If anything it was a great concentration catch and a great play by the Lions more than a Bills mistake. My big issue is the soft zone to burn time is they still allowed way too much chunk plays. The goal is to give up 7-8 yards a play not 12-15.

Exactly right!

 

It's funny -- when you look at the final score and yardage, it would seem that the defense was garbage. And what transpired in the 4th quarter was certainly problematic. That said...

 

-- The Bills did a very good job of holding the Lions' vaunted running game in check. I went into the game very worried that the combination of Gibbs and Montgomery would have a field day running up and down the field and could very well each eclipse 100 yards rushing EACH. Instead, they combined for just 44 yards on 10 carries.  Yes, the Bills jumped out to the big lead, which forced the Lions to abandon the running game early. But part of the reason for that was the solid run defense early, which played a role in back-to-back punts to start the game.

 

-- It took a lot of deep-in-the-playbook options for Ben Johnson and the offense to put up the scores they did: hook-and-ladder, tackle eligible pass, converting multiple 4th downs, etc.

 

-- Others have already pointed out that all week we talked about the defensive line being a weak link. This week they showed up in spades, pressuring Goff from start to finish.

 

-- Again, as others have pointed out, injuries were certainly an issue. We went into the game down 3 starters in the secondary. By the 4th quarter we were literally playing with multiple practice squad guys as Bishop, Milano and D. Williams all went down as well.

 

I may have issues with some of McD's defensive decisions, but I do think that a good part of what he does is designed to overcome shortcomings from a talent perspective. That is why he employs so many bend-but-don't-break schemes. Of course, the very design of that scheme is supposed to minimize big plays, which is decidedly NOT what happened late in the game yesterday.

Edited December 16 by 2003Contenders

[hondo in seattle]

I think there's a certain group of fans who overrates Beane's roster-building and conversely underrates McD making lemonade with lemons. 

 

McD is the primary reason that our D has been mostly good the past 7 years.  We've never been loaded with talent but McD has mostly made it work through scheme, teamwork, and preparation.  But when the other team schemes on offense as well as we do on defense, then it became a matter of talent.  And we lose that battle.  

Chris Simms, depressingly, put it this way:  

 

"Bills defense just doesn’t have a singular player who can wreck a game. They rely so much on scheme over talent. And when Bills play a team that can overpower them up front and get forced into M2M, it’s over." 

[gonzo1105]

17 minutes ago, 2003Contenders said:

Exactly right!

 

It's funny -- when you look at the final score and yardage, it would seem that the defense was garbage. And what transpired in the 4th quarter was certainly problematic. That said...

 

-- The Bills did a very good job of holding the Lions' vaunted running game in check. I went into the game very worried that the combination of Gibbs and Montgomery would have a field day running up and down the field and could very well each eclipse 100 yards rushing EACH. Instead, they combined for just 94 yards on 29 carries (3.2 yards per carry).  Yes, the Bills jumped out to the big lead, which forced the Lions to abandon the running game early. But part of the reason for that was the solid run defense early, which played a role in back-to-back punts to start the game.

 

-- It took a lot of deep-in-the-playbook options for Ben Johnson and the offense to put up the scores they did: hook-and-ladder, tackle eligible pass, converting multiple 4th downs, etc.

 

-- Others have already pointed out that all week we talked about the defensive line being a weak link. This week they showed up in spades, pressuring Goff from start to finish.

 

-- Again, as others have pointed out, injuries were certainly an issue. We went into the game down 3 starters in the secondary. By the 4th quarter we were literally playing with multiple practice squad guys as Bishop, Milano and D. Williams all went down as well.

 

I may have issues with some of McD's defensive decisions, but I do think that a good part of what he does is designed to overcome shortcomings from a talent perspective. That is why he employs so many bend-but-don't-break schemes. Of course, the very design of that scheme is supposed to minimize big plays, which is decidedly NOT what happened late in the game yesterday.

Good post felt it was warranted for a shout out