I'm a bit surprised. At 5-2 we could tackle, didn't commit stupid penalties, could stop the run and looked like a competent football team.
This, these past 2 weeks is not a football team. It's a dumpster fire that body snatched the Buffalo Bills. You can be not good and lose, the Browns do that. This is epic blowouts in which we can't do anything on either side of the ball and have the discipline of a Rex Ryan coached team. It's bizarre.
All fair, but only point I'd disagree with is the discipline...
It just wasn't a fairly called game, and I don't mean to say it affected the outcome, but Bills grab a facemask in the pile, 15 yards...they tackle McCoy by the facemask out in the open in the backfield with two officials right there, no call. You can extrapolate that across the various calls -- illegal man downfield on a screen pass was the wrong call, but the good news is they also called a BS holding penalty for good measure so it wasn't noticed.
I would like to know what the referees' ear-pieces are there for? They still run up to each other and talk to each other...maybe they should be more communicative...for example, right after they botched two calls including that facemask they followed it up with a bad holding call. This was when the game was still in doubt...so first down at mid-field down two TDs becomes 2nd and 35 at your own 10, literally just because of 4 bad flags from the officials (one of which was a non-flag on the facemask).
Major problems on this team, no doubt, but footballs are narratives, and let's say they get points on that drive and it's 17-6 or 17-10, then maybe the team doesn't quit.
There shouldn't be excuses, but when there receviers are grabbing your guy on the edge and turning 5 yard losses into TDs, then it impacts the game. The arbitrary nature of these calls makes it hard to say discipline: our guy faceguarded and arrived early in the End Zone -- bad defense PI ball at the one. Their guy never turns and is slapping our guy 35 yards downfield, got there 1.5 seconds too early and never saw the ball -- "Good Defense" says Ronde Barber! Okaaaayyyyy...he also correctly called that hold on the edge with the receiver but then changed his mind when the producer form the NFL spoke in his ear about the agenda.
Doesn't change the Bills didn't play or coach well and the roster is still missing some key components. But the discipline doesn't just come/go...there is a variable there.
