Whatever your floor is for this team, yesterday showed we are worse than that…

[Proudiddy]

The Bills are a well coached team.  I give them that.  They are a well run organization.  That’s no excuse.  The point of this thread is to point out that yesterday illustrated something much more troubling than losing to a good team.  My takeaways:

* We still haven’t found a coach.  Canales isn’t it.  He is in way over his head.  Everyone knows how I feel about Bryce, but seeing Dalton yesterday, a lot of the issues Bryce deals with every week are now clearly thematic.  I thought to myself yesterday, “but Ron Rivera looked like he was drowning until that Buffalo game,” and now in hindsight, he ultimately became possibly our greatest coach in franchise history.  But before that Buffalo game with his seat as hot as ever, he did some of the dumbest things I had ever seen.  He refused to adjust.  He played guys that shouldn’t have been out on the field over guys who seemed like clearly better players.  For example, Josh Norman sat for how many seasons, mostly because of non-quantifiable stuff.  Canales suffers the same issues early in his tenure,  it without any of the reassurances or pedigree that Ron had.  Our offense stinks because of Dave, point blank, period.  We can only guess about play calls and scheme because we don’t know all the ins and outs of that, but what is clear is that he has no idea how to put our guys in positions to succeed.  Look at the number of players who have absolutely killed it that Dave tried his best to keep off the field - Rico, Mays, Christensen, Horn, etc.  Now look at the guys he played over them.  Ron only had a couple of those instances over several seasons albeit bad ones *cough* Nakamura *cough* Josh Norman *cough*.  But, Dave is multiplying that by the umpteenth power in one season.  And not only is it about the guys he is or isn’t playing, he doesn’t know how to use them.  All of the TEs.  The aforementioned Horn Jr.  XL.  Trying to make Corbett a center.  Both Rico and Chuba are healthy, but he can’t figure out how to use them together.  There is zero rhythm to the offense most games after that opening drive, and a lot of it is Dave playing guys that shouldn’t be playing and not knowing how to implement the ones that are that could help us the most.  I had held onto hope because Dave’s positivity and his track record with QBs.  But, the more I’ve watched, it has become clear, even in coaching extremely limited QBs, there are so many other issues that falls on coaching that he is responsible for.  He is not a good coach.

***EDIT*** It was brought to my attention that Rico dapped up Chuba when he got to the sideline, so apparently it’s not all bad***
Speaking of Rico and Chuba, don’t know if anyone else caught that, but after scoring his garbage time TD that was force fed to him, when Chuba went over to the bench, he sat down seemingly alone.  Then the camera zoomed out and actually Rico was on the other side of that portion of the bench.  Another guy, I’m guessing a practice squad guy came and sat down closer to Chuba but between them, and from what I saw, Rico looked straight ahead.  They never looked at one another, didn’t appear to speak to one another, nothing.  Someone else correct me if I’m wrong, as I was heavily distracted, but if they interacted it would’ve been just a millisecond that I wasn’t looking…  the body language looked absolutely discouraging. 

*Back to Canales…  which is a further indictment that this isn’t just schematic or playcalling.  Another reason he is clearly not a good coach - when we lose this season we LOSE.  We lose big.  We lose ugly.  We lose unprepared.  We lose undisciplined.  We lose in every fundamental way.  You don’t go from stifling the #1 offense in the NFL two weeks ago, to getting blown out at home 40-3 (Chuba’s late TD is irrelevant).  In every facet of the game that we have shown improvement, we go out in losses like yesterday’s and make you question if it was fool’s gold.  That’s poor coaching.  It’s discouraging because the drop off isn’t incremental, these are huge wild swings.  From a top 10 defense who excels at stopping the run, to giving up the highest individual rushing day in the NFL this season.  From a functional offense, scoring around 20 points a game to 3 when it counted.  We are -5 turnovers on the season.  Outside of the obvious Rico Dowdle - Bryce Young, Jimmy Horn, and Travis Etienne are all statistically better rushers right now than Chuba, and yet, we are forcing Chuba touches.  Rico only started two weeks and is still our top rusher for the season.  That forcing Chuba the ball poo might’ve worked when we had no other options, but it literally is destroying the offense now and yet, he keeps doing it.  This insistence of square peg, round hole football is all coaching, and it is absolutely demoralizing.  We show zero consistency with any and everything, and that falls directly at the coach’s feet.

Seeing all of this following the few weeks where it appeared the team was picking up some semblance of identity and momentum, and then to lose in such a fashion to where those staples we had begun to believe in were proven to be mirages is beyond discouraging.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect to beat the Bills.  I did expect to be competitive and still excel at the things we appeared to be making our calling cards.  From the best rushing team for two straight weeks to pedestrian.  From stopping the run and playing smash mouth football to getting blown out at him with opposing players averaging 12 yards per carry and receivers running wide butt naked open.  There is no consistency or leadership on this staff.  Period.  Yesterday’s loss brings us right back to the sobering reality that we still don’t have a head coach and all the problems rife within the Tepper Era.

 

[Pantherxtreme]

3 minutes ago, Proudiddy said:

The Bills are a well coached team.  I give them that.  They are a well run organization.  That’s no excuse.  The point of this thread is to point out that yesterday illustrated something much more troubling than losing to a good team.  My takeaways:

* We still haven’t found a coach.  Canales isn’t it.  He is in way over his head.  Everyone knows how I feel about Bryce, but seeing Dalton yesterday, a lot of the issues Bryce deals with every week are now clearly thematic.  I thought to myself yesterday, “but Ron Rivera looked like he was drowning until that Buffalo game,” and now in hindsight, he ultimately became possibly our greatest coach in franchise history.  But before that Buffalo game with his seat as hot as ever, he did some of the dumbest things I had ever seen.  He refused to adjust.  He played guys that shouldn’t have been out on the field over guys who seemed like clearly better players.  For example, Josh Norman sat for how many seasons, mostly because of non-quantifiable stuff.  Canales suffers the same issues early in his tenure,  it without any of the reassurances or pedigree that Ron had.  Our offense stinks because of Dave, point blank, period.  We can only guess about play calls and scheme because we don’t know all the ins and outs of that, but what is clear is that he has no idea how to put our guys in positions to succeed.  Look at the number of players who have absolutely killed it that Dave tried his best to keep off the field - Rico, Mays, Christensen, Horn, etc.  Now look at the guys he played over them.  Ron only had a couple of those instances over several seasons albeit bad ones *cough* Nakamura *cough* Josh Norman *cough*.  But, Dave is multiplying that by the umpteenth power in one season.  And not only is it about the guys he is or isn’t playing, he doesn’t know how to use them.  All of the TEs.  The aforementioned Horn Jr.  XL.  Trying to make Corbett a center.  Both Rico and Chuba are healthy, but he can’t figure out how to use them together.  There is zero rhythm to the offense most games after that opening drive, and a lot of it is Dave playing guys that shouldn’t be playing and not knowing how to implement the ones that are that could help us the most.  I had held onto hope because Dave’s positivity and his track record with QBs.  But, the more I’ve watched, it has become clear, even in coaching extremely limited QBs, there are so many other issues that falls on coaching that he is responsible for.  He is not a good coach.

*Speaking of Rico and Chuba, don’t know if anyone else caught that, but after scoring his garbage time TD that was force fed to him, when Chuba went over to the bench, he sat down seemingly alone.  Then the camera zoomed out and actually Rico was on the other side of that portion of the bench.  Another guy, I’m guessing a practice squad guy came and sat down closer to Chuba but between them, and from what I saw, Rico looked straight ahead.  They never looked at one another, didn’t appear to speak to one another, nothing.  Someone else correct me if I’m wrong, as I was heavily distracted, but if they interacted it would’ve been just a millisecond that I wasn’t looking…  the body language looked absolutely discouraging.  There is clearly a huge beef brewing there.

*Back to Canales…  which is a further indictment that this isn’t just schematic or playcalling.  Another reason he is clearly not a good coach - when we lose this season we LOSE.  We lose big.  We lose ugly.  We lose unprepared.  We lose undisciplined.  We lose in every fundamental way.  You don’t go from stifling the #1 offense in the NFL two weeks ago, to getting blown out at home 40-3 (Chuba’s late TD is irrelevant).  In every facet of the game that we have shown improvement, we go out in losses like yesterday’s and make you question if it was fool’s gold.  That’s poor coaching.  It’s discouraging because the drop off isn’t incremental, these are huge wild swings.  From a top 10 defense who excels at stopping the run, to giving up the highest individual rushing day in the NFL this season.  From a functional offense, scoring around 20 points a game to 3 when it counted.  We are -5 turnovers on the season.  Outside of the obvious Rico Dowdle - Bryce Young, Jimmy Horn, and Travis Etienne are all statistically better rushers right now than Chuba, and yet, we are forcing Chuba touches.  Rico only started two weeks and is still our top rusher for the season.  That forcing Chuba the ball poo might’ve worked when we had no other options, but it literally is destroying the offense now and yet, he keeps doing it.  This insistence of square peg, round hole football is all coaching, and it is absolutely demoralizing.  We show zero consistency with any and everything, and that falls directly at the coach’s feet.

Seeing all of this following the few weeks where it appeared the team was picking up some semblance of identity and momentum, and then to lose in such a fashion to where those staples we had begun to believe in were proven to be mirages is beyond discouraging.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect to beat the Bills.  I did expect to be competitive and still excel at the things we appeared to be making our calling cards.  From the best rushing team for two straight weeks to pedestrian.  From stopping the run and playing smash mouth football to getting blown out at him with opposing players averaging 12 yards per carry and receivers running wide butt naked open.  There is no consistency or leadership on this staff.  Period.  Yesterday’s loss brings us right back to the sobering reality that we still don’t have a head coach and all the problems rife within the Tepper Era.

 

Rico dapped Chuba up when he came off the field after the touchdown there's no issue between them. 

But I'm sure he has to be frustrated, he's set the league on fire for 2 weeks when he was the main option only to be relegated to 2nd fiddle while still out producing the "starter". 

[CRA]

nothing has changed for me.  6ish wins and we are right on schedule.  Getting those wins exactly where they were always predicted to be. 

yesterday was the start of the tough part of the schedule.   More beatdowns are on the table. 

[OneBadCat]

I think we’re all overreacting a bit. I don’t think it’s THAT bad. We were likely never going to win this game and the odds were even worse with Dalton starting. 
 

I agree with you on Rico. There’s no excuses for him not be the starter and why he didn’t get the ball after the 2nd qtr is crazy. 
 

But the opportunity to win or be in this game was taken away with Daltons fumble on the first drive. We score there and the dynamic of the game changes. 
 

The defense held up for a while but once the refs called that fake hold on XL and JC those calls directly translated to 14 points for Buffalo.

The team isn’t good enough yet to lose situational football like that and bounce back. 

[Waldo]

Frustration creates friction. With a wet noodle of a HC I am guessing we see more when the rah rahs fall flat but they aren't there yet. Give it a few more bad games and the going from feeling decent to the ass they clearly are will compound the frustration. Too soon but it's on the radar now with the current trajectory.

[mrcompletely11]

Yesterday showed Canalas has no buisness being a NFL coach.  Dude is in over his head......completely.  He is one of those dudes that thinks he is smarter than everyone in the room. I am going to say this every week until I am blue in the face, but if the steelers are dumb enough to fire Tomlin you politely walk dave to the door and offer Tomlin whatever he wants.  He automatically raises the floor and establishes us a top tier franchise

[Proudiddy]

1 minute ago, Pantherxtreme said:

Rico dapped Chuba up when he came off the field after the touchdown there's no issue between them. 

But I'm sure he has to be frustrated, he's set the league on fire for 2 weeks when he was the main option only to be relegated to 2nd fiddle while still out producing the "starter". 

I’ll edit it to reflect that.  I just saw him sit down and watched for a moment because it appeared he sat by himself, and once the camera angle showed both of them there, there was zero interaction or conversation from what it looked like.  Truth be told, I was at the fair enduring almost as bad of day as our team.. I finally sat down and watched it, but was still having to keep an eye out.

By the way, middle-aged-man rant here - the fair is a fuging scam.  $90 for 3 adult tickets, a sandwich, and two drinks before I even got to the fuging midway.  All of everyday life is unfugingaffordable for everyday people as it is, the fair should be fun.  The vast majority of people attending are inconsiderate douches.  Prices should be reasonable.  I was thoroughly disappointed and pissed.

[SmokinwithWilly]

4 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

Yesterday showed Canalas has no buisness being a NFL coach.  Dude is in over his head......completely.  He is one of those dudes that thinks he is smarter than everyone in the room. I am going to say this every week until I am blue in the face, but if the steelers are dumb enough to fire Tomlin you politely walk dave to the door and offer Tomlin whatever he wants.  He automatically raises the floor and establishes us a top tier franchise

Exactly. This team needs a hard nose, no BS, head coach. It will directly clash with Tepper and I don't see it going very well the first time he tells big daddy Dave he doesnt know what he's doing, but if you want to win NFL games, you need to hire NFL people. 

[Shotgun]

I thought we would win 3-4 games so they've already met and exceeded my expectations. 

[Jon Snow]

1 minute ago, Shotgun said:

I thought we would win 3-4 games so they've already met and exceeded my expectations. 

I agreed with Vegas with 6.5 wins for the season before it started. Now im not sure they get 6 wins with the coaching displayed yesterday. Im taking the under.

[CRA]

3 minutes ago, Jon Snow said:

I agreed with Vegas with 6.5 wins for the season before it started. Now im not sure they get 6 wins with the coaching displayed yesterday. Im taking the under.

I think there will be another Atlanta type game.  I think each season, you can count on about 2 random games where teams just really gift you a game.   

[Jon Snow]

1 minute ago, CRA said:

I think there will be another Atlanta type game.  I think each season, you can count on about 2 random games where teams just really gift you a game.   

I think we have already had those 2 games. They were the Atlanta and Dallas games. 

[LinvilleGorge]

Stubbornly sticking with Chuba while someone who has never even watched football before could tell that Rio is the clearly better player right now is just baffling.

[PNW_PantherMan]

4 minutes ago, CRA said:

I think there will be another Atlanta type game.  I think each season, you can count on about 2 random games where teams just really gift you a game.   

We could still get the Bucs backups in week 18 as well.