idle thoughts - instant reaction

Spiller absolutely killed us in our second game against the Bills last year. It was pretty obvious that the gameplan was to not let that happen again. Yes, great defenses still manage to get some pressure, but I think we'd all settle for a good defense right now. Also, the guy we're all praying is going to make the year two jump was matched up against a pretty good Bills LT.

Deactivating Gronk & Amendola for the Thursday Night game will be seen as another bad move by the boo birds and chicken littles, but it's the right call. Even with the rookie receivers New England has, if the team can hold onto the ball and not commit and turnovers, then they should handle the Jets easily.

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Even, heaven forbid, sitting Gronk and Danny results in a loss - I'll take it in exchange for this healthy one-two punch.

An interesting stat that I just found while looking up something else from the game: Despite the lack of QB pressure and the fact that the Bills' running game was the primary focus of the defense, the Pats only surrendered FIVE catches to wide receivers yesterday. And one of them to Goodwin was for 0 yards.

That means that, as bad as Thompkins looked today, he had the same number of positive yard receptions as the entire Buffalo WR corp. We won't even talk about what Amendola did

Ridley needs to meet and discuss ball security techniques with Tiki Barber.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Agree except that 4th down goal line play was DOA. Buffalo would have stuffed it.

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Agreed. We should have kicked the FG. I was mumbling WTF before Brady botched the snap. Not really upset with trying to score prior to the half. Maybe we should have run it considering there was still a lot of time, the run game was going well, and we had 3 time outs, but Sudfeld should have made the catch and it took a lucky bounce into the defender's hands.

shmessy said:

I Disagree.

They had Develin and Blount in the backfield. It was nicely set up. I can't imagine how you can forecast that Buffalo would have stuffed it. Sorry, but you are just blowing smoke there.

It was the right call, in my view. Just bad execution. Other than a stupid fumble, worst case scenario would have been that Buffalo takes over on its own 1 or 2 yard line with a rookie QB.

So, in summary, you suppport the decision with 1:12 left before hitting the lockerroom at the end of the 1st half, deep in their own territory, with Amendola injured on the sidelines, to go gunslinging (pray-tell, PWP, WHO was he going to throw to for 80 yards in a little over a minute???), yet you think it was the wrong decsion to go for it on the Buffalo 1 yd line on 4th and goal with Develin and Blount in the backfield.

Got it.

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LOL, you are describing me. Gunslinging it (by throwing a short pass to Sudfeld who had it hit his hands and bounce off into a defender's hands) is hardly what was happening. And yes, we should have kicked the FG on 4th and short instead of going for it. In fact, that's what they did the next time they had 4th and short, having learned their lesson. We would have already been up by 2 at the end of the game, instead of down by one and needing Ghost to hit a last minute FG to win.

Why so testy?

Funktopus said:

This looks like the place to enumerate some thoughts

1) It looks like the combination of younger rosters and reductions in pad practices leads to some sloppy play early in the season. Hope that changes.

2) Both the Bills and Pats were executing their gameplans at times with Jet-like competence. Take away the Pats errors but give the Bills the same consideration with the "What if" analysis.

3) Glad for Ghost but also Allen on the winning FG.

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Great observation, this is something I've barely seen mentioned. I'm a big believer in positive reinforcement for younger players, so yes I think this was something both Ghost and Allen can build on.

Funktopus? That's a cool one

Chevy said:

Even, heaven forbid, sitting Gronk and Danny results in a loss - I'll take it in exchange for this healthy one-two punch.

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I'd rather go in thin against the Bucs than the Jets. Division rivalries are always crapshoots, and the Bucs are soft IMO. If we're conceding one of the next two games (not sure why, but it seems people are), I'd rather lose to the NFC team than a division rival.

shmessy said:

I Disagree.

They had Develin and Blount in the backfield. It was nicely set up. I can't imagine how you can forecast that Buffalo would have stuffed it. Sorry, but you are just blowing smoke there.

It was the right call, in my view. Just bad execution. Other than a stupid fumble, worst case scenario would have been that Buffalo takes over on its own 1 or 2 yard line with a rookie QB.

So, in summary, you suppport the decision with 1:12 left before hitting the lockerroom at the end of the 1st half, deep in their own territory, with Amendola injured on the sidelines, to go gunslinging (pray-tell, PWP, WHO was he going to throw to for 80 yards in a little over a minute???), yet you think it was the wrong decsion to go for it on the Buffalo 1 yd line on 4th and goal with Develin and Blount in the backfield.

Got it.

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The ball was on the 25 yard line with 1:11 left to play in the half. While Amendola was on the sideline, that still leaves Edleman, Vereen and the others in the game. Up to that point, Suddy was still that good TE who had emerged in camp.

As was pointed out, they didn't need to drive 75 yards. If they got the ball to the 30 yard line, that would be a 47 yard FG attempt. That means going 45 yards in just over 1 minute, with 3 timeouts in your pocket. With Tom Brady at QB? Yeah, I'm doing that just about every time.

As was also pointed out, the Bills were getting the ball to start the 2nd half. They were only down by 10 at that point. IF first drive leads to FG, it's a 7 pt game. If the drive led to a TD, it would have been a 3 pt game. Pats were trying to extend and make it at least a 13 pt margin going into the half, or perhaps even a 17 pt margin.

Wendell have to work on his snaps- always to low
I thought, Brady has changed his profession: "Old MacBrady had a farm ..."

Ridley: Best player of the Bills, bringing them back to game.

Vareen( my MVP- make a ****load of work), Amendola and Edelman: makes big step up, when it counts

Demosthenes said:

As was also pointed out, the Bills were getting the ball to start the 2nd half. They were only down by 10 at that point. IF first drive leads to FG, it's a 7 pt game. If the drive led to a TD, it would have been a 3 pt game. Pats were trying to extend and make it at least a 13 pt margin going into the half, or perhaps even a 17 pt margin.

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Great mathematics.

You left out one "if" option.

The one where the Bills get the ball at the start of the 2nd half with the possibility to GO AHEAD immediately on their first series.

Which they did. (Because of BB/McDaniels' brainfart with 1:12 left in the 1st half.).

shmessy said:

Great mathematics.

You left out one "if" option.

The one where the Bills get the ball at the start of the 2nd half with the possibility to go ahead immediately on their first series.

Which they did. (Because of BB/McDaniels' brainfart with 1:12 left in the 1st half.).

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In that case, every time the Pats get the ball, they should just punt it away on first down. I mean, they might fumble or have a strange interception occur.

shmessy said:

Of course we can!

If you read anything I've written today, you would see I think BB/McDaniels should have BENCHED THEMSELVES for the brainfart of deciding to throw with 1;12 left in the first half, backed way up in our own territory. Instead of going to the lockerroom up 17-7, woops, interception and quick Buffalo TD lit up the crowd and put the Bills right back into the game.

Just because I disagreed with what Joker wrote about the vanilla defensive plan for today (and pointed out the Buffalo QB ammassed only 150 yards) YOU hyperventilated that this forum is a *********** and should be shut down.

The only one trying to squelch debate is you.

Calm down, Frances.

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You seem to be far more upset at my opinion than anything. Calm down.

This defense yesterday was vanilla. You're fine with it obviously. I'm in the party that believe we could be more creative and could have forced Manuel to more bad decisions.

Your complaints about our offense being aggressive is the bigger headscratcher. You mean to tell me it was a bad idea to give the green light to a HOF QB for a 2 minute drill?

The defense has always started off pretty vanilla and gotten more sophisticated as the season went on, but the defense hung in there against an RB corps that has killed us in the past. I'm not arguing that this defense is anything close to great, but I think the Bills' tackles had good games in pass protection against Nink and Jones. On the whole, Fred Jackson and Spiller have been a nightmare in the past, and the gameplan prevented that yesterday. Manuel was composed, but he didn't do anything yesterday that said that we need to focus more on stopping him than stopping the RB's.

Also, our secondary had a case of the dropsies yesterday. Manuel was lucky to not have thrown a pick or two.

Joker said:

context???what the hell do you call a turnover deep in your territory and the QB sits there baking cakes a play later and hits a WIDE OPEN RECEIVER for a TD??? Yeah, I say blitz THERE...in that situation.

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And, if you miss the blitz, you give up the TD anyways, but make it look that much easier than it did..

DaBruinz said:

And, if you miss the blitz, you give up the TD anyways, but make it look that much easier than it did..

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How do you know EJ could have handled that blitz? He's a rookie playing in his first NFL game.

condon84 said:

We can't talk about pros and cons or where we can improve?

Our vanilla defense or lack of creativity on defense is a valid criticism. It's not like Joker just threw something out of left field. We've had a vanilla defense for the past few years, UNLIKE the defense we had when Romeo was here when we actually had creativity. We now have a veteran core, good enough players who's been in our system for a number of years. THere is no excuse why we just sat there and reacted.

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People like you are never happy with this team. We sat there and shut down one of the most dynamic RBs in the league and you are complaining about it.

Maybe you should watch the game with an eye towards learning instead of criticizing all the time. You might actually figure out that the Pats don't give up the edges against running QBs. It's been said by a few people and you seem to think you know better. You don't.

BTW, even against guys like Vick and Stewart and Rothelingerberger, the Pats don't do more than a 4 man rush so as to prevent big runs by the RB.

Demosthenes said:

In that case, every time the Pats get the ball, they should just punt it away on first down. I mean, they might fumble or have a strange interception occur.

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Wow. Nice jump to conclusions.

Do you have to stretch for an hour to be able to do that?

DaBruinz said:

People like you are never happy with this team. We sat there and shut down one of the most dynamic RBs in the league and you are complaining about it.

Maybe you should watch the game with an eye towards learning instead of criticizing all the time. You might actually figure out that the Pats don't give up the edges against running QBs. It's been said by a few people and you seem to think you know better. You don't.

BTW, even against guys like Vick and Stewart and Rothelingerberger, the Pats don't do more than a 4 man rush so as to prevent big runs by the RB.

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Maybe you should read all my posts and not concentrate and just reply when I give my criticism.

condon84 said:

You seem to be far more upset at my opinion than anything. Calm down.

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I am enjoying the debate.

You the one who wanted to shut it down because of it being a "***********" in here.

If you don't like a healthy argument on the merits of two different opinions, then I can't help you. For me, I am enjoying the debate.