Game Day Thread Official Post Game Thread - #1 Seed Pats beat the Bills

[Triumph]

Well, this is great team building.

 

[Triumph]

This loss has driven many Bills fans over the edge.

They are leaving after decades of torment and abuse. There will be no next year.

 

[Triumph]

keep Harry’s ass glued to the bench or cut him. one of the dumbest ST plays I’ve ever seen

Why was he back there returning punts and he had to have known that the ball hit his helmet?

 

[farn]

Well, this is great team building.

BB's ability to lose important games and still maintain his cool (and not EVER insult his players) is one of his greatest skills. Who cares how he treats the media ? His players know what is to be expected and they also know the coach won't throw them under the bus.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

That was a phenomenal play by Bryant to defend that pass. Would have been a TD. He had the awareness to break from the guy he was covering. He stopped an open touchdown in a 4 point game. Phenomenal.

.

 

[chasa]

I'm just excited to hear all the mediots come up with their next excuse for why the patriots "have not beaten a real team yet"

Seems like everytime they beat a team it doesnt count, I'm sure this time it will be because the weather really hurt the bills, and didn't affect the patriots. Or maybe it will be "the bills have not beaten any real teams, and thus are pretenders and not contenders"

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Yet he's added a lot in the running game through his blocking and has caught the ball when it has been thrown his direction.

It was a bad play by Harry but a worse coaching decision, IMO. I think, having seen the first punt, they expected the ball may roll (and therefore be easy to field), so they wanted someone back there to field it to prevent the Bills from downing the ball inside the 5 ... and maybe you're able to break a big return and get positive field position as a result. It appeared Gunner was also back, but positioned much further up the field than Harry, but I'd have to see the replay.

At any rate, the idea makes sense, but why you'd select that person to be Harry instead of someone like Bourne or Meyers is completely beyond me. Harry has no recent live-game experience fielding punts, so why have him do it under extremely adverse circumstances? He was setup to fail. He could have and should have done better but I don't want that one (admittedly, really bad) play to overshadow his generally positive contributions to the team/offense thus far.

As a final side-note, why they haven't thrown him 4-5 goal-line fades/slants/box-outs, or an occasional go-route when Mac is in the game and during a competitive stretch of play, is beyond me. He is extraordinarily successful on a very high percentage of those plays when given the opportunity, and (save for when Hoyer is in the game, late) they rarely give him much of a shot. I get you can't build an offense around one player, but attempting to manufacture some touches to maximize what seems to be a really strong skillset for contested/50-50 balls feels like it could be a good idea, especially when in the red-area and points are at a premium.

NKeal Harry sucks.

 

[upstater1]

The bills path to victory is so narrow. They can’t stop the run & they can’t run the ball vs. nickel defenses. Hopefully Phillips is fine & they’ll have Dugger back for the second game to spy Allen.

The Bills can't run but they can stop the run. They are top 3. They have some solid guys back there. I mean, it was windy, we did punt a lot, our running game stalled a lot. But in 2 crucial drives that ended up with FGs, the Patriots ran the ball with Rhamondre. It was something to behold. Otherwise, we had a lot of drives that basically did nothing.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

@amfootball in the Bucs forum:

I'll say it again but I would imagine Mac is not feeling real good today after a game plan that basically did not include him at all. I don't know if that's the best approach with Mac heading into the postseason where the weather will be a lot worse than it was last night which could potentially hurt his confidence.

It's also possible that he simply just doesn't have the arm to throw it all in the wind. Many of us wondered what he would look like when the weather turned bad and I think we got our answer last night. I really don't know how far we can go in the postseason if that's going to be their game plan in bad weather games with our offense.

Looked pretty happy to me, Bucs fan...

 

[sb1]

Why didn’t the Bills go for 2 on their score to respond to ours? That 2 pt conversion changed the dynamic of this game. Bills were going to be chasing that point all night if they didn’t respond to it.

 

[VectorPrime]

Man guys I had the CRAZIEST dream of how the matchup with the Bills went.

 

[BUSTAMOVE]

Bills stacking the box and still could not stop the run. That and the fact that we showed them nothing in terms of a balanced game plan should loom large in 3 weeks against them.
If we establish some sort of run game then play action will loom large

 

[Steve102]

Can they cut Harry today, please?

 

[RobertWeathers]

Phillips seems to have received decent news on his knee?

 

[BUSTAMOVE]

I was at that game. Wind blew the north end goalpost off-kilter and they had to stop play to straighten it back up. It was hard to stand, wind gusts would blow you back down into your seat. An experience I'll never forget.

The real question is how are their famous wings?

 

[Jim Beankie]

May only be of interest to me, but finally decided to look at when the ball was snapped with a running playclock (not during the 2 minute drill and not the last few plays when they were clearly milking it) after we got Harris's TD, and it looked like they didn't play any hurryup. If they really optimized it by snapping between 3-7s with an avg of 5s left each time, they could've milked 179 more seconds (2:59 - although theoretically a pinch less because the game would've ended sooner). If they wanted to cut it finer to an avg of 3s, that'd be another minute off the clock. That being said, there's some wonky crap going on with the playclock sometimes.

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[Tunescribe]

The real question is how are their famous wings?

Never tried them, maybe someday. I think I had fish tacos but that was 13 years ago.

 

[Toofy]

I just feel Harry needs a lucky break , a contested jump all touchdown .

He might not be the smartest player, but whatever he is good at, he does a great job at it. The coaches shouldn't have put him in a situation to fail. Punt return positions should have gone to Henry, gunner and slater and not to Harry who never plays that position that too in a windy day. For his blocking and positive attitude Harry gets a pass .

 

[patsinthesnow]

Take a peak at the latest SB odds from Bovada:



FYI they were 80-1 after the Cowboys game

 

[JarOfMayo51]

Pretty amazing game!

Only criticism I would have is the ridiculous coaching decision to put Harry out there as a punt returner, something he has no experience doing, in those conditions.. absolutely boneheaded decision... I don't blame Harry, he's stupid and can't help himself, its up to the coaches to not put a stupid player into critical situations like that

other than that, wowee wow! This team lined up and ran the ball when the Bills knew it was coming, we knew it was coming, the fans in the stands knew it was coming and everyone on TV knew it was coming, yet they ran it anyways and ran it effectively all game long against the #2 rushing defense in the league.

The Bills are no pushovers, that defense is beefy and legit. That was a hard hat and lunch pale game for sure.. i bet we could do that against Kansas City and a few other teams