The Good: Playcalling - It was great to see this offense finally playing to its strengths. Had shotty been the co-coordinator yesterday im sure sanchez would have throw it 40-45 times, mostly dink and dunk and the run game would have been abandoned after greens 4th short gain. Props to sparano for sticking with the run to maintain balance throughout the game, even when we were getting 3 yards and a cloud of dust out of it. Another thing i loved is how we started out on the first drive. It was the most we saw of tebow in one sequence and he was moved all over. Now im not saying we should use tebow every series like that, but i think starting out with it really took away all of buffallo's aggressiveness. while they werent on their heels they needed to account for what we might do and i think that set the tone. hopefully we see alot more tebow on opening drives at TE, FB, WR just to make defenses work mentally right off the bat Pass Protection - not much to say here. sanchez jersey was clean all day and he had the time to take the deep shots that really paid big dividends. Mario williams name wasnt called all afternoon. Big plays! - the last thing i expected from this team. kerley and hill really making an enormous impact. i know the 48 points is eye-popping, but if they dont hit on those 3 homeruns, im not sure how we move the ball or what the outcome is. if we can get plays like that all season it really changes things. ill reserve judgement until after the pitt/49er/texans string of games, but great to see early on. Cons Middle of the defense - Harris, smith, scott continue to look awful in coverage. nice to have landry their, but we really need to sure that up before we start playing teams with weapons in the slot and at TE. the tackling on the LB level was also pretty shaky. scott missed a few that turned into spiller long gains/TDs. run defense in general was shaky and you can be pittsburg will try and take advantage of both of these issues Pass rush - were was it? few hurries and i believe no sacks. we did hit fitz a few times, but had to send 6 or 7 to do that. Roethlisberger isnt goign to be nearly as easy to get to and if he can extend plays our secondary might not look so good.
"Pass rush - were was it? few hurries and i believe no sacks." Geez, we play Buffalo twice a year and it's a mystery to the OP that Harvard gets it out of there quickly. There were some clear positives yesterday. Sanchez had a B+ game, which would have been an A if he hadn't of thrown that int. He also overthrew a wide open Holmes. But the rest of the game he was very good, and his body language and leadership were impressive. If he keeps this kind of play up, that will be huge for the organization. Kerley and Hill. All the off season talk of Ryan being disappointed in Kerley, Kerley being hurt, Hill being a project and dropping too many balls, were a distant memory yesterday. Along with the OL, this was huge in helping Sanchez, and Holmes, too, for that matter. The OL. It did occur to me that perhaps Mario Williams is going to turn out to be a really bad investment for the Bills, but the blocking schemes the Jets used to help Howard got it done. I also noticed Ferguson making some good downfield blocks. On the other hand the run blocking was so so. The Jet Secondary. It did seem that the Int Wilson got was thrown right at him, but he caught it and that is to his credit. The int by Revis was a great read and play by him, while Cro's was a great read and an easy catch. Those all gave the Jets a huge boost, but perhaps the most impressive element was Landry's play. I love the way he hits. Truffant looked a bit overmatched out there, though. And back to Landry, he did miss Spiller on that long gainer. Still... Negatives. Giving up three touchdowns in the second half was not a good thing, but since the game was not in doubt, I am not going to focus on it.
waiting for NFL rewind to have the game up so i can watch it again on the ALL22 film. but it seemed to me plenty of times fitzpatrick held it for more then 3 or 4 seconds with out the rush getting there.
Pros: Great Passing attack and OLine play Cons: Lack of Pass rush and run defense. Running game was marginal for a G&P team too.
I thought the pass rush was actually pretty good. That's Bills offense is built to get rid of the ball quickly. Fitzpatrick got rocked plenty of times after releasing the ball.
Biggest Pro -- Austin Howard. Watching him lockdown Mario was something surreal. This guy was picked from the scapheap, sent into the fire with the whole NY media watching. Great job. Biggest Con -- I'm sorry but Shonn Greene is pedestrian. He is great in the 4th quarter because nobody wants to tackle him. Otherwise, he is an average NFL RB.
Buffalo was the least sacked team in the league. They get the ball out quickly. Our guys were open so Fitz thru it to us.
Fitzpicksix throwing 3 TDs is more an artifact of Rex being such a nice guy that his father never was. Spiller's two long runs do bother me but, don't judge the defensive performance based on what happened during 2nd half. Garbage time started minutes into 3rd quarter, thanks to the you-know-who throwing TD pass to the other team.
So the revis and cro int was a good read and play but the wilson int was thrown right at him? I wish their was a prerequisite required before posting football related statements on this forum. Good good and good play by all three. They all made plays because of great preparation in the film room, great communication on the field, and great reaction to wht they saw.
Like I said, playing in the slot is much harder - you can't box out the receiver in one direction and forget about the far side, using the sideline. You need to cover both ways. Sure, it was not the best throw, BUT then think about first, covering your receiver then when the opportunity comes, picking it off. It is not the easiest thing to do in this world. Rex obviously let his dogs off in the 2nd half - and allowed the Bills to save their collective faces. In 1st half, however, Wilson was quite visible - breaking off the pass a few, and picking off the pass. Fitz came back alive once Rex called his dogs off late in 3rd quarter - Nelson didn't do much till that moment, which means Wilson has blanketed him very well.
Agreed, but if Mark, the O-line and receivers maintain this level of play, there will not be much mention of G&P the rest of the season. The run defense was rather disappointing, +3 in turnovers and still giving up 28 points can not sit well with Rex. Overall a great win, something to build on.
I thought considering how quickly Fitz gets rid of the ball we did a nice job forcing him into some errant decisions. As for the rush defense, they got gashed, but it was also arguably garbage time in the 3rd quarter. I do think though it will be a blessing in disguise, something for them to look at and focus on when preparing for Pitt.
Run defense stats look ugly but in reality there were only two glaring plays in which our run defense looked bad. Both in the 2nd half with the game out of reach. I am not too worried. Add to the fact that our best run-defending defensive lineman didn't play and no one should be even remotely worried. Only thing that bothered me was taking the foot off the gas. That falls on the coaching. Not much bad to take away from this game though.
I thought Rex was being very classy by allowing the Bills to save their faces. Nothing like 55-7 drubbing he could have rubbed in (that you KNOW Hoodie will pull, given the chance.)
Perhaps you're right Turk, but to me, it looked like just bad throws instead of being pressure forced. I'm talking about the int's specifically although I did see Fitz get hit just after some passes. I also saw Fitz make some nice passes with plenty time to make all his reads. The Run D should be focused on. Especially if Rex wants this defense to be top tier. Even if it were garbage time, a prideful defense doesn't allow 28pts to the buffalo team we saw yesterday. Next week is another story so lets see what adjustments Rex makes.
IMO you can't really judge the pass rush against Buffalo compared to what's going to be going on in Pittsburgh. Buffalo is built on 3 or 5 step drops and FIRE that ball away as quickly as possible. Pittsburgh is a more conventional offense. It's when we play New England that we need to get in better than we did against Buffalo because they're similar.
