Bills in last 5 playoff losses: Worst PPG allowed OF ALL TIME in the Super Bowl era

[Shaw66]

4 minutes ago, Logic said:

So that's the point of this thread. What can the Bills do better from a coaching and execution standpoint to stop this from happening year after year after year? To stop being so absolutely futile in the playoffs defensively? Saying "coach better and play better", well...yeah. Sure. Of course. I suppose I was trying to dig a little deeper than that. 

But it IS "coach better and play better."  All three recent playoff losses came down to exactly that.  

 

The Chiefs make the plays they need, and they have strategies that win. True, their offense has declined, but they make the plays that win games. They don't beat the Bills by being fundamentally better on offense or defense.  The games are close, and the Chiefs are better in the final two minutes with the game on the line. The regular season games are similar, and the Bills won those.

 

So, I don't buy the notion that there are fundamental problems with the defense.  If the Bills had made ONE play in each of the last three playoff games against the Chiefs, nobody would be looking at this graph.

 

That doesn't mean the Bills don't need a better defense.  They do.  But they don't need a better defense to win more playoff games.  Dawkins needs not to back into Allen, Kincaid needs to catch the ball, and the coaches need to strategize like pros, not like high school coaches. 

[Logic]

3 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

the coaches need to strategize like pros, not like high school coaches. 

I think this is the key sentence right here.

I agree that this loss -- as most of our playoff losses have been -- was on all aspects of the team: coaches, players, and front office. The coaches didn't coach well enough, the players didn't play well enough and, in my estimation, the personnel was just lacking enough in key areas that that also played a part in the game outcome.

But when you say the coaches need to strategize like pros, not like high school coaches, to me, you're speaking exactly to the heart of the matter of what this thread is about!

In other words, you've got me wondering if we're on the same page, but stating it differently and arguing over semantic differences.

The need for the coaches to coach better (specifically better defense, in my opinion) is what precipitated this thread to begin with. I have not in this thread advocated for firing McDermott, replacing Babich, completely overhauling our scheme, or anything of the sort. I have simply wondered why we seem to fail so consistently as a defensive unit in our five season-ending playoff losses under Sean McDermott. "Coaching" can be one of the over-arching answers, but there's more fine detail within that answer, and those are the suggestions for improvement I was seeking.

Put differently: I know that you believe ardently that Sean McDermott is a "Growth mindset" guy and is always relentlessly self-scouting, always learning and growing, always improving. Well, the defensive outcomes every time we play the Chiefs in the playoffs don't seem to show much growth, much improvement, or anything other than "deja vu all over again". So that's my question: What's the lesson? What are the specific areas for growth? How can we ensure this doesn't keep happening?

[Cash]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I think this is generally correct, but I don't put it all on Josh. 

 

I am very much a believer that we can see Josh's comfort level in his eyes.  I can see the anxiety in certain games and certain plays. I don't necessarily believe that it's a big-game thing, although it may be. 

 

I was really excited mid-season, when Josh would come out of the huddle and survey the defense with a look that suggested that he understood everything he was seeing and he understood where the play should go.  I think in both the beginning and the end of the Chiefs game, that look was gone.  It was as though he didn't have confidence in what he was seeing or confidence that the play call would work.  Certainly at the end of the game, he didn't seem like he knew what he should be doing. 

 

I contrast it with Mahomes. His face never shows that lack of confidence.  He sees the defense, knows he good or changes the play or calls timeout.  Either way, he's in charge and he knows what he's doing. 

 

I think in those moments, like the end of the Chiefs game, it's the coaching that's letting him down. I think Allen was finding himself either in plays that didn't fit the defense, or he was looking at a defense he didn't expect or that was unfamiliar.  He just wasn't sure.  

 

And I don't buy the point of the OP.  I think this is more cherrypicked data.  In the first place, Allen is playing an era of pretty high scoring offenses, so when you lose in the playoffs, it's probably because you gave up a lot of points to a high scoring team.  There's no shame in that. Second, as someone pointed out, by changing the number of games, you find a lot of big name QBs with similar data points.  

 

Without going back and studying those games in detail, I know it's fair to say that four or all five of those games were one-score games, and could just as easily have been wins rather than losses if someone had made a play.  Certainly the last two Chiefs games could easily have been wins if Allen hits Shakir and if Kincaid catches the ball. If the Bills had won those five games instead of losing, the fans of the other teams would be nitpicking the data in the same way, and they would be complaining that their defense failed them.  

 

It's pretty simple.  Bills need better coaching and they need players to make plays. 

 

 

Great post.  Regarding the OP, any 5 game sample size is basically meaningless.  But also, the tweet in question isn't really stating anything in the first place.  Worst all time WHAT in the Super Bowl era?  Points given up in losses?  Points given up in 5 straight losses, ignoring interim wins?  There's no basis for comparison provided, just "worst all time".  Likely because if Dov Kleiman had provided it, it would've been immediately obvious how stupid and/or cherrypicked it was.

 

Now, I have no problem with coherent discussion of our playoff defense.  It's certainly hasn't been inspiring during this run as a contender.  It's hard for me to say how much of that actually falls on our team (including coaches). 

 

In 2023, we were running a M*A*S*H unit out there.  (No one's fault but bad luck IMO)

In 2022, the whole team was completely flat.  (Maybe some blame on the coaches here?  But I think mostly off-field reasons which, again, are mostly bad luck.)

In 2020, 2021, & 2024, mostly our defense just got beat by arguably the best QB/Offensive HC combo of all time.  No shame in that, but it would be nice to win one of these at some point.  My question is this:  Mahomes plays his absolulte best against us in the playoffs, pretty consistently.  Is that because he's elevating his game to another level up against Josh Allen, or is that because our defense is schematically weak against Mahomes and/or Andy Reid?  Or something else entirely?

[colin]

as an ultra hater, the accusations have merit and are pretty terrible.  but we also have a talent deficiency.  some holes filled in the draft and a wrecking ball like garrett could be enough to force 2 more punts per game in the playoffs.  allen w a possession advantage like that, w our line and rb, is more than any nfl d can handle.

[Shaw66]

2 hours ago, Logic said:

I think this is the key sentence right here.

I agree that this loss -- as most of our playoff losses have been -- was on all aspects of the team: coaches, players, and front office. The coaches didn't coach well enough, the players didn't play well enough and, in my estimation, the personnel was just lacking enough in key areas that that also played a part in the game outcome.

But when you say the coaches need to strategize like pros, not like high school coaches, to me, you're speaking exactly to the heart of the matter of what this thread is about!

In other words, you've got me wondering if we're on the same page, but stating it differently and arguing over semantic differences.

The need for the coaches to coach better (specifically better defense, in my opinion) is what precipitated this thread to begin with. I have not in this thread advocated for firing McDermott, replacing Babich, completely overhauling our scheme, or anything of the sort. I have simply wondered why we seem to fail so consistently as a defensive unit in our five season-ending playoff losses under Sean McDermott. "Coaching" can be one of the over-arching answers, but there's more fine detail within that answer, and those are the suggestions for improvement I was seeking.

Put differently: I know that you believe ardently that Sean McDermott is a "Growth mindset" guy and is always relentlessly self-scouting, always learning and growing, always improving. Well, the defensive outcomes every time we play the Chiefs in the playoffs don't seem to show much growth, much improvement, or anything other than "deja vu all over again". So that's my question: What's the lesson? What are the specific areas for growth? How can we ensure this doesn't keep happening?

Okay.  Your bolded is a good point, and I don't have an answer for you.  I've become a firm believer in my own ignorance, so I can't answer this question.  I don't know anything about the fine points of football. 

 

I think I see things that are inadequate about how the Bills are prepared, but I don't know if I'm right and I don't know how to fix them.  The example I've talked about in threads a bit is the fourth down throw to Kincaid.  As I understand it, the Chiefs showed a blitz to the right side, and on film that was consistently a bluff, and they would send the blitz from the left. As a result, as I understand, the Bills set their blocking assignments to the left, anticipating the bluff. Instead, the Chiefs broke their tendency and brought the blitz from the right, and they had the Bills blockers outnumbered. 

 

Okay.  Seems to me that the Bills needed to be prepared for the Chiefs to break tendency.  Maybe they still set their blocking assignments to the left, but the players needed to be prepared to execute a successful play if the Chiefs broke tendency.  They weren't.  That's a major coaching failure. Seems to me that when the ball is snapped, Josh needed to verify where the blitz was coming from.  When he see it's right, he knows he's in trouble and he should have been prepared to roll left immediately.  He had Shakir out there.  In addition, the blockers on the left side of the line, once they saw that the rush wasn't coming from the left, should have pulled left to block, either downfield, or guys who were trailing the play.  All the receivers, except Shakir, were going right, and Josh would have had options. 

 

Now, that's just my creation. I don't know if it would work or not, but the point is that Josh needed to be prepared for the blitz coming from the right, and he wasn't. No one on the team was. That's bad coaching. 

 

I think the Bills should have been prepared to run something other that a QB sneak, once the Chiefs showed they could stop it.  It was foolish to keep running a play that no longer had a 90% probability, especially a play that was predictable by the formation.  That's bad coaching. I don't know what the solution was, but the Bills should have been prepared with something else. 

 

I don't know how you fix that.  You need some high level, creative football thinking to identify those problems in advance and then to prepare for them.  I think the lack of that kind of preparation is what we saw in 13 seconds and what we saw last week. 

 

Reid's teams are prepared in exactly those ways.  They seem to always have a play. Belichick's teams were prepared in that way.   Good coaches have their teams one step ahead of the opponent, so all the players have to do is execute.  When you're not one step, you're hoping Josh will make a miracle throw, which he did, and your receiver will make a tough catch, which he didn't.  Coaches have to make the game easy for the players.

 

I don't know how you do that.  McDermott should start by hiring so football savants, so guys who have the reputation of being creative football thinkers. 

 

That's what I would suggest, but as I said, I don't know what I'm talking about.  

[Alphadawg7]

16 minutes ago, Lost said:

 

Despite this misleading 16th best offense in history stat.    

 

The Bills offense had fewest passing yards since 2019

Bills offense had fewest passing TDs since 2019

Fewest receiving yards from our wideouts since 2018

Most punts since 2019

 

We could haven been even better.   We're an elite receiver from potentially dropping 35-40pts per game.   I don't know a single defensive player that's gonna net us an extra 5pts per game or 5 fewer opponent pts per game.  

 

 

Defense will continue to be an issue no matter how much money and talent you throw at it until we change our defensive scheme and philosophy.  Not sure it's happening under Beane but we'll see.  

 

What does that have to do with anything?  You holding the fact we can also run the ball in for a score, especially in short yardage against the Bills for some reason?   Points are points, we score plenty.  

 

 

[GoBills808]

20 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

Mahomes does it because his teammates make the play with him. Allen's teammates run the wrong route or drop the ball or give up instant pressure. That's what separates their careers since 2021.

why are you even responding to those posts lol

 

Chiefs had the ball first and goal and Mahomes took a sack (mIsrEAd tHe pRoTECtioN) then skipped a pass to Worthy and had to settle for a FG

[CincyBillsFan]

Funny how several posters repeatedly bring up the fact that Allen had a poor 1st series leading to a 3 & out against KC.  My response has been "big deal" the Bills punted the Chiefs back to their 10 yard line so what's the problem?  Get a 3 & out and the Bills have the ball back near midfield - all is good.  But of course that didn't happen as the Bills D gave up a 9 play 90 yard TD drive without ever getting KC into a 3rd down!

 

So to all of you who think the D isn't the biggest problem for the Bills in the playoffs consider this stat:  In ALL three of the Bills playoff games this year, two of which were at home, the D allowed the opponent to score a TD on their opening possession.  That has been, is, and will be the problem in the future if they can't fix the defense.