1/19/25 Division Round Playoff Post Game Thread Bills vs. Ravens

[billybob71]

Just now, davefan66 said:

Not sure what happened 2nd half.  Felt like they took the foot off gas and assumed the Ravens wouldn’t catch up. They did and very well could have won.  
 

End all is we won and that’s all that matters.

I agree, the 2nd half just leaves me less confident for next week, pass rush has to play their best game against their weak tackles or our safeties and DBs are gonna get exploited, and our offense has to stay aggressive all game even with a lead

[MikePJ76]

I wonder how often two teams playing in the championship games have each won 15 games in the season?

 

 

 

 

[YoloinOhio]

Random thoughts:

- The weather. The “city of losers” thing. The incessant yammering about not being “big enough” to stop Henry all week. It was all a factor. People try to say these things don’t matter. They absolutely do. The ball was slippery. You saw it on the Henry drop at the beginning of the game.  You saw it on the Lamar fumble. The bills were used to it and the ravens weren’t. Lamar looked freezing and miserable on the sidelines. There was no way to for them to prepare for the conditions. Kinda glad we didn’t have a dome! As I expected, McDermott totally played into the media disrespect as more fuel. It came directly from him and the players after the game. 
- the fans were loud asf on TV!!!!!! Incredible show from all of you there.
- I think the ravens took a page out of the bills defensive playbook and invited them to run the ball. Their defensive weakness was their pass defense and they knew Allen could light them up and they wanted to control the game. It worked. Unfortunately for them…

-the bills haven’t lost the turnover battle in 21 games and played another clean game, waiting for the ravens to make mistakes and they did. I didn’t expect the Andrews mistakes but I did expect the Lamar mistakes. As gifted as he is, he doesn’t have the highest football IQ as we’ve seen again and again. I think his pick early on to Rapp was the bills D confusing him. I also think the playoffs are in his head.

- once again we saw a ref show. The Dawkins hold was one of the worst calls of the weekend. The constant uncalled holding on Ed Oliver was laugh out loud atrocious. Maybe Keon got away with OPI but Tre was grabbing him all the way down the field before that so he deserved the DPI. The refs totally swallowed their flags on a bunch of shoves and cheap shots by the ravens. Very odd. 

- if this game was played in Baltimore it could have gone the other way because again the weather and the crowd were big factors. The ravens lost to the Browns and raiders this year. They gave up the 2 seed. And because of those losses they had to play their starters week 18 vs the Browns and lost zay flowers. 

- Josh’s game has matured exponentially over the last couple years. He was thinking real hard about pitching the ball to cook when he got stood up on that 3rd and goal. He didn’t. He didn’t become sugar rush Josh. He didn’t have to make a hero play. He trusted his teammates to win. 
- the player of the game imo was Bass. It was hard to choose between him, Bernard, or the OL. But the clutch kicks … we don’t win without them imo. After his roller coaster of a year. After the miss in the divisional round last year. He must be so mentally strong to make those. I’ll give Matt smiley a little credit this week! 
 

GO BILLS!!!

Edited 14 hours ago by YoloinOhio

[GunnerBill]

37 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

I don’t think Brady was competent last night but you can’t be critical of the head coach in a game where they only commit one - ONE - penalty and zero turnovers.

 

I thought he was competent but not much more than that. He had a poor 3rd quarter for sure. I do still think he is severely limited by the talent available to him outside. He needs to use Cooper better but the lack of separation from the outside receivers is a real concern. He and Josh have done incredibly well to make the O as productive as it has been this year with that handicap. But second half last night the Ravens definitely got the better of him and it took him some time to get to his answers.

[NyQuil]

Reminder, Josh Allen is 2-0 against Lamar in the playoffs.

[longtimebillsfan]

1 hour ago, Gman10 said:

Agree'd. We looked better in the first half, we controlled the ball better. Ravens made great adjustments in the second half but still had some ball handling mistakes. 
 

also, you don't see KC fans talking about all the flags they get in their favor

That is a great point. KC seems to get bailed out so often on failed 3rd down attempts with either defensive holding or a pi call. 

 

We will have to overcome this bias next week.

 

KC does not have as strong a defense as the Ravens.  Hopefully we can control time of possession similar to the Broncos game.

[BRH]

45 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

I don’t think Brady was competent last night but you can’t be critical of the head coach in a game where they only commit one - ONE - penalty and zero turnovers.

 

And that one penalty was as BS as they come.

 

They played a clean game.  That doesn't happen without good coaching.

[muppy]

9 hours ago, Dr Krentist said:

I just watched the replay and Hollins was wide open. The Ravens sold out on the run. But I've said it plenty of times before, it should have been two tush pushes.

the announcers stressed this on the broadcast too. The play has been practically unstoppable all year.

 

saving some wear and tear on #17? or being too cute.

 

what's that saying "kiss" keep it simple stupid

 

I'm not in a quibbling mood . It's hard to be salty on victory Monday 🙂

[davefan66]

11 minutes ago, billybob71 said:

I agree, the 2nd half just leaves me less confident for next week, pass rush has to play their best game against their weak tackles or our safeties and DBs are gonna get exploited, and our offense has to stay aggressive all game even with a lead

Defense needs to hassle mahomes as much as possible, and do not let him get those first down scrambles. Gotta watch out for kelce. Not super worried about their defense as long as Josh keeps his head.

 

Offense needs to come out fast and never let up. Coleman needs to get more involved.  We know we can beat them, just need to do it on Sunday!

[boater]

Derrick Henry was eating us for breakfast in the 3rd quarter, they should have just continued that. I think they had enough time on the clock...except for that final drive

 

Cheers to them for quitting on the running game.

 

....and that Raven who dropped the passes, he now has a sponsored membership in Scott Norwood's Wide Right Club. Poor guy.

 

Speaking of kickers, Tyler Bass did himself well. I was satisfied all-around with special teams.

 

[YoloinOhio]

3 minutes ago, boater said:

Derrick Henry was eating us for breakfast in the 3rd quarter, they should have just continued that. I think they had enough time on the clock...except for that final drive

 

Cheers to them for quitting on the running game.

 

....and that Raven who dropped the passes, he now has a sponsored membership in Scott Norwood's Wide Right Club. Poor guy.

 

Speaking of kickers, Tyler Bass did himself well. I was satisfied all-around with special teams.

 

Surprised the ravens  didn’t run more read option too. Must not have gotten the right looks from the Bills?

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, Trogdor said:

I mean the Bills went into prevent with 4 minutes left and allowed the Ravens to just march down the field. Then they completely misplayed the 2pt. Those teams won by staying aggressive, the Bills turtled up and the Ravens imploded. 

 

They didn't go into prevent until the last couple of plays actually. Every time a team moves the ball on us fans shout "see we are in prevent." The play where we flushed Lamar out, were chasing him down and he threw back across his body to Wallace on a scramble drill was not prevent defense. It was a pressure look. A great Quarterback made a great play. 

[dgrochester55]

Great Win for Buffalo. I truly believe that those two teams were the best this year. Now for the big one. I am confident that we can beat the Chiefs, but not so confident against the officials. Because of them, Buffalo will need to play well enough to beat KC by two scores to pull this off.

[muppy]

10 hours ago, Success said:

Lots of gratitude tonight.

 

We didn't get all of the breaks - but we got enough of the breaks. I appreciate that.

 

again not to quibble and Yes Baltimore  clearly  had some drops. But the Bills created the havoc on the overthrows the incompletions and turnovers.

 

The Bills took care of business. We all hope they keep it going all the way to the Promised Land. aka a super bowl championship

 

🙂

[BRH]

8 minutes ago, muppy said:

I'm not in a quibbling mood . It's hard to be salty on victory Monday 🙂

 

Some people seem to know how to do that.

 

I'm not one of them and neither are you.

[Coach Tuesday]

1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

They didn't go into prevent until the last couple of plays actually. Every time a team moves the ball on us fans shout "see we are in prevent." The play where we flushed Lamar out, were chasing him down and he threw back across his body to Wallace on a scramble drill was not prevent defense. It was a pressure look. A great Quarterback made a great play. 

I really don’t have any issue with the defensive calls last night.  As you said they got caught in a substitution situation on that last drive.  Got lucky with the Andrews drop but it also looked like an illegal pick play that got him so open.

[Pete]

Last week every "nfl expert repeatedly said "Bills cant stop Henry.  35-10.  Lamar, yada yada."  Pete Prisco, Dan Orlasky, Jon Gruden, and Dave Portnoy were the only people I heard, who were smart enough to see the emperors new clothes.  Steven A Smith corrected Sharpe during a Bills bashing segment, and said "Josh is the greatest wild card game QB.  not the greatest playoff QB."  The disrespect is everywhere.

 

So today I have been trying to revisit those dumbass sights.  I search youtube Bills-Ravens, and I click on every take outside Buffalo  One headline -Ravens mistakes cost them the game"  another "Did Lamar do enough to win?"  Sharpe said the Ravens lost because the weather, and Lamar slipped out of his hands.  No one give Buffalo any credit.

 

Denial is not a river in Egypt.  The Big Bad Bills just bullied the Ravens.  KC- you are next.  After we plow over KC,  we will steamroll the NFC.

 

GO BILLS!

Edited 13 hours ago by Pete

[notpolian]

17 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I thought he was competent but not much more than that. He had a poor 3rd quarter for sure. I do still think he is severely limited by the talent available to him outside. He needs to use Cooper better but the lack of separation from the outside receivers is a real concern. He and Josh have done incredibly well to make the O as productive as it has been this year with that handicap. But second half last night the Ravens definitely got the better of him and it took him some time to get to his answers.

The lack of separation is what worries me most about next week.  KC can play man and really clamp down when needed.  I think we need to get Cooper isolated 1:1 and also throw it to the RBs as much as possible.  We will need to score points.

[Realist]

5 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

They didn't go into prevent until the last couple of plays actually. Every time a team moves the ball on us fans shout "see we are in prevent." The play where we flushed Lamar out, were chasing him down and he threw back across his body to Wallace on a scramble drill was not prevent defense. It was a pressure look. A great Quarterback made a great play. 

After that play, I said, now I know how opposing fans feel when Allen makes those plays. Lamar made a great play there.

[Magox]

The way the defense was playing with the turnovers, Josh wasn't asked to do much aside from be a game manager.  The game was in hand until it wasn't at the end.

 

My only quibble is the offensive game plan in the third quarter, they should have known that the Ravens were going to adjust to stop the run and they should have looked for some passes down the field to try to knock them out early on.  I think Joe will learn from that and McD and him will review that game plan together to not repeat that again. 

 

With that said, there is so much talk as if that 2 point conversion drop would have led to an OT.  I think there is a greater than 50% chance that Allen would have turned it on and led the team to a FG attempt to win the game.   And Kudos to Tyler Bass, his 51 yard FG was huge and all his kicks were all solidly in without any of them in doubt.