adam

This is the run that seals the game. Again, Conte is posterized but even if he tackles Jackson at first contact it is still a 30 yarder to win. In this one, we are in the Nickel with only Briggs and Bostic at LB. Mundy is on the TE and shadowing him in motion. Bostic has the QB and contain on the left. Briggs has the other gap. As Allen rushes and seals the right edge, Briggs shoots the gap on the other side of the Center leaving a massive hole for Jackson to run through. Briggs flops in the backfield unblocked (#2).

Conte went almost sideways, you can see the hashmarks.

The pursuit. In #7 Fuller and Bostic both seem hesitant to tackle Dixon and run along side him for 15 yards and out of the blue from the other side of the field comes Peanut. Mundy and Houston still running to the ball. Peanut actually initiates contact and takes Dixon down. Who is not in frame? Briggs, who blew his assignment and didn't care to run down the field.

#4 Briggs now not even in frame, Mundy, Bostic, DL in pursuit. Houston and Paea being held on their shoulders clearly in #5. Conte our last hope..... Briggs makes one last cameo as Conte gets steamrolled.

As the play develops Briggs is undecided on #3 and is completely unaware of the ball carrier. On #4 it looks like Briggs is moving with Manuel, but Mundy realizes he doesn't have the ball. Too late.

I took a look as some important plays, went back and took screenshots to dissect and discuss the plays. This first one is easy, almost entirely on Briggs. Hard to fault and player, even Conte when a RB has 20 yards head start to run straight at you. Here are some pics showing the play: On #1 you can see the LBs in their correct gaps, and what looks like Briggs watching the handoff. However, on #2 he moves with Manuel leaving his gap wide open and there is Safety help creeping in for the contain on Manuel.

1. Coaching - abandoning the run, going to gimmicks on the 2nd drive when we destroyed them on the first one. Not calling more runs/draws/screens on 3rd and short. Defensive breakdowns or gap assignments main issues. Besides for the 2 long runs and 2 long catches, Buffalo didn't do much. 2. Execution - this is more like decision making. Also, running out a kick to the 15 does not help. Also, only punting 40 yards when you can kick 60 doesn't make sense either. 3. Bad luck - I don't know about Marshall's play having luck involved, the throw was high so he had to go up to snag it and just as he came down on both feet the ball was hit. 4. Poor Management - I agree, Safety should've been top offseason priority. Now we have other teams subs starting for us. Conte needs to be cut, we can't have our Safeties getting steamrolled by RBs and stiffarmed like that. Takeaways - 1. 8-8? When is our next win, which 8 games are those? Buffalo was the worst team we face all year and we lost. Our only wins look to be TB and DAL right now. We can potentially lose the other 13. 2. Learn from this? That doesn't make players younger. Briggs was arguably the worst player on the field yesterday. 3. At what record or how many losses in a row before Tucker is fired? I say 4, if we lose 4 straight and are 0-4 after losing to GB at home, Tucker will be gone. 4. How many more years do we have with Forte and Marshall in their primes, 1 or 2 at the most? This is not a rebuild year, playoffs or bust.

Brees and Cutler were only QBs with a QBR over 50.0 that lost. Rodgers, Luck, Foles, Brady were all below 50 in Week 1.

Seeing McCown look absolutely brutal yesterday, I would not compare Cutler to McCown. Cutler has Forte, Jeffery, Marshall and Bennett; McCown has Martin, Jackson, Evans, and Myers. So Cutler has slightly better weapons, but it is not a huge drop off. Looking at the INTs, the first one was is on Cutler, Bennett, or Marshall, but it should've been a huge gain as the 2x receivers had only Graham within 10 yards (and he intercepted it). The 2nd INT was the inexcusable one. He has to just throw it away, especially with that down and distance once he is out of the pocket. The Bills defense is much better than they are given credit for and we still had the 4th highest yards total in Week 1 (and 2 of the top 4 were ATL and NO in that shootout). 3rd Down conversions and turnovers were the difference in the game. Interesting note that the defense held Buffalo to 31-108 (3.5 YPC) excluding those two long runs. Also, on those two plays, it looks like Briggs was out of position on both. On the first one, he left his gap and followed Manuel who didn't have the ball, then on the Jackson run, he shot the wrong gap and was laying on his back in the backfield as Jackson ran untouched thru the line. Also, Allen was mugged on that play, I am surprised Buffalo was not called for holding on that play.

Just bottom of the roster fodder to replace Hayden? Maybe he won't get steamrolled or stiffarmed down the field.

Seemed like a desperation move with Peppers and Allen. Safety was always a bigger concern than DL or LB, and now the entire defense is a question mark. To me it has to be Tucker. They are almost always out of position.

They are not even close: Playoff Wins - Favre 13 - Cutler 1 Pro Bowls - Favre 11 - Cutler 1 Consecutive Games played - Favre 297 - Cutler - Not 297 30 TD Seasons - Favre 8 - Cutler 0 4,000 Yard Passing Season - Favre 6 - Cutler 1 QB Rec - Favre 186-112, Cutler - 56-49 Years with winning record - Favre 15, Cutler 2 Win% - Favre against Bears 64% (23-13), Cutler with the Bears 57% (39-29) > the worst part about this stat > Grossman 19-12 61% as Bears starter, Orton 21-12 65% as Bears starter. The Bears were 40-24 with Grossman/Orton, 1 more win and 5 less losses than Cutler alone. Cutler is more comparable to Jake Plummer or Ken O'Brien. He gets his stats (+300 yards today) but loses with turnovers.

3rd Downs tell the story, we were 5/12 but only 1 of those conversions was longer than 4 yards. Remarkably, 3 conversions were 3rd and 1, and one was 3rd and 4. The only one longer than that was a 3rd and 10 to Marshall for 15 yards. The other 7 we missed: 3rd and 10 - sacked, 3rd and 5 - incomplete, 3rd and 11 - incomplete, 3rd and 12 - 8 yd reception by Spurlock, 3rd and 1 - Interception, 3rd and 1 - incomplete, 3rd and 7 incomplete. That is sickening to me. We could not convert a damn thing on 3rd Down, and 2x were 3rd and 1's, that is inexcusable for a team with this many weapons. The offense is supposed to be the strength of this team and we can only muster 20 pts but also make 3x turnovers that turn into 13 pts for the Bills. Interesting, the Bills only scored twice after a punt or kickoff. Their second drive and the one in OT. All other points came off turnovers.

I agree on Hester, but McCown is not better than Cutler.

We started the game healthy and lost. We lost today because we still cannot stop the run and the defense in general is still bad (see Manuel's QB Rating), and our offense makes too many mistakes/turnovers. I am being realistic, we have a tough schedule, and really needed this win. We now have 15 games vs 15 teams that can beat us. I think 4-11 is actually reasonable.

Devin Hester, 6-99 (19.8) as a WR.

Just look at the schedule, who is worse than Buffalo? Buffalo was arguably the worst team on our schedule and we lost to them at home. Guess who had a better better QB Rating, Cutler or Manuel? Manuel had a 91.7 and ran for a TD. Our defense, we allowed 3x 50 yard rushers and almost 200 yards rushing (almost 6 ypc). We won't win a single game if we can't stop the run and we lose the turnover battle every week.

We will be lucky to win 4 games if we can't beat EJ Manuel. Did Allen play because I did't hear him announced once?

Wow, what an absolute embarrassment.

Fred Jackson, the oldest RB in the league, wtf.

Conte could've killed Woods on that hit but barely nicked him.

Just throw it away.

That was just stupid, how do you miss a 350 lbs man in white?

I am really liking Holmes too. Once he gets fully into the playbook, we are really going to be hard to beat.

Boom there we go!