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Official ‘Other Games’ Thread - Week - 13


Foxx

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26 minutes ago, snafu said:


If you count the Fish twice, the combined record is 36-50. 
That’s .418.

 

If you don’t count the games we played those teams (which contributed to their record), then the combined record is 36-43.

That’s .455.


And if you take the 4 wins out of the other group, their collective win % would be .422.

 


 

Not to pick nits but, you didn't subtract out the wins in your second scenario. It would be 30-43 for a win percentage of .411.

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12 hours ago, Fansince88 said:

Go ahead and be miserable and focus on those games. I will keep pressing on and hoping for the best.  

 

Hope is all we have at this point, and it ain't much of a plan.

 

I'm such a Bills homer my family calls me Simpson. But I don't confuse misery with reality. It's tough to look at tonight's matchup, with the putrid reality of the Jags and Colts losses, and have any confidence against Bellicheck*.

 

They beat him twice last year with two arms tied behind his back. They also won the games they were supposed to win last year. This year, not so much. I'm desperate to be wrong, especially because of how confident I was coming into the season, but in the end, the only thing we have for tonight is hope.

 

And like I said. That's a shit plan.

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8 hours ago, Fansince88 said:

You totally ignored the point of my reply then rambled on. Why? For weeks you have been dissing the team based on the losses being against bad teams yet we have beat bad teams? Yes they are teams that have a combined .333 record but we outscored them by 258 to 75. 2 of the losses came against the Steelers who may be the best bad team of the league right now and the other we may have won had out QB not slipped to go for the win once again playing against the best RB in the league in Henry. I hate that we lost against the Jags. What do you want them to do. Fire McD? Sounds like that is what you are saying and thats ludicrous. 

 

It is interesting how when one does not understand a point being made it is written off as rambling.  I clearly made the point, which is the Bills lose to good teams and beat up on bad and mediocre teams, especially when they have strong, physical lines and a competent run game.  That hasn't changed since McD has been here.

 

I think there is very close to a 0% chance McD is fired.  However, if I was the Pegulas, I would be questioning Beane and McD about how this team is built, what the plan is going forward, and probably look to replace Daboll and Frazier.

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1 hour ago, snafu said:


If you count the Fish twice, the combined record is 36-50. 
That’s .418.

 

If you don’t count the games we played those teams (which contributed to their record), then the combined record is 36-43.

That’s .455.


And if you take the 4 wins out of the other group, their collective win % would be .422.

 


 

 

If you take Jax out, the win % of games lost goes to .639.  All kinds of ways to play with numbers, but it still doesn't change the fact that the Bills tend to lose to better teams.

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3 hours ago, 4merper4mer said:

You could easily do an analysis with very similar premises and conclusions for KC, LAR, TB and GB for starters.  Easily.  What would be difficult is finding a team that is currently a clear SB favorite.  Is there even a team that is a clear favorite in their own division at this point?  Ari, Dallas, Tenn and KC are the closest and all have obstacles which with the exception of Ari are all self induced.

 

IMO you’re asking the Bills to meet a standard no other team meets and then declaring them a failure because they haven't.  That’s silly.

 

 

 

All I'm asking the Bills to do is win games against opponents that are at least potential contenders, and not shit the bed against inferior teams.  That's silly? 

 

You can't lose games in a manner that give you no chance of winning, such as game plans that makes no sense for the game being played, and worse yet, not modifying the plan when it's clear it isn't working.  Look, I think we have plenty of talent to win, we don't have the coaching strategy to do so on a consistent basis.  I'm not asking for them to go undefeated.  Every team loses and every team has flaws.  The Bills are shooting themselves in the foot the way they lose, which ends up being bad offensive and/or defensive planning.

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1 hour ago, Core Four said:

 

All I'm asking the Bills to do is win games against opponents that are at least potential contenders, and not shit the bed against inferior teams.  That's silly? 

 

You can't lose games in a manner that give you no chance of winning, such as game plans that makes no sense for the game being played, and worse yet, not modifying the plan when it's clear it isn't working.  Look, I think we have plenty of talent to win, we don't have the coaching strategy to do so on a consistent basis.  I'm not asking for them to go undefeated.  Every team loses and every team has flaws.  The Bills are shooting themselves in the foot the way they lose, which ends up being bad offensive and/or defensive planning.

I agree and disagree.

 

McDermott has shown they can game plan and beat teams that are in the upper echelons. One merely need to look to last year, specifically the playoffs. We beat a good Indy team and the game plan devised for the Ravens was unprecedented. We wrote the blueprint on how to shut Lamar down with that game. We got beat by the superior team in KC last year, but I put that loss more on Josh than an inadequacy of our gameplan.  

 

We have also shown that we can have bad game plans throughout McDermott's tenure. Along with the, for whatever reason an inability to adapt midstride, in game. 

 

We have lost 4 games this year, three of which we very easily could have won. the only game we had no shot at was the Indy debacle. Steelers, there are many reasons for that loss, one of which might have been being unprepared to start the season. Against the Titans, that was a heavyweight bout where we could have elected to tie the game very easily and seen what OT would have brought. Instead we go for it and a slip of the foot or going right instead of left was what ultimately lost that game. The Jaguars game, while we had some Oline injuries, I think it mainly a game where we were flat thinking we could cruise by.

 

I'm not really big on shoulda/woulda/coulda's though, and for whatever reason(s), we lost those games and we are where we are and what our record says we are because that is pretty much who we are. This year, it seems almost every team in the NFL outside of one or two, possibly three are flawed in some way who have had troubles at various points this season.

 

Regarding coaching, to imply McDermott is out of his league as far as the upper levels of coaching in the NFL goes, to me at least, is an indication of possibly having too high of expectations. This team has been on a steady upward trajectory since his arrival. Yes, we all want to win it all, but this is the NFL where nothing is easy and you have an ever evolving landscape that more often than not brings teams on top back to the earthly mediocrity levels before having to reshoot.

 

Our defense is arguable better than it was last year. Our offense is on par with what it was last year. So before I go about demanding Frasier and Daboll's heads, I think a bit more perspective is in order. Could things be better, sure. Could things be worse, we're Bills Fans, we know without a doubt they could be worse.  

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26 minutes ago, Core Four said:

 

All I'm asking the Bills to do is win games against opponents that are at least potential contenders, and not shit the bed against inferior teams.  That's silly? 

 

You can't lose games in a manner that give you no chance of winning, such as game plans that makes no sense for the game being played, and worse yet, not modifying the plan when it's clear it isn't working.  Look, I think we have plenty of talent to win, we don't have the coaching strategy to do so on a consistent basis.  I'm not asking for them to go undefeated.  Every team loses and every team has flaws.  The Bills are shooting themselves in the foot the way they lose, which ends up being bad offensive and/or defensive planning.

It’s silly because you’re asking the Bills to do something no other team has done this year and declaring them as an outlier of some sort because neither have they.

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14 minutes ago, 4merper4mer said:

It’s silly because you’re asking the Bills to do something no other team has done this year and declaring them as an outlier of some sort because neither have they.

 

I think we'll agree to disagree.  This can go round and round all day long.  We'll see what happens tonight.  I'd really like for the Bills to take it to the Pats and for me to look stupid in criticizing McD and his staff.

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20 minutes ago, Foxx said:

I agree and disagree.

 

McDermott has shown they can game plan and beat teams that are in the upper echelons. One merely need to look to last year, specifically the playoffs. We beat a good Indy team and the game plan devised for the Ravens was unprecedented. We wrote the blueprint on how to shut Lamar down with that game. We got beat by the superior team in KC last year, but I put that loss more on Josh than an inadequacy of our gameplan.  

 

We have also shown that we can have bad game plans throughout McDermott's tenure. Along with the, for whatever reason an inability to adapt midstride, in game. 

 

We have lost 4 games this year, three of which we very easily could have won. the only game we had no shot at was the Indy debacle. Steelers, there are many reasons for that loss, one of which might have been being unprepared to start the season. Against the Titans, that was a heavyweight bout where we could have elected to tie the game very easily and seen what OT would have brought. Instead we go for it and a slip of the foot or going right instead of left was what ultimately lost that game. The Jaguars game, while we had some Oline injuries, I think it mainly a game where we were flat thinking we could cruise by.

 

I'm not really big on shoulda/woulda/coulda's though, and for whatever reason(s), we lost those games and we are where we are and what our record says we are because that is pretty much who we are. This year, it seems almost every team in the NFL outside of one or two, possibly three are flawed in some way who have had troubles at various points this season.

 

Regarding coaching, to imply McDermott is out of his league as far as the upper levels of coaching in the NFL goes, to me at least, is an expectation of possibly having too high of expectations. This team has been on a steady upward trajectory since his arrival. Yes, we all want to win it all, but this is the NFL where nothing is easy and you have an ever evolving landscape that more often than not brings teams on top back to the earthly mediocrity levels before having to reshoot.

 

Our defense is arguable better than it was last year. Our offense is on par with what it was last year. So before I go about demanding Frasier and Daboll's heads, I think a bit more perspective is in order. Could things be better, sure. Could things be worse, we're Bills Fans, we know without a doubt they could be worse.  

 

Excellent post.  Tonight will provide at least some perspective and indication of who the Bills are.

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1 hour ago, Core Four said:

 

If you take Jax out, the win % of games lost goes to .639.  All kinds of ways to play with numbers, but it still doesn't change the fact that the Bills tend to lose to better teams.

 

We'd rather they win every game, yes.  That's not realistic.  I think it would be worse if the Bills beat only good teams and lost only to mediocre ones.

 

I think the bigger point is that numbers can say anything and that it really is a matter of weekly focus on the opponent in front of the team.  I also think it is important to note WHEN you play any opponent.  Do you discount the Miami wins?  Do you overplay the KC win?  Would you be afraid to play the Steelers now?  How about the Titans?

 

Maybe this cumulative winning percentage of opponents says something about relative talent levels, but if the team isn't ready to play, then they get results like JAX.  I'm a big believer that every championship-level team craps the bed at least one time every year.

 

We've nitpicked this team well enough to know when there's a bad matchup of a favorable one.  Using cumulative winning % to generalize isn't useful in my mind.

 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Foxx said:

Not to pick nits but, you didn't subtract out the wins in your second scenario. It would be 30-43 for a win percentage of .411.

 

One thing COVID has taught me is that I'm not a very good stats calculator.

 

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Crap Throwing Clavin
1 minute ago, snafu said:

 

One thing COVID has taught me is that I'm not a very good stats calculator.

 

 

You're accurate about 103% of the time.

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13 minutes ago, snafu said:

 

We'd rather they win every game, yes.  That's not realistic.  I think it would be worse if the Bills beat only good teams and lost only to mediocre ones.

 

I think the bigger point is that numbers can say anything and that it really is a matter of weekly focus on the opponent in front of the team.  I also think it is important to note WHEN you play any opponent.  Do you discount the Miami wins?  Do you overplay the KC win?  Would you be afraid to play the Steelers now?  How about the Titans?

 

Maybe this cumulative winning percentage of opponents says something about relative talent levels, but if the team isn't ready to play, then they get results like JAX.  I'm a big believer that every championship-level team craps the bed at least one time every year.

 

We've nitpicked this team well enough to know when there's a bad matchup of a favorable one.  Using cumulative winning % to generalize isn't useful in my mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good post.  Stats certainly don't tell the whole story, but only provide some context.

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4 hours ago, Core Four said:

 

I think we'll agree to disagree.  This can go round and round all day long.  We'll see what happens tonight.  I'd really like for the Bills to take it to the Pats and for me to look stupid in criticizing McD and his staff.

Far be it from me to exempt McD for criticism. All I’m saying is there aren’t any perfect situations out there and holding them to a standard that high is unrealistic.

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ESPN and Football Outsiders seem to agree that Bills are consistently inconsistent this year, and the most erratic team in their rankings since 1983.

 

How inconsistent are the 2021 Buffalo Bills? We rank the NFL's most inconsistent teams since 1983 (ESPN+ paywall)

 

Variance looks at the DVOA for each individual game and determines just how consistent or inconsistent a team has been that season. And with a current variance of 44.5%, the 2021 Bills come out as the most inconsistent team we've ever tracked in stats that go back to 1983. For comparison, the median variance for an NFL team over a 16-game season is 14.6%.

...

Variance: 44.5% (through Week 12)

The Bills have huge wins over bad teams: 35-0 over Miami, 40-0 over Houston and 45-17 over the New York Jets. They also have big wins over good teams: 38-20 over Kansas City, currently ninth in DVOA and climbing and last week's 31-6 victory over New Orleans, 12th in DVOA and fifth on defense.

The Bills then combine those wins with a curb stomping by Indianapolis, 41-15, and two losses to bad teams, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville. So Buffalo's DVOA ratings have been all over the place this season. Buffalo has five games with single-game DVOA over 60%. New England has three, and no other team has more than two. But no team in the DVOA top 10 has more games with below-average DVOA.

Variance should get lower with a larger sample size, so there's a good chance Buffalo's variance at the end of the year won't be quite this high. But even if we only compare them to past teams through Week 12 instead of past full-season teams, the Bills still come out with the highest variance since 1983.

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