12/22/24 GAMEDAY Week 15 Bills vs Patriots* Post GameThread

[CincyBillsFan]

Just now, Orlando Buffalo said:

This is the first game all year I thought Shakir played poorly, I am really hoping he is not the kind of guy who faded in the cold. 

He played well last season in a couple of cold games late.  I'm thinking those that said there was a cold/flu going through the team may have it right. Or Shakir after paying so well this season simply had an off game. 

[wjag]

3 minutes ago, finn said:

Don't let special teams off the hook. It seems that every game, the net contribution of Smiley's game is negative. This time, they allowed a tone-setting big kickoff return to start the game and were caught sleeping on the fake punt. Makes me nostalgic for Levy's teams. 

 

I remember thinking when Bass kicked off that he nailed it, only to see it land short of the end zone.

[finn]

4 minutes ago, CincyBillsFan said:

And like the O & D the ST also did some good stuff like a couple of punts to the 10 and a very important 50 yard FG to give Buffalo the lead for good.

 

 

Fair enough. But the Bills aren't talented enough in all phases to win when two of the three (four, if you include coaching) doesn't carry its weight. We saw that in the Rams game. In the Pats game, you could say all four units did enough to balance its respective upsides and downsides. By dint of homefield advantage, they win by three points. 

 

That said, I was never really concerned about this game. I sensed the offense could always yawn, shake itself, and put up 20 points whenever it chose to. 

[Kelly to Allen]

The bills defense is 10th in dvoa, 6th in run defense dvoa.

 

The special teams is terrible I'm not going to make excuses there. 

 

Smiley needs to be fired even after we win the super bowl. 

Edited yesterday at 05:41 PM by Kelly to Allen

[CincyBillsFan]

Just now, finn said:

 

That said, I was never really concerned about this game. I sensed the offense could always yawn, shake itself, and put up 20 points whenever it chose to. 

And that's basically how it went until the refs inserted themselves into the game in the 4th quarter on both sides of the ball.  First they called a bogus holding penalty wiping out a 12 yard run to inside the Pats 30 yard line on what was shaping up t b the game clinching TD drive and then seemed to be working overtime to get the Pats that last TD late in the 4th.

 

 

[Cray51]

Bills after two weeks of the offense carrying the team gets multiple turnovers and points scored by the D, including shutting the Pats down to only 7 points in the second half - putting up 7 points of their own in the process.

 

At the end of the day, we played a division opponent with nothing to lose who ate time of possession in the first half.  We came out with a win and that's what matters in these types of games.  Allen played a little emotional this game, I saw him bail the pocket a few times when he didnt have to.  I'll be interested to see how he does against the Jets.

[Savage]

36 minutes ago, CincyBillsFan said:

He played well last season in a couple of cold games late.  I'm thinking those that said there was a cold/flu going through the team may have it right. Or Shakir after paying so well this season simply had an off game. 

Let’s chalk it up to an off game.

 

he’s allowed one at this point.

 

god knows others have had several off games.

 

[Big Turk]

James Cook tied for the lead in rushing TDs with Jalen Hurts and Rushing/Receiving TDs with Jamar Chase...

 

 

Also, Cook now has 3 40+ yard TD's in the last 4 weeks...

Edited 23 hours ago by Big Turk

[BillsFooteball]

1 hour ago, f0neguy said:

I think Smiley’s days are numbered.  McDermott mentioned special teams during his post game press conference and didn’t look pleased.  Between the kick coverage and the successful fake punt it wasn’t a good day.

I have been waiting for that day for years. Beyond overdue. 

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

1 hour ago, Kelly to Allen said:

The bills defense is 10th in dvoa, 6th in run defense dvoa.

 

The special teams is terrible I'm not going to make excuses there. 

 

Smiley needs to be fired even after we win the super bowl. 

The special teams needs to just be mid. Instead, they give up or create way too many negative plays. Over the last few weeks alone, blocked punt for a TD, missed chip shot FG, near disaster onsides kick against the Lions, gave up long return yesterday, gave up a fake punt, had another onsides kick bobble yesterday.

 

i know some of this is on the players, but a lot it is on Smiley. Special teams is mostly about fundamentals and discipline. That’s on smiley. 

[Big Turk]

 

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

Lost in the shuffle, Bass with a solid game. In cold conditions, dead straight with a 50-yarder, and no concern with his PATs.

[Bimmer323i]

Division games are always tough no matter how bad the other teams are… I can’ remember back in the Brady days when we sucked we would play them tough and they would come back in the end and beat us… Sane deal yesterday…

[DrDawkinstein]

1 hour ago, Big Turk said:

 

Also, Cook now has 3 40+ yard TD's in the last 4 weeks...

 

This is the most important part for me.

 

For years, I wondered why we couldnt find a guy who had the threat to take it to the house every play, and often would. I thought maybe that just wasnt part of the NFL anymore.

 

It's so awesome to have a RB who, if he can get to the 2nd level clean, has a good chance of taking it all the way to the end zone. Total game changer.

 

I'll also add that Cook has been a LOT more physical this season. Even running OVER guys a couple times. That is new this year, as previously the big criticism was if you get a hand on him he would go down.

 

I think he's one of the few RBs who has earned himself a second contract. Maybe a 3 year extension.

[Royale with Cheese]

4 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

This is the most important part for me.

 

For years, I wondered why we couldnt find a guy who had the threat to take it to the house every play, and often would. I thought maybe that just wasnt part of the NFL anymore.

 

It's so awesome to have a RB who, if he can get to the 2nd level clean, has a good chance of taking it all the way to the end zone. Total game changer.

 

I'll also add that Cook has been a LOT more physical this season. Even running OVER guys a couple times. That is new this year, as previously the big criticism was if you get a hand on him he would go down.

 

I think he's one of the few RBs who has earned himself a second contract. Maybe a 3 year extension.

I am usually against extending RB’s but Im changing my mind on Cook.  He is an absolute game changer.

[DrDawkinstein]

Just now, Royale with Cheese said:

I am usually against extending RB’s but Im changing my mind on Cook.  He is an absolute game changer.

 

Yeah, a 3 year extension would keep him until he is 29. I think now-2027 is his prime.

[RunTheBall]

6 hours ago, Dan said:

On Allen’s interception… what happened to Coleman in the endzone?   On the TV, I just saw him on the ground as the defender is catching the ball.   I assume there was no obvious penalty… no one has talked about it.   But did Coleman slip?

On the All-22 you can see Coleman absolutely smoked Gonzales and was open early. Josh didn’t even look his way until the 1 high safety, who had capped the routes to the right, had enough time to come back to the middle of the field. Keon had zero chance at that ball even if it wasn’t underthrown. 

[RunTheBall]

So if you look at the game film, there’s a couple things we’ve been talking about:

 

1) Spector is ASS

2) Williams played awesome. Best LB out there. Needs to be on the field

3) Bishop was ok but still making a few rookie mistakes that should improve with time

4) The passing game was off (obviously). Looked like Josh was looking deep all the time. There were check downs but he was very late getting to them if he even looked that way. More often than not he tried to make a zero window throw.

5) Smoot made a couple boneheaded plays that cost us big. If he just played better fundamentals a couple of those big plays don’t happen

6) Elam was not as bad I thought. Very tricky tack end zone PI. Still, he’s very handsy and you can’t get away with that anymore and that’s why McD will let him walk unless he has an epiphany next year

7) Jones played very well taking on doubles, Oliver was meh. Von looked good just needs to start finishing, he smoked that R tackle all game.

8 ) Drake Maye played very good especially for a rookie. We didn’t even try to confuse him though which is weird. He knew exactly what defense we were in most of the time when we lined up. I think Babitch thought he didn’t need to confuse him, just bring a lot of pressure, and Maye did pretty good against it

 

Edited 21 hours ago by RunTheBall

[mjt328]

2 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

The special teams needs to just be mid. Instead, they give up or create way too many negative plays. Over the last few weeks alone, blocked punt for a TD, missed chip shot FG, near disaster onsides kick against the Lions, gave up long return yesterday, gave up a fake punt, had another onsides kick bobble yesterday.

 

i know some of this is on the players, but a lot it is on Smiley. Special teams is mostly about fundamentals and discipline. That’s on smiley. 

 

When a kicker misses, a returner fumbles or a punter shanks it... those kind of errors are on the player, not the coach.

Coverage teams, it really depends.

 

When a unit can't get the right number of people on the field, that's on the coach.  And inexcusable.

When a unit is unprepared for a fake (especially in that situation), that's on the coach.  And inexcusable.

When there is failure to communicate a squib kick, you really starts wondering what the guy is actually doing on the sidelines.

 

[RichRiderBills]

8 hours ago, mannc said:

Everyone talks about how the elements give us an advantage at home, but I guarantee if you polled the Bills’ players, they would overwhelmingly prefer to play in a dome or in warm weather.  It certainly didn’t help us last night…

 

I've always felt it's this giant lie that you can throw it deep with a strong arm quarterback in the cold like man look at the old cold weather games. They throw screen passes 90% of the time.