It is just mind boggling to me that this team, in a four week period, can beat the KC Chiefs and Tampa Bucs yet lose to the Miami Dolphins and the Houston Texans. Don’t get me wrong here, the Texans have a tremendous defense. That said, losing to Davis Mills on a night when the defense, as a whole, played very well? Again, I put the blame for this loss on Brady and McDermott.
The start of the game couldn’t have gone better. We stop them and get the ball. Of course Brady went back to his old play calls of running Cook on first downs (gain of four and gain of one). We see, however, a change in McDermott’s aggressiveness when he went for it on fourth and one from his own 28 (remember two weeks ago in a similar situation starting out the game in Miami when he punted on a fourth and two from his own 43 yard line?) and the Josh Allen tush push easily got the first down. After the second first down Cook run from their own 31 (no gain) Brady became much more aggressive calling four consecutive passes which resulted in first downs. On a second and 10 Cook rambled for 45 yards and a TD. Great drive. Great use of Josh. Great use of Cook on the second and ten for the TD. Everything looked great until the normally reliable Matt Prater muffed the extra point.
From thereon out things got chaotic. After a Texans FG, the Bills got the ball at their own 12 yard line (another stupid special teams penalty on a return). Cook for six yards on 1st and then the stupid/stubborn wide receiver screen to Shakir which loses two yards. This is the first of a number of mind numbing calls by Brady last night. How does a guy go from calling a great game last week to calling an absolutely crap game last night? For whatever reason, Brady is enamored with the Shakir WR screen. Last week he tried it once and it lost three yards. The week before he tried it three times: an incompletion, a gain of two and a gain of four. Brady is obsessed with this play in spite of it not working. It doesn’t work because defenses are playing the Bills in press coverage. They are not worried at all about being beaten deep. 9-10 players are lined up within 2-3 yards of the line of scrimmage play after play and game after game. In spite of this, and except for the Tampa game where Josh threw quick crossing or sideline patters, defenses have been able to stop the WR screens as well as the Cook runs up the middle.
After punting, the Bills defense again held and forced a punt. Bills ball, 1st and 10 at their own 38 up 6-3. Cook for one yard (again) but then things opened up. Davis for 22, Cook for 6, Hawes for 8, Cook again for 13. 1st down at the Houston 45. What’s the call? Of course, let’s try the WR screen again, this time to Moore. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Loss of three. After a ten yard pass to Palmer we are faced with a 3rd and 3 at the Houston 38. Let’s now try it again: 1 yard WR screen to Shakir. That’s three WR screens in less than a half which resulted in a loss of two, loss of three and a one yard gain. On fourth down Josh hits Ty Johnson with a perfectly placed ball and we are in business: 1st and 10 at the Texans 14. What’s the call? Corner pass to the end zone? Crossing pattern to Davis? Bootleg by Josh? No, let’s run Ty Johnson up the middle for a loss of two. Up to this point in the game the Bills had run the ball on first down seven times for 28yards. After a sack we go back to the incomplete short WR pass to Shakir and we kick a FG. Huge missed opportunity there but we are up 9-3 against a backup journeyman QB, on the road. Offense has moved the ball well with a TD and FG and defense has been good.
Here’s where the game changed. Aided by two defensive penalties (15 yd facemask and a 5 yd holding call) both of which resulted in first downs, the Texans score and take the lead 10-9. Bills get the ball back and Josh throws an interception, defense holds for a FG and we are down 13-9. Texans kick off and Davis returns 97 yards for the TD. 1:43 left in the half. We get the ball to start the second half. Need defense to get a stop here. Six pass plays later the Texans score and we go into halftime down 20-16. We are facing a backup QB who takes his team 75 yards in six plays. No pass rush. No blitz. Conservative, don’t get beat long defense which again gives up points to a hurry up offense. How many time have we seen this same thing transpire? In all the years that McDermott has been here he has never figured out how to consistently contain a hurry u offense. From 13 seconds to the loss in NE last year to Mack Jones it seems that he is so worried about giving up a big play that he gives up a ton of small ones. The Texans TD came on a play from the Bills eight yard line. Nine seconds left and Houston is out of time outs. This is a similar situation to the 13 second game where I was screaming for the Bills to just tackle every receiver and take the 5 yard holding penalty while using up 5-7 seconds thus leaving the Chiefs with little time to be able to get the game tying FG. Last night the same situation occurred. All the Bill had to do was to tackle the Texans WRs. Just do anything to stop a throw to the end zone. The play would take 3-5 seconds and as a result of the holding call the Texans would get a half the distance penalty to the four yard line with time to run one play which, almost assuredly, would have been a FG. This is where coaching is so important. In game decisions like this make or break a coach and a team. There is no downside to grabbing each receiver and tackling them to the ground. Instead, Lewis gets beat to the inside and Higgins scores and we are now down 20-16 instead of being tied 16-16. Bad coaching by McDermott cost them 4 points which, coincidentally, is exactly how many points we lost by. One more note here: The Texans kicked off with 5 seconds left in the half. Davis fielded the kick in his endzone and, for whatever reason, didn’t try and return it and downed it instead. WHY? You previously ran one back 97 yards. Your team only has five seconds left. Surely the Bills were going to kneel and go into halftime. Why not return the kick? Maybe he breaks it for a long gain or TD. There was no downside to a return there. He should have been told to return the kick!!! Bad coaching.
The second half was a shit show. Predictably we got the ball at our own 20 after Davis, who inexcusably downed the kickoff at the end of the half, now decides to return a kick that he receives 5 yards deep in the end zone (Bills ball at the 35 had he downed it). Again, a stupid play which costs 15 yards. 1st and ten: Brady calls his typical Cook run up the middle for one yard. That’s now eight first down runs, five of which have left the Bills in second and long Josh completes a pass for 18 and then scrambles for two. Second and two: let’s run Cook again up the middle for two yards. 3rd and 6 and Josh is sacked.
The entire third quarter the defense played its best ball of the year. Two straight three and outs sandwiched around a Bills three and out (which of course started out with a Cook run, this time for 4 yards). Bill get the ball back at their own 8, down 20-16. Cook again on first down for four yards (sound a little predictable???), a 3 yard pass to Shakir and then a pass which Shakir catches for a big 1st down but then fumbles. Texans ball and defense again holds (again, this goes back to the end of the half. This defense gave up two extended drives all game and one was in the hurry up. There was no reason to change your defensive philosophy when you were successful) and Houston kicks a FG.
This next Bills possession just proves the absolute stupidity of Brady. We drive to the Houston 24 and have a second and two. Instead of doing a tush push we run Cook out of the shotgun for one yard. Fourth and one at the Texans 23. Tush push time correct? The last six times we’d run this play this season we have gained at least 3 yards every fucking time. Instead, Brady calls for Cook up the middle where he was stuffed for a loss of two. An opportunity to take the lead (or to cut the Texans lead to one point) thrown out the window because Brady needs to show how smart he is.
We all saw what transpired after this. Sack after sack. That said, the Bills defense kept them in it and we got the ball back at our own 18 with 2:57 left in the game and all three time outs left. Time for Josh to be Josh. Seven plays and two sacks later we have a fourth and 27. In what may have been Brady’s best play call of the year, Josh hits Palmer who laterals to Shakir for a 44 yard gain. Bills ball at Houston 26. First down pass to Davis is caught at the two but he can’t get second foot down. After a nine yard gain on a pass to Johnson the Bills call their second time out. We have two plays to get one yard and give Josh four more chances to win the game. We still have a time out. Instead of just getting the first down with a tush push we throw the ball and it’s batted down by the Texans. OK, now it’s time for the tush push, right? Fourth and one. Game on the line. Texans pass rush has been killing Josh (eight sacks already). Instead, we line up in the fucking shotgun and Dawkins gets called for a false start for the SEVENTH FUCKING TIME THIS SEASON. He is the most penalized offensive lineman in the league. No one has anywhere near SEVEN false starts. Just absolutely brutal. Faced now with a fourth and six, Josh is hurried (by Dawkins’s man) and is hit while throwing and the pass is intercepted. Game over.
This game was there for the win. Bad play calling kept putting the bills in second and third and long situations. Bad coaching at the end of the half GAVE the Texans four points. Bad play calling caused the Bills to fail to make a first down at the Texans 23 which cost at least three points. Bad play calling and a stupid penalty on Dawkins (remember we weren’t going to tush push there anyway since Josh was in the shotgun) a the end of the game cost us a chance to win. The old arrogant and stubborn Brady returned last night with continued first down runs which put Josh in second and long which allowed the Texans to pin their ears back and rush. The predictability of this offense is so apparent to anyone who watches football. The continued use of the wide receiver screens. The refusal to use your best short yardage player (Allen) in two separate short-yardage situations in spite of his success on those plays was unconscionable. Brady had no answers to the Texans pass rush. None whatsoever. No quick throws up to field to stretch the defense other than the almost completion to Gabe Davis near the games end. It seems as if he is unable to modify his game plan when things get rough. When the game plan works he stays with it, sometimes too long as we saw last night. First two drives were great but then Houston made adjustments and Brady was clueless in how to react. Game and game again his stubbornness (WR Screens, Jet sweeps, Cook 1st down runs) put this team in peril. We are 7-4 with a team that I’d predicted would be 10-1 at this point given how weak their schedule looked. We’ve lost three games to teams that didn’t have a winning record. We lost last night to a team that barely beat the terrible Tennessee Titans last week 16-13 on a last second FG. Why can we play like we did v the Chiefs and Tampa yet suck against the Falcons, Dolphins and Texan? We have been huge favorites in every game we’ve lost this year. Why have they so underperformed? The answer is coaching. Brady is just a terrible offensive coordinator and McDermott is a deer in the headlights when it comes down to live gametime decisions. Both need to go. We will never win a Super bowl with either here. It won’t happen though as Pegula is so clueless in how to run a sports franchise. We have the talent. We need better coaching.
Go Bills