Ingtar33
11-18-2002, 12:56 AM
Penalties. Penalties were the bane of the Buffalo Bills today, as they dominated the Chiefs for 45 minutes, slightly lost the final 15 minutes and came out one point losers. Penalties were the great equalizer, as the Bills would commit one foul after another in the red zone, forcing us to settle for 3 instead of 7. Penalties would keep the chiefs offence on the field longer than they deserved as our D handed them 5 first downs with penalties. Considering the chiefs would get 22 first downs over the course of the game that means that about 1 out of 4 of the chiefs first downs were handed to them by the Bills D. But perhaps the worst part about all these penalties is that if you were to take the penalties out of today’s game and you probably will see the Bills walk home the winners of this contest. When the season is over it will inevitably be the games like today's which we will all look back upon and say, look how close we were to...
Well now that my belly aching is done, I'll be returning to my standard postgame review format, with a look at the positives and negatives which we can all take home with us at the end of the day.
The Positives:
1. The Bills playoff future really wasn't killed with this loss, as the AFC East really is still up for grabs and the Bills are just a tie breaker away from holding a place in the post season.
2. Travis Henry and the O-Line really dominated out there today, as they rolled up 126 yards together in an impressive display of ball control football. Furthermore, Henry didn't even bobble the football, and was a force in the passing game too. In addition, special props to M.Williams for some great pass blocking and blitz pickups, R. Brown for some amazing run blocking, Jennings for the most complete game I've ever seen out of him, Sullivan for his most solid game pass blocking, and Teague for what looked like his best game as a Bill... to bad we couldn't win with these efforts.
3. London Fletcher, Chidi A, and Pat Williams were absolute forces on the field today, sticking their heads into every play and flying to the ball. Too bad the rest of the D only showed up when they felt like it, as there were just too many missed tackles, dumb penalties, and blown coverages to help the Bills win.
4. The Bills D succeeded in containing Tony Gonzales and to a degree, Priest Holmes. Both were feats I thought far beyond their abilities. Furthermore, I'd like to congratulate Jerry Grey for both dumbing down the D and attempting to disguise the coverages. It only partly worked, but considering I've never seen him do either it is a step forward.
5. Special Teams continued its fine play, and with the exception of a few silly mistakes I've like the way they've played this year (since week 4). The onsides kick was beautifully executed... and special mention to Gregg Williams for showing the cohunes to try that.
6. Joe Burns... he is turning into quite the find, and will become the official FB of the Bills next year as he is already a better lead blocker and blitz pickuper (I know its not a word) than L.Centers, and has decent hands. Furthermore the development of Henry as an every down back has further marginalized Center's role with this team, and probably guaranteed his release after this year.
7. Exciting Football... I've been a fan of football my whole life, heck I made it my life, and the longer I've worked the hard it gets to excite me. I haven't been excited about the Bills since 1996. Even those playoff years of 98 & 99 didn't excite my fancy. What I'm seeing now is. We may be on the verge of something big, and while it may not be this year, it could be next, as this team clearly has the makings of something special.
The Negatives:
1. Poor Discipline and sloppy penalties cost the Bills a win today. No more needs to be said.
2. Edwards and Schoebel are next to useless in run defense. I like a lot of things about both of these players; however neither is really an every down DL yet. Both need to work on their hand fighting as they are both consistently getting controlled by O-lineman by allowing body to body contact.
3. Preoleau may hit hard, but he misses way too many tackles, and today he did none of the first and too much of the second.
4. Poor redzone O... I'm not sure if this is the result of poor execution by the Bills, bad play calling, or just too many dumb penalties. Either way, they've got to get this fixed fast.
5. A poorly thrown pass by Drew... Price was open, and Drew led him poorly. After watching that play over the only conclusion I can come to is that it wasn't the play call, or a miss read by Bledsoe, he was right to throw it, I just was a poor pass and a great play by the DB. The guy's human, too bad he had to prove it there.
Conclusion
As you can tell, I came away sort of happy from this game. The Bills (in spite of their shortcomings) played nearly good enough to win at a sold out arrowhead stadium. However, now that the Bills have dropped two straight they will have to dig deep if they want to make the playoffs, as it will probably require a 5-1 record down the stretch to win the division (with the one loss coming to GB, SD, or god forbid the Bengals). Now I'm sure a lot of you will have gone nuts over how we lost this thing, just try to remember where we were last year, and enjoy the ride because this could be the start of something special we're witnessing (I reference our 7-9 campaign in '87 as an example). It was a tough loss, but I just can't shake the fealing that we're building toward something great here. It’s strange but I've been smiling ever since re-watching the game, and I just can’t get out of my head one thought... We are really close ... not quite there this year, but soon guys, real soon…
Well now that my belly aching is done, I'll be returning to my standard postgame review format, with a look at the positives and negatives which we can all take home with us at the end of the day.
The Positives:
1. The Bills playoff future really wasn't killed with this loss, as the AFC East really is still up for grabs and the Bills are just a tie breaker away from holding a place in the post season.
2. Travis Henry and the O-Line really dominated out there today, as they rolled up 126 yards together in an impressive display of ball control football. Furthermore, Henry didn't even bobble the football, and was a force in the passing game too. In addition, special props to M.Williams for some great pass blocking and blitz pickups, R. Brown for some amazing run blocking, Jennings for the most complete game I've ever seen out of him, Sullivan for his most solid game pass blocking, and Teague for what looked like his best game as a Bill... to bad we couldn't win with these efforts.
3. London Fletcher, Chidi A, and Pat Williams were absolute forces on the field today, sticking their heads into every play and flying to the ball. Too bad the rest of the D only showed up when they felt like it, as there were just too many missed tackles, dumb penalties, and blown coverages to help the Bills win.
4. The Bills D succeeded in containing Tony Gonzales and to a degree, Priest Holmes. Both were feats I thought far beyond their abilities. Furthermore, I'd like to congratulate Jerry Grey for both dumbing down the D and attempting to disguise the coverages. It only partly worked, but considering I've never seen him do either it is a step forward.
5. Special Teams continued its fine play, and with the exception of a few silly mistakes I've like the way they've played this year (since week 4). The onsides kick was beautifully executed... and special mention to Gregg Williams for showing the cohunes to try that.
6. Joe Burns... he is turning into quite the find, and will become the official FB of the Bills next year as he is already a better lead blocker and blitz pickuper (I know its not a word) than L.Centers, and has decent hands. Furthermore the development of Henry as an every down back has further marginalized Center's role with this team, and probably guaranteed his release after this year.
7. Exciting Football... I've been a fan of football my whole life, heck I made it my life, and the longer I've worked the hard it gets to excite me. I haven't been excited about the Bills since 1996. Even those playoff years of 98 & 99 didn't excite my fancy. What I'm seeing now is. We may be on the verge of something big, and while it may not be this year, it could be next, as this team clearly has the makings of something special.
The Negatives:
1. Poor Discipline and sloppy penalties cost the Bills a win today. No more needs to be said.
2. Edwards and Schoebel are next to useless in run defense. I like a lot of things about both of these players; however neither is really an every down DL yet. Both need to work on their hand fighting as they are both consistently getting controlled by O-lineman by allowing body to body contact.
3. Preoleau may hit hard, but he misses way too many tackles, and today he did none of the first and too much of the second.
4. Poor redzone O... I'm not sure if this is the result of poor execution by the Bills, bad play calling, or just too many dumb penalties. Either way, they've got to get this fixed fast.
5. A poorly thrown pass by Drew... Price was open, and Drew led him poorly. After watching that play over the only conclusion I can come to is that it wasn't the play call, or a miss read by Bledsoe, he was right to throw it, I just was a poor pass and a great play by the DB. The guy's human, too bad he had to prove it there.
Conclusion
As you can tell, I came away sort of happy from this game. The Bills (in spite of their shortcomings) played nearly good enough to win at a sold out arrowhead stadium. However, now that the Bills have dropped two straight they will have to dig deep if they want to make the playoffs, as it will probably require a 5-1 record down the stretch to win the division (with the one loss coming to GB, SD, or god forbid the Bengals). Now I'm sure a lot of you will have gone nuts over how we lost this thing, just try to remember where we were last year, and enjoy the ride because this could be the start of something special we're witnessing (I reference our 7-9 campaign in '87 as an example). It was a tough loss, but I just can't shake the fealing that we're building toward something great here. It’s strange but I've been smiling ever since re-watching the game, and I just can’t get out of my head one thought... We are really close ... not quite there this year, but soon guys, real soon…