Beane/McDermott End of season press conferences (Beane live now, Sean at 2pm)

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

4 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I think both are the problem. The D definitely needs to get better in those games. I have said my piece on the gameplan in the first half on Sunday. It was different to all the other playoff games against KC and decidedly worse. If the Bills want to "man up" against them they need different personnel. Ending up with Damar Hamlin Rasul Douglas and Taron Johnson trying to compete in man defense against the speed of Worthy and Hollywood Brown is not ever going to be a winning strategy. I know we played more man against them in the first game in the regular season and it worked, but Worthy has come on a bunch since then and they didn't have Hollywood and we lost Rapp and Benford. It ended up just a bad strategy and a mismatch. 

 

But when you have an elite Quarterback and you get the ball back at the end of a playoff game with plenty of time and needing a touchdown to win you are supposed to win, or at LEAST do a 2021 and get the touchdown and then ask your defense to hang on for a very short period. When Beane said "give me the ball down 3, three minutes left to go to the superbowl and we have #17 again next year, I'd sign for it" he is right. When you have Josh Allen you should absolutely sign for that, That the Bills have failed there two years running is not good enough. I think we are all agreed that while he might not have done everything perfectly on either of those final drives the problem is not Josh Allen so you have to work out what it is. I think our total lack of threat down the football field is it. We have won since Brady took over by being a methodical offense. We sustain drives and we move the football. But in the crunch when we have to score fast our lack of true downfield options becomes an issue. And it invited the exotic blitzes from Spags. Is he as willing to send the house on 4th down if the Bills are running Brian Thomas Jnr down the field rather than Dalton Kincaid or Khalil Shakir? Maybe he would. But I'd fancy our chance of making him pay much better. 

 

More than worthy coming on - they had a gameplan to run a lot of pick plays - and they did a great job of leveling the crossers in the 3x1 to make it really hard for the defense to navigate.  We run them too but... watching their execution on some of these was just really tough to stop.  I don't think Kelce had more than a couple catches, but I never realized how good he was at setting picks.  Always seemed to be creating space for his guys without touching anyone.  

 

They also had some really great RPO looks to start the game that i don't think our LBs were expecting.  Just walked down the field.  

 

When we did blitz, they put a bullseye on elam and hamlin.  Elam was struggling with his footing for a lot of the game and you could tell his confidence is just gone.  There's bail coverage and there's... covering literally no one.  His trended towards the latter.  I was opposed to getting rid of him as a depth corner in the offseason just because of the cap space it would have cost to do so, but when pressed into action his effort looked poor and his ability somehow looked worse.  He appears fully broken, so I'd just cut your losses and see if a team is interested in a late round pick swap or something just to save his base salary.  

[BananaB]

45 minutes ago, harmonkillebrew said:

To some degree, but when you start going up against the best teams, the talent and coaching is just too level. It comes down to who is the most clutch. And KC has proven over and over that that's them. 

 

unless you're the '85 Bears and just annihilate lesser teams. Which I wouldn't mind either....

The don’t need to annihilate anyone. How about we just start with not giving up 7 on almost every opening drive. Then if they gotta make a stop at the end instead of letting the opposing team run out the clock, make a ***** stop. There wasn’t a person watching that game that didn’t believe the game wasn’t over after Kincaid dropped the ball. lol. We had 3 timeouts and 2 minutes left ffs! Some teams would have punted instead of going for it on 4th down. Jones and Dawkins had there end of game congratulations ***** walking off the field with 2 minutes left.  Say what you want about clutch, but our D is the biggest problem. 
 

Last year was the same thing after Bass missed the kick. 3 timeouts and 1:15 on the clock. Game over

Edited Friday at 08:32 PM by BananaB

[HappyDays]

5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

And it invited the exotic blitzes from Spags. Is he as willing to send the house on 4th down if the Bills are running Brian Thomas Jnr down the field rather than Dalton Kincaid or Khalil Shakir? Maybe he would. But I'd fancy our chance of making him pay much better. 

 

Yeah and it's worth noting that in our regular season matchup we defeated two of his blitzes by throwing downfield to Cooper 1v1. Both of those completions turned into TD drives. But by the time we got to the playoffs Cooper had inexplicably become a non-factor. We need that 1v1 boundary mismatch to have a chance. Ideally two of them. That has to be the focus of the offseason IMO.

 

I know everyone else is hoping we trade for Maxx Crosby. Not me. I'm hoping we trade for DK Metcalf or some similar move. We can't get past KC with ball control. We need to completely overwhelm them and run up the score.

[HappyDays]

5 hours ago, Simon said:

 

They didn't have any trouble scoring fast at the end of the first half when they went 75 yrds for a TD in 1:30.

Or at the end of the first half of the Ravens game when they went 70 yrds for a TD in under 3:30.

 

And they didn't need to score fast vs the Chiefs.

There were 3:30 minutes left, the 2 minute warning and they had three TO's in their pocket. If anything they were likely going to have to burn some clock at the other end.

Yet they somehow completely ignored the best weapon on their offense because they felt panicky and rushed.

This is more of a coaching issue than any perceived lack of downfield threat, imo.

 

I don't dispute that coaching was a problem on our final drive, but talent is the great equalizer. That quick TD drive at the end of the 1st half was capped by a 34 yard downfield completion. The end of half drive against Baltimore featured an 18 yard DPI on 3rd down. The problem is the respective targets on those plays were Hollins and Coleman and neither of them have proven to be consistently reliable downfield targets, so we need more there. A lot more. Because on the drives when we didn't have those downfield completions it was really really tough sledding. It took multiple 4th down conversions, multiple fumble recoveries, a ridiculous individual effort from James Cook at the goalline, etc. to sustain those other drives. And when you live in that low margin for error world, you leave yourself at the mercy of the officials and of an inexperienced pass catcher having to make the critical play of the game. If you want to remove the random luck factors you have to impose your will with consistent explosive offense.

[jaybeezee]

18 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Yeah and it's worth noting that in our regular season matchup we defeated two of his blitzes by throwing downfield to Cooper 1v1. Both of those completions turned into TD drives. But by the time we got to the playoffs Cooper had inexplicably become a non-factor. We need that 1v1 boundary mismatch to have a chance. Ideally two of them. That has to be the focus of the offseason IMO.

 

I know everyone else is hoping we trade for Maxx Crosby. Not me. I'm hoping we trade for DK Metcalf or some similar move. We can't get past KC with ball control. We need to completely overwhelm them and run up the score.

Trade for both!

Cooper is washed. Just like Von. They may shine in small increments,  but on a weekly basis, it ain't happening anymore.

 

Cut bait and save the roster spots and salary cap

[VW82]

10 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

We can't get past KC with ball control. We need to completely overwhelm them and run up the score.

Even if this was possible, and I doubt it is because they have some terrific defenders and arguably the best DC in the L, how many teams have won the SB with that strategy?

 

We need WR help, yes. Cooper and Hollins are FA and we weren’t good enough with them. But we still have cap issues and less options to cut salary this year. Finding another Cooper-esk trade with low salary is tough, and the return on those is often lackluster as we found out. DK has a 30M cap hit. Good luck making that work. 
 

We will most likely go bargain hunting and then use one of our top three picks on a receiver like last year. And we probably need to end the investment there for now because the number holes on defense far outweighs our need at receiver, especially given Brady has re-oriented our attack around the running game. 
 

Breaking the bank for a WR we can’t afford so he can be a complimentary piece doesn’t make a lot of sense unless we’re going to switch our identity again.

[HappyDays]

Just now, VW82 said:

Even if this was possible, and I doubt it is

 

Why not? We basically scored 30 points against them with Mack Hollins as our best WR. Why can't we get closer to 40 with a big infusion of pass catching talent?

 

 

[VW82]

1 minute ago, HappyDays said:

 

Why not? We basically scored 30 points against them with Mack Hollins as our best WR. Why can't we get closer to 40 with a big infusion of pass catching talent?

 

I already laid out the reasons why it’s unlikely, and again, even if we pulled it off going all-in on offense is not typically how you win a SB. What’s the goal here? Beating the Chiefs would be nice, but I’d prefer we construct a balanced team that has a better chance at the latter. 
 

 

[GoBills808]

12 minutes ago, VW82 said:

Even if this was possible, and I doubt it is because they have some terrific defenders and arguably the best DC in the L, how many teams have won the SB with that strategy?

 

We need WR help, yes. Cooper and Hollins are FA and we weren’t good enough with them. But we still have cap issues and less options to cut salary this year. Finding another Cooper-esk trade with low salary is tough, and the return on those is often lackluster as we found out. DK has a 30M cap hit. Good luck making that work. 
 

We will most likely go bargain hunting and then use one of our top three picks on a receiver like last year. And we probably need to end the investment there for now because the number holes on defense far outweighs our need at receiver, especially given Brady has re-oriented our attack around the running game. 
 

Breaking the bank for a WR we can’t afford so he can be a complimentary piece doesn’t make a lot of sense unless we’re going to switch our identity again.

How many other teams field a historically bad defense come playoff time? Myles Garrett isn't going to change that

[VW82]

5 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

How many other teams field a historically bad defense come playoff time? Myles Garrett isn't going to change that

Calling our defense historically bad is hyperbole and that wasn’t the point I was making. I’m not advocating for doing a Crosby trade. Per my DK comment, we can’t afford it. 
 

Given our cap situation, we need to improve internally and through the draft. That’s how we get better on D. That’s how we’re going to have to improve on O too.

 

 

 

 

 

for Crosby

[LEBills]

16 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Yeah and it's worth noting that in our regular season matchup we defeated two of his blitzes by throwing downfield to Cooper 1v1. Both of those completions turned into TD drives. But by the time we got to the playoffs Cooper had inexplicably become a non-factor. We need that 1v1 boundary mismatch to have a chance. Ideally two of them. That has to be the focus of the offseason IMO.

 

I know everyone else is hoping we trade for Maxx Crosby. Not me. I'm hoping we trade for DK Metcalf or some similar move. We can't get past KC with ball control. We need to completely overwhelm them and run up the score.

I’m very much in agreement that getting Allen more help on offense is the key. Tho with everything being equal I do think Crosby is a better player than DK.

 

Just don’t see many options on the trade market for the Bills. Yes DK, George Pickens (head case, but already is what we want Keon to be on the field), Rashid Shaheed (coming off injury tho), Alec Pierce, Romeo Doubs. And not sure we would break the bank for a very injury prone Tee Higgins this year

So I’ll be scouring the WR draft prospects in case we miraculously draft one this year haha

 

[GoBills808]

3 minutes ago, VW82 said:

Calling our defense historically bad is hyperbole and that wasn’t the point I was making. I’m not advocating for doing a Crosby trade. Per my DK comment, we can’t afford it. 
 

Given our cap situation, we need to improve internally and through the draft. That’s how we get better on D. That’s how we’re going to have to improve on O too.

 

 

 

 

 

for Crosby

hate to be the one to break it to you

 

Defensive efficiency was a major issue for Buffalo Bills

 

The Bills posted a defensive Expected Points Added (EPA) per play of -0.234, which is a poor mark, terrible actually. Not to be outdone by their 46.7% success rate, which was the worst of any team that played in the conference championship, including the Washington Commanders’ defense — which let up 55 points.

In fact, it was the worst defensive success rate out of any team, in any game, for the entire playoffs.

 

Bills’ pass defense was historically bad

 

Buffalo’s defensive drop-back success rate was just 31.4% — the worst by a significant margin in any playoff game this season. To put this into perspective, the NFL average during the 2024 regular season was 61.2%. It’s hard to describe how poorly the pass defense played.

[VW82]

1 minute ago, GoBills808 said:

hate to be the one to break it to you

 

Defensive efficiency was a major issue for Buffalo Bills

 

The Bills posted a defensive Expected Points Added (EPA) per play of -0.234, which is a poor mark, terrible actually. Not to be outdone by their 46.7% success rate, which was the worst of any team that played in the conference championship, including the Washington Commanders’ defense — which let up 55 points.

In fact, it was the worst defensive success rate out of any team, in any game, for the entire playoffs.

 

Bills’ pass defense was historically bad

 

Buffalo’s defensive drop-back success rate was just 31.4% — the worst by a significant margin in any playoff game this season. To put this into perspective, the NFL average during the 2024 regular season was 61.2%. It’s hard to describe how poorly the pass defense played.

Right. One game. They were very bad in one game which happened to be the conference championship. That does not mean the D was historically bad overall. More like underwhelming and disappointing and definitely not good enough to win a SB. All the more reason to invest in it so we become more of a balanced team again.

[GoBills808]

5 minutes ago, VW82 said:

Right. One game. They were very bad in one game which happened to be the conference championship. That does not mean the D was historically bad overall. More like underwhelming and disappointing and definitely not good enough to win a SB. All the more reason to invest in it so we become more of a balanced team again.

one game 😂

 

ok

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

More than worthy coming on - they had a gameplan to run a lot of pick plays - and they did a great job of leveling the crossers in the 3x1 to make it really hard for the defense to navigate.  We run them too but... watching their execution on some of these was just really tough to stop.  I don't think Kelce had more than a couple catches, but I never realized how good he was at setting picks.  Always seemed to be creating space for his guys without touching anyone.  

 

They also had some really great RPO looks to start the game that i don't think our LBs were expecting.  Just walked down the field.  

 

When we did blitz, they put a bullseye on elam and hamlin.  Elam was struggling with his footing for a lot of the game and you could tell his confidence is just gone.  There's bail coverage and there's... covering literally no one.  His trended towards the latter.  I was opposed to getting rid of him as a depth corner in the offseason just because of the cap space it would have cost to do so, but when pressed into action his effort looked poor and his ability somehow looked worse.  He appears fully broken, so I'd just cut your losses and see if a team is interested in a late round pick swap or something just to save his base salary.  

 

Yea agree with all this and I have some sympathy for the argument that we should have held everything back in the regular season, played our standard zone and surprised them with the man looks in the playoffs rather than give them 6 weeks to gamplan to attack us in man. But the Bills were still trying to play for the 1 seed at the time. I would rather treat each game as separate and I'd have not necessarily gone back to the well with the man looks on Sunday.

 

I do think Worthy has come on a ton the last 6 weeks of the year. His targets have gone up because his reliability has improved and his comfort in the offense has grown. But agree totally on Hamlin and Elam. And I don't want Elam on this roster in 2025.

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

Yeah and it's worth noting that in our regular season matchup we defeated two of his blitzes by throwing downfield to Cooper 1v1. Both of those completions turned into TD drives. But by the time we got to the playoffs Cooper had inexplicably become a non-factor. We need that 1v1 boundary mismatch to have a chance. Ideally two of them. That has to be the focus of the offseason IMO.

 

I know everyone else is hoping we trade for Maxx Crosby. Not me. I'm hoping we trade for DK Metcalf or some similar move. We can't get past KC with ball control. We need to completely overwhelm them and run up the score.

 

I'm in on a trade for Crosby, but I'd be in on a trade for DK too.

[VW82]

10 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

one game 😂

 

ok

The stats you posted weren’t just for one game? You don’t get to say we’re historically bad on defense and then only refer to one game, even if it’s one game per year against the same team.

[HappyDays]

1 hour ago, VW82 said:

They were very bad in one game

 

Hot take - they were very bad against Baltimore too but Lamar and Andrews made crushing unforced errors. And we probably would have given up 4 straight TDs to start the Chiefs game if Mahomes didn't randomly drop the ball.

 

Let's stop with this fantasy that the defense is ever going to perform at a championship level. We're either going to run up the score or it's never going to happen for us.

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yea agree with all this and I have some sympathy for the argument that we should have held everything back in the regular season, played our standard zone and surprised them with the man looks in the playoffs rather than give them 6 weeks to gamplan to attack us in man. But the Bills were still trying to play for the 1 seed at the time. I would rather treat each game as separate and I'd have not necessarily gone back to the well with the man looks on Sunday.

 

I do think Worthy has come on a ton the last 6 weeks of the year. His targets have gone up because his reliability has improved and his comfort in the offense has grown. But agree totally on Hamlin and Elam. And I don't want Elam on this roster in 2025.

 

I'm in on a trade for Crosby, but I'd be in on a trade for DK too.

 

I still don't think he made that catch, but hamlin on worthy was... rough for that TD.  The other thing they did to take advantage of man looks was to run mahomie.  They did some quirky stuff in the pistol too to create conflicts on the edge and make it look too easy.  

[Pete]

2 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

Yeah and it's worth noting that in our regular season matchup we defeated two of his blitzes by throwing downfield to Cooper 1v1. Both of those completions turned into TD drives. But by the time we got to the playoffs Cooper had inexplicably become a non-factor. We need that 1v1 boundary mismatch to have a chance. Ideally two of them. That has to be the focus of the offseason IMO.

 

I know everyone else is hoping we trade for Maxx Crosby. Not me. I'm hoping we trade for DK Metcalf or some similar move. We can't get past KC with ball control. We need to completely overwhelm them and run up the score.

Chris Brown read a stat that the Bills average 7 more points a game when Amari plays

[GunnerBill]

6 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

I still don't think he made that catch, but hamlin on worthy was... rough for that TD.  The other thing they did to take advantage of man looks was to run mahomie.  They did some quirky stuff in the pistol too to create conflicts on the edge and make it look too easy.  

 

I didn't think he caught it either. But they definitely used his speed against our mediocre atheltes in the secondary vs man.