Underrating the Giants and overrating the Bills.
That’s exactly what came out of today’s game. I came in thinking the Bills would beat the Giants even without McCoy/Watkins. After today’s game, WTF was I thinking? This is what happens with the Bills. They show you a glimmer of hope with dominating the Dolphins…then we start getting confident that we can beat anyone… and then a team comes in and bitch slaps you back down to earth. This happens every year and I don’t even know why I’m shocked after a game like this.
The Giants are a good football team that has done it the right way for a quarter of a century. Aside from Eli/OBJ, they have a lot of no-named guys on their team and play the ultimate team football. When you lose football games, you always hear coaches say we can learn from these losses. Well, I’d like the Bills to learn a thing or two about the way the Giants play football and how they represent winning. We can only hope one day to be a franchise like theirs. Sadly, after today…it seems a lot further away.
—The offense was dreadful in the 1st half. Two first downs and 62 yards in offense? Each of their first six drives resulted in 6 plays or fewer. On the day, the Bills had 8 drives that resulted in a max of 3 plays. This isn’t Lawrence Taylor’s Giants we were facing here today which makes it more disconcerting. I’ll give the Bills some credit for being better in the 2nd half as they put up 250 yards, but the 1st half really scared me. You can’t win in the NFL when you have 2 1st downs in a half of football.
—I don’t know what pissed me off more, the Bradham missed tackle on the Jennings TD scamper or that shit play call to Williams in the flat on 4th down near the Giants goal line. Just uggggh.
—Tyrod was 11 of 18 for 102 yards on throws towards his WRs. So, yeah…he missed Sammy, you could say. Overall, it was a tale of two halves for Taylor. He was dreadful in the first half going 6 of 13 for 36 yards and guiding Bills fans to uncover repressed memories of Trent Edwards. Yet, in the 2nd half…he wasn’t that bad. He went 22 of 29 for 238 yards and a TD and had 2 TDs called back on penalties. I challenge anyone to find me two halves of football by a QB to be that different. In the Bills losses, Taylor has been incredibly inconsistent.
—Remember my spinning Rex Ryan’s bravado piece from a few weeks ago? This is going to be a weekly thing, right? When the Bills win, its because of Rex’s master motivating skills. When the Bills lose, its all because of Rex’s belligerent coaching style. Look, 17 penalties is an embarrassment. Rex deserves blame and I wasn’t exactly enamored with his message after the game about being proud of his team. Still.. he coaches adults. Adults should be able to maintain their edge and not do stupid things. Holding penalties or false starts doesn’t come from your coach being an overbearing asshole who spews fire and brimstone. That’s about being a stupid player and making a mistake. Again, the Bills had the 5th mot penalties last year while the Jets were 20th. That right there should prove that its kind of on the players.
However, in this town where everything leads to a 10 minute dissertation of the blame game in order to find the main culprit, we need to just blame everyone when the team losses this way. Rex isn’t Professor X. He can’t control a player’s mind to take stupid penalties. The players deserve more blame for the penalties than the coach because its them who are executing the plays of stupidity to perfection. Just because lamestreamers love grabbing the lowest hanging fruit of blaming Rex’s bravado for losses, doesn’t mean we should bite it.
Lastly on the refs…the league needs to step in and stop the flag shit. There are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many penalties being called in today’s NFL. I’m not talking just Bills, I’m talking every game. Hell, even the Giants had 11 penalties. Enough is enough.
—The Bills had more penalties than 1st downs (17 to 14) and almost triple penalty yards to rushing yards (55 to 135).
—The Bills had 9 different pass catchers today. That has to be a record of some sort.
—Both teams were a combined 6 of 31 on 3rd down. I guess you could have beaten the crowd to the bathroom on 3rd down instead of 4th.
—Its funny, but if you just open the box score of this game and see that the Bills held Eli to just 212 yards passing, OBJ to just 5 catches for 38 yards, and the Giants to just 313 yards in total offense, you’d probably say the Bills held their own. Obviously that wasn’t the case if you watched the game. The Giants were just timely in of their offensive plays as they made the most out of any situation that they needed points or a 1st down. The Bills defense couldn’t get to Eli as he was getting rid of the ball fast which seems to be the key to beating the defense. On the day, the Bills defense only had 1 QB hit on Eli. That’s unacceptable when you have this all-world defensive front line. I haven’t been that enamored with the Bills pass rush this season. Where the hell are the sacks at? I love you Mario, but while you are playing well against the run, I’d like you to kill the QB a little more. Oh, and the same goes to Kyle Williams and Marcell Dareus. Pretty much earn your fucking money.
—I have 3 players I liked today…Charles Clay, Stephon Gilmore and Ronald Darby. Clay is proving to be the best TE the Bills have ever had. From stat maven Mike Haim, Clay is the 1st Bills TE to have 80 yards receiving in two consecutive games since 1967. He was the guy the Giants couldn’t stop at all today. He was targeted 13 times by Taylor and came up with 9 grabs for 111 yards. Stephon Gilmore had a rough start on his first drive against Eli, but really put together a stellar game after that. Again, holding OBJ to just 38 yards is a hell of an accomplishment. Same goes for Darby who had 3 PDs and a tackle for a loss. Both guys have been aggressive in coverage and if only the Bills front 4 could help out more, they’d be even better.
—Karlos Williams had 10 carries that resulted in 2 yards or fewer. Four of those 10 carries resulted in negative yardage. Woof.
—In their last two games at home, the Bills have been outscored 40-17 in the first half. Gotta get off to a faster start, kids.
Final word: I think most fans would have picked the Bills to be 2-2 at this point before the season started. The problem is that they’ve gotten there in such an all or nothing way. In the two wins, they looked like a team that was playoff bound. In their two losses, you would have thought the 2009 Bills were making a comeback. Were the teams they crushed just bad teams? Were the teams they lost to just all-world and the Bills had no choice but to lose? Those are questions we are going to find the answers to as the season goes on. There’s no need to panic yet. We’ve seen the best and worst of the Bills. No one said it was going to be easy, but they’ve shown they can put together some nice stretches of football. They just have to stretch it out a little more and being smarter would be a way to do that.
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