CFZ Evaluation: Defense against the Bills

[Yobwocs]

1. The fiasco with Bell and Clark


Now I keep hearing people say that Bell and Clark are undersized, and can just be rammed over by heavy linemen. But I found myself wondering.......why didn't the Eagles do it if that was the case? Eagles have the best offensive line in the NFL. Anything the Bills O-Line can do, I'm pretty sure the Eagles can do as well. Bell and Clark played linebacker vs the Eagles too.

Now I'm in agreeance with the majority that they ran right at Bell and Clark the whole game. Thinking if their O-Line put against our small linebackers, they'll win that matchup. But why didn't the other teams do that if the Bills did it? I don't it's as simple as power. The Eagles have as much power as the Bills probably more, but they always play the Bills well. The Eagles seem to always struggle against the Cowboys. Conversely, Seattle isn't a team we associate with power but they own the Eagles. But the Cowboys in the last 2 contests against the Seahawks have scored on 70% of their possessions. So we play Seattle and the Eagles well, and seem to always struggle against the Bills. Eagles play the Bills well (won their last 2 against them), but don't play well against the Cowboys and Seahawks. What gives here?? Ultimate randomness?


2. Donovan Wilson

Film also showed Donovan Wilson didn't do his job many times. Many times Cooks was his responsibility, but he was not in position to make the tackle. It looked like he was caught inside much of the time while Cooks ran outside. Was his mind thinking Allen instead? I think Dan Quinn needs to really put him in the corner this week, because you can't let Cooks get outside so easily, untouched. These are plays that can be made if he sets his mind straight on what he needed to do.

But either way, their safety Rapp did a far better job on Pollard than Wilson did on Cooks. I don't think it's a physical thing. He was just on top of the play. We didn't account for his late rotation on that 2nd and 1 screw up near the 11 yard line. That was a lowkey huge play in the game.


3. Penalties

I think we helped them tremendously by shooting ourselves in the foot with those 3 personal foul penalties. Every TD they scored to get to their first 21 points were off of personal foul penalties. Every personal foul penalty we commit, we have to defend the run for an additional 10 more plays. That plays into what we don't wanna do, and what Buffalo wants to do. What Buffalo doesn't wanna do is have to pass because they fear our pass rush. They know all about the great Parsons. Parsons was involved in 6 out of 49 of Buffalo's run plays. So we helped make the game way easier for them. Not to mention, that carries over to the 2nd half. Buffalo is gonna call more run plays if the score is 21-3, so that's even more plays to defend in the 2nd half. You can't just reset in the 2nd half.



4. Final synopsis

I think it's a different game without the personal fouls. Without those personal fouls, their drives are shorter. Our offense gets more chances in the first half. It's possible they get an additional drive that they might have scored on without those fouls, but our offense was also moving on 2 out of 3 of our first drives. Stalled on the holding call on Tyler Smith, Steele giving up the inside to Rousseau, and Rapp's late rotation stop on Pollard on 2nd and 1. But I thought both our offenses were moving. Just theirs got 2nd life while ours got stopped by a couple of bad plays in succession.

Anyways, I'm ready to move on to Miami now. I don't think Buffalo is clearly superior to the Cowboys. They just did their homework better, and the Buffalo team we saw all year sure didn't look like the Buffalo team of last Sunday. I saw nearly every game they played. I've never seen them look like this. They're not gonna get away with Josh Allen passing for 94 yards and winning by 3 TDs again. That's not a sustainable recipe. They just wanted to get this win to stay alive, call it a day, and go from there. James Cook will go back down to Allen's left stool pretty soon. He's not Barry Sanders.

They are 6-1 at home, and 2-4 on the road. We are the same team. We both play better at home. We both play worse on the road. No surprise at the final outcome. At home with our huge Jumbotron we challenge that fumble. And with our huge crowd advantage, we dominate 3rd down on defense and weaken their ability to call themselves out of their original plays. Because I feel like Dak could've called himself out of that play on 2nd and 1 easily at home - even Orlovsky said as much.

 

[Sydla]

The answer to your first question is different schemes. Also, FWIW, Sirianni and company are coming under fire for the offense saying they aren't running the ball enough. Issues with always running out of shotgun, etc.

 

[big dog cowboy]

I think it's a different game without the personal fouls.

Especially the first 2. Williams really hurt. Had he blocked the kick like he should have the Cowboys could have taken the lead.

 

[Creeper]

From what I saw watching the game a couple of times I think everything went right for the Bills and the Cowboys were not mentally of physically prepared for the Bills. I really think the Cowboys were not expecting the Bills to run the football so much.

I do agree the penalties were huge. I understand why they threw the flag on Lawrence. His hit on Allen was unnecessary and late. He could have and should have pulled up. But I think they came into the game wanted to hit Allen and Lawrence took his shot when he had the chance. The Williams penalty was just bad luck or an excellent adjustment by the Bills punter. Somehow he managed to kick the ball to Williams' ;left without Williams getting a fingertip on the ball. Of course Williams should not have left his feet but still it was lucky for the Bills to avoid the block.

The penalty on Kearse could have gone either way. I would have let it slide because he didn't make contact with the head or neck and we see receivers get blown up all the time when they go high like that.

But let's not forget the penalties on Tyler Smith for holding and Zack Martin for roughing the passer. The holding call on Smith was technically holding but a penalty they let go all the time. For example, the play where Clark was bullied backwards 20 yards and buried by the Bill OT. He was holding Clark by the shoulder pads as Clark was trying to break free. The tackle has to let go. One that same play, the other tackle was holding Bell the same way. If they are going to call the penalty on Smith then those two should have been called too. The Zack Martin penalty was just stupid by Zack. I have no problem getting in the face of the Bills guy who hit Dak, but knocking heads that hard was a huge mistake. The Cowboys were finally starting to move and Dak made a huge play. Adding 15 yards to the end of that play would have set Dallas up with a good chance to get some points.

On the other time, I saw Damone Clark pull a facemask twice and he was not called either time. But imagine if he was. They would have had 6 15 yard penalties in 1 game! Quinn need to talk to his guys about poor tackling technique.

 

[blueblood70]

1. The fiasco with Bell and Clark


Now I keep hearing people say that Bell and Clark are undersized, and can just be rammed over by heavy linemen. But I found myself wondering.......why didn't the Eagles do it if that was the case? Eagles have the best offensive line in the NFL. Anything the Bills O-Line can do, I'm pretty sure the Eagles can do as well. Bell and Clark played linebacker vs the Eagles too.

Now I'm in agreeance with the majority that they ran right at Bell and Clark the whole game. Thinking if their O-Line put against our small linebackers, they'll win that matchup. But why didn't the other teams do that if the Bills did it? I don't it's as simple as power. The Eagles have as much power as the Bills probably more, but they always play the Bills well. The Eagles seem to always struggle against the Cowboys. Conversely, Seattle isn't a team we associate with power but they own the Eagles. But the Cowboys in the last 2 contests against the Seahawks have scored on 70% of their possessions. So we play Seattle and the Eagles well, and seem to always struggle against the Bills. Eagles play the Bills well (won their last 2 against them), but don't play well against the Cowboys and Seahawks. What gives here?? Ultimate randomness?


2. Donovan Wilson

Film also showed Donovan Wilson didn't do his job many times. Many times Cooks was his responsibility, but he was not in position to make the tackle. It looked like he was caught inside much of the time while Cooks ran outside. Was his mind thinking Allen instead? I think Dan Quinn needs to really put him in the corner this week, because you can't let Cooks get outside so easily, untouched. These are plays that can be made if he sets his mind straight on what he needed to do.

But either way, their safety Rapp did a far better job on Pollard than Wilson did on Cooks. I don't think it's a physical thing. He was just on top of the play. We didn't account for his late rotation on that 2nd and 1 screw up near the 11 yard line. That was a lowkey huge play in the game.


3. Penalties

I think we helped them tremendously by shooting ourselves in the foot with those 3 personal foul penalties. Every TD they scored to get to their first 21 points were off of personal foul penalties. Every personal foul penalty we commit, we have to defend the run for an additional 10 more plays. That plays into what we don't wanna do, and what Buffalo wants to do. What Buffalo doesn't wanna do is have to pass because they fear our pass rush. They know all about the great Parsons. Parsons was involved in 6 out of 49 of Buffalo's run plays. So we helped make the game way easier for them. Not to mention, that carries over to the 2nd half. Buffalo is gonna call more run plays if the score is 21-3, so that's even more plays to defend in the 2nd half. You can't just reset in the 2nd half.



4. Final synopsis

I think it's a different game without the personal fouls. Without those personal fouls, their drives are shorter. Our offense gets more chances in the first half. It's possible they get an additional drive that they might have scored on without those fouls, but our offense was also moving on 2 out of 3 of our first drives. Stalled on the holding call on Tyler Smith, Steele giving up the inside to Rousseau, and Rapp's late rotation stop on Pollard on 2nd and 1. But I thought both our offenses were moving. Just theirs got 2nd life while ours got stopped by a couple of bad plays in succession.

Anyways, I'm ready to move on to Miami now. I don't think Buffalo is clearly superior to the Cowboys. They just did their homework better, and the Buffalo team we saw all year sure didn't look like the Buffalo team of last Sunday. I saw nearly every game they played. I've never seen them look like this. They're not gonna get away with Josh Allen passing for 94 yards and winning by 3 TDs again. That's not a sustainable recipe. They just wanted to get this win to stay alive, call it a day, and go from there. James Cook will go back down to Allen's left stool pretty soon. He's not Barry Sanders.

They are 6-1 at home, and 2-4 on the road. We are the same team. We both play better at home. We both play worse on the road. No surprise at the final outcome. At home with our huge Jumbotron we challenge that fumble. And with our huge crowd advantage, we dominate 3rd down on defense and weaken their ability to call themselves out of their original plays. Because I feel like Dak could've called himself out of that play on 2nd and 1 easily at home - even Orlovsky said as much.

Clark:

6-3

Age: 23

Weight: 240 lbs

Evans 6'1 235

dude let's get serious here your whole thing is ruined when you call court too small then there's a big middle linebacker he may not be impressive to you but he's nowhere near small and neither is Evans Evans is a little smaller than that but they're both prototypical middle linebackers you're right undersized bell but dude don't start something in your first sentence you have a major error

it was more the scheme and guys being out of place then it has to do with their size we've seen these dudes play well at their size but this is the way Dan Quinn's defenses are

this was an issue with gap integrity they were at a place they were playing too much nickel and Dimes they were not tackling well a lot of them were sick a lot of them were tired some were injured some were missing the game we don't need that kind of synopsis we watched the game this doesn't have it that often but it needs to be fixed and it's gonna have to start with DQ...

 

[1942willys]

With the way the bills were playing and we were playing the fouls were not the deciding factor
without them the game is closer but no difference in the outcome

as regards the D, Quinn screwed the pooch and our players did not step up their game.

 

[TNCowboy]

Philly game could've been much different. They moved the ball fairly well, they were stopped by turnovers. They also relied too much on their overrated QB.

The fact that Philly is a flawed team with some of the same flaws the Cowboys have doesn't diminish that the Cowboys' flaws are fatal.

 

[DCwarrior]

Another evaluation: Offense sucked.

 

[jwitten82]

As far as the personal fouls, weren't the bills in field goal range for at least two of those penalties? So let's say they only get 6 points off those personal fouls, the score is still 15-10 Bills. This was a team failure, our offense couldn't score and our defense couldn't stop the run

 

[Blast From The Past]

Especially the first 2. Williams really hurt. Had he blocked the kick like he should have the Cowboys could have taken the lead.

It's a game of inches and Sam missed that ball by mere inches. I like his aggressiveness. Hated the penalty as it kept the drive alive for the Bills.