- 9 hours ago
Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase discuss the Bills defensive issues, and debate whether the team will be able to overcome the lack of functional play on that side of the ball with a nuclear offense. They start by laying out just how bad the defensive issues really are, and why this bad of a defense could be too much to outscore. They also discuss how much better they think the defense can get from here, and explain why they can’t see the unit becoming anything more than average.
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00:00I just think of these two teams, Bills and Patriots,
00:03which team has a little bit more could lose to anybody?
00:07I guess I don't know.
00:09So I feel like that's – I want to give that to New England.
00:13I still want to give that to New England,
00:15but the way this defense has played for most of the year.
00:19Yep.
00:20Right, like has every team the Bills played scored the most points
00:24of the season against them?
00:25Well, that's a good question.
00:26Like the Texans I know have.
00:27Not the Chargers.
00:28The Chargers had a bigger game somewhere else.
00:30Okay, right.
00:30But New England –
00:31New England did.
00:32The Lions probably came close, but –
00:35The Texans did.
00:38Sure, your defense – I just – it'll be – it's new, right?
00:41Like what does this team look like if they have one of the worst defenses in football?
00:45They'll look like this.
00:46They're a bottom five defense.
00:48This is still, as we've talked about, pretty close to what they've been every year.
00:54Right?
00:55Like three and one, this is around when the loss comes.
00:58Yeah, not defensively, but yeah.
01:00But that's what I mean.
01:01Like defensively, they're not the same, and it kind of feels like the same season.
01:04Right.
01:04Like so how much impact will you really have?
01:06It's always been the point about how much more valuable offense is.
01:10Your defense can be subpar or even bad, and if you have the offense and you have the quarterback,
01:17you're still going to go really far.
01:19Will you win the Super Bowl with the 30th ranked defense?
01:21No, but Kansas City did with a 24th ranked defense or 22nd, whatever it was.
01:25So how much better does it really need to be for them to do it all?
01:30I don't know that it has to be that much better.
01:32It probably has to be a little better.
01:35Looking at overall defense and team tiers and where they are, because I'd like to just
01:40have this.
01:41It's four games, and things can, of course, change.
01:43But right now, by EPA per play, the Bills have a bottom five defense.
01:48And this year, on just that number, against the pass there, bottom six, and against the
01:54run there, actually below average.
01:57I think, again, though, that is the scrambling yards from May, doing a lot of that.
02:03A lot of this, we'll keep saying it, it only matters in January.
02:06Like last year, where were they?
02:08Last year, against the run, they're bottom five, and against the pass, they're above
02:12average.
02:13They're a top seven defense against the pass in EPA per play.
02:18Two years ago, they were...
02:20That was the one weird year.
02:21There was the one weird year where they were better against the run than the pass.
02:25I think that was two years ago.
02:26No, two years ago.
02:27Two years ago, wasn't that year?
02:28They were not.
02:28They were very bad against the run, and they were very good against the pass.
02:32Okay.
02:332023.
02:34I mean, I'm just at Ben Baldwin's site, doing all this, trying to figure...
02:40I don't...
02:40I want to believe that the pass defense is going to turn around.
02:43If it doesn't, then they're likely to struggle all year.
02:502023.
02:51Top three defense against the pass, below average against the run.
02:54Like, this was the formula for Sean McDermott for a long time.
02:57And again, we're looking for a different outcome from Sean McDermott.
03:00So, wherever they rank, 2022, elite against the pass, slightly above average against the
03:07run.
03:08They were consistently a top five pass defense, which, again, I think that's how you consistently
03:15win more games than you lose.
03:17Can they be what they are right now?
03:19Can they really be a bottom five pass defense and expect to win 12 games?
03:25I don't know how often that happens.
03:27It would take a crazy output, I think, from Allen.
03:33It would.
03:34And it would also lead to maybe him playing a style where he were talking...
03:40All of a sudden, I got Dominic Foxworth saying that he's not playing well enough from above
03:43the shoulders.
03:44Is all the things we talk about for the Bills, and hey, they should take the ball first because
03:50they got Josh Allen.
03:51As soon as you score a touchdown, you put that pressure on the other team.
03:54If Allen is into week nine, week 10, week 14, and he knows I have a bottom five pass defense
04:01in football, he's going into these games thinking, I got to put up a lot of points.
04:05I'm going to...
04:06They have to play us.
04:07We have Josh Allen, right?
04:08We're going to score a million points.
04:09We're going to do all that every week.
04:11Is that possible that that is what leads him to maybe making some more ill-advised decisions?
04:17I think it's possible, but maybe more likely is that the defense rounds into form.
04:23I know that Eric at cover one did a piece about how it's communication, Eric Turnover at cover
04:27one, communication is the issue once they may be getting on the same page and learn
04:30it.
04:31It can come into form a little bit better because we've definitely never seen a Josh Allen
04:37Bills team with a bottom five pass defense, and maybe that's a formula for him winning
04:42the MVP because he passes for 5,000 yards, but so far, that's where they sit, and last
04:49week is troubling because that's a struggling Drake May to Matt Collins, Pop Douglas, Hunter
04:55Henry, and Romeo Dobbs.
04:57And this week against the Rams, if they really are going to be a bottom five pass defense,
05:02then they're going to get roasted this week.
05:04I do think the way they match up could potentially, there could be an avenue for they get to Stafford
05:10enough times.
05:11They create enough negative plays that even though they give up yards, they're all right.
05:14You know who they might end up being, which if they don't get any better?
05:17I'm looking at recent years, like what the bottom five pass defenses in the league typically
05:22are, and the best teams I can really find are like Cincinnati and Dallas.
05:26And what are those teams?
05:27They play fun games, and they even, you know, they'll flirt with a playoff spot, they'll
05:32make the playoffs, but neither of those two teams have really been Super Bowl contenders
05:37in those stretches where they've been that bad.
05:40So, what do you have to be?
05:43Do I have to be 20th?
05:44Like, maybe they just have to be a marginally better defense and not, they're not going
05:51to turn into a great defense.
05:53I don't think by the end of the year.
05:54I don't think that's in the range of outcomes.
05:56Probably not.
05:57And so, there's a Twitter account, Stick to the Model, who posted a quick graph.
06:02You know, it's graph season in the NFL, it always is.
06:04And this one was just yards per drive and points per drive, right?
06:08How many yards you give up per drive, how many points you give up per drive.
06:13And Minnesota is great at points per drive, one of the best defenses in football.
06:17Seattle's great at points per drive and yards per drive.
06:19These are defenses that shut everything down.
06:21The Rams are actually in this corner of the graph that you're good at everything.
06:26And there's even one funny little corner called bend but don't break.
06:30You know who's in bend but don't break?
06:32It's not the Bills.
06:33It's Jacksonville.
06:35Jacksonville gives up, they give up yards, not points.
06:38So, maybe that's the definition of bend but don't break.
06:41Yards but not points.
06:42Yards but not points.
06:43That makes sense.
06:44And that can lead to lower event games where Allen doesn't get as many possessions.
06:48And the Bills don't want to be that because they want to, right?
06:51They want to be more aggressive and get the ball back and have a high event game.
06:53The Bills are in the corner of can't stop anybody.
06:57It's Lions, Cowboys, Bills.
07:00And the Bills are very close to the Dolphins defensively.
07:05That's whoever playing more rookies than anybody has played in 25 years.
07:09So, it's a work in progress.
07:11We hope it gets better.
07:13If it doesn't, then that's kind of uncharted waters.
07:16I don't know what that looks like at the end of the season.
07:19It might look like freak mode nuclear Josh Allen.
07:22It might look like, you know, the side effect is turnovers and is a feeling of pressure.
07:27I did find one team recently that went really far with a bottom five pass defense using the same stat,
07:32EPA per pass.
07:34The Lions were the fifth worst pass defense in football the year they made the NFC Championship.
07:39So, they did it.
07:40They were elite on offense.
07:42Yep.
07:43But they were able to do it.
07:44And the other thing, like we'll see how good the Bills are against the run.
07:47I don't think it matters as much.
07:48It doesn't really matter that much to me at all.
07:50But that year, the Lions were a top ten rush defense.
07:53So, that helped a little bit.
07:55Yeah, but you're bottom five against the pass.
07:56But that's the thing.
07:57If you're going to be that bad, they kind of had to be great at literally everything else to be
08:03able to go that far.
08:04Drew in Columbus, Ohio.
08:05Hey, Drew.
08:06Hey, how y'all guys doing this morning?
08:08Good.
08:09I just had a few key points.
08:12As far as Josh Allen, I just feel that he needs to – nothing's wrong with the check down.
08:22You know, everybody's talking about check down Charlie, check down Charlie, just this, that, check down.
08:25Well, if you look on that last play where he threw the interception, Johnson was wide open on the check
08:31down.
08:31He makes that man miss.
08:33It's nothing but green grass.
08:34So, what I'm saying is he needs to start checking the ball down more.
08:39In the later parts of the game, we have one of the most dynamic running backs in the league, and
08:45he's never in the game touching the ball.
08:47I do not understand that part of the game.
08:50Not only that, we have an offensive coordinator, offensive-minded head coach.
08:57So, every time we get the ball, every time we go for the coin toss, we get the ball.
09:03Well, I think we should just put the defense out there first and set the tone.
09:07I really look at – the defense is not really that bad.
09:11You know, we give up some key plays, some fourth down, third down.
09:15But if you look at the times when the defense forced the Patriots to go three and out, forced them
09:21to punt, them first – in the third quarter, them three times in a row, what did the offense do?
09:27So, we gave the offense opportunities.
09:29We just didn't capitalize.
09:31I just think that we need to create a little bit more creativity down in the red zone, you know,
09:38fake one way, toss the other.
09:41What happened to the fake screen that we had when you fake one way – fake one way to the
09:45tight end or the wide receiver and then throw back to Johnson?
09:47That was open.
09:48But, no, we threw the fake screen to Keon Coleman on third and 10, third and eight, and they was
09:52already expecting it.
09:53But, like, we just need to do stuff differently, and I feel we win more games that way if we
09:58call better plays in the key situations.
10:01But that's all I wanted to give.
10:03Thanks, Drew.
10:04People have been noted in the checkdowns.
10:06I mean, it's not like he's been a quarterback unwilling to do this.
10:10He's shown he can be any type of quarterback, and I guess when they lose a game, we end up
10:15saying, should have been another one, right?
10:17Right.
10:18That's kind of what happens.
10:20I will say that that last play, it could have just been this game where this was a second example
10:27of a big play in that game where Allen was rushed, and he actually had a moment to look around.
10:35And maybe this one is more defensive.
10:38The two-point conversion, you've got all day and there's nobody near you.
10:41Like, go through your progressions, you'll find Kincaid.
10:45This play, the final interception, I don't know that it's fair to ask him as much on this play to
10:52find his way to Ty Johnson, who is open on the right side.
10:56And kind of like Kincaid in the two-point conversion, Ty Johnson's got his arm up in the air.
10:59Like, here, here, I'm open.
11:02Allen has just spun off a free blitzing linebacker.
11:06Like, he does have a moment.
11:08He has a moment to look.
11:10But when you've been contacted in the pocket already like that, and you just got done with a spin move,
11:16I don't know if it's fair to ask him to look around, realize I have another minute to scan and
11:24go through my progressions again and find my way to Ty Johnson.
11:26And in general, I'm with you.
11:29Like, the last couple of years, I don't really feel like he's been somebody that is incapable of going through
11:35the checkdowns.
11:35He doesn't do them as much as others, but often that's because he scrambles.
11:40Right?
11:40Like, the guys that check down the most in the league are the guys that can't scramble.
11:44He doesn't check down as much often because he does.
11:47But if he's not going to be scrambling because maybe the knee's bothering him, then sure.
11:52Would I expect more for James Cook and Ty Johnson than I would?
11:56Mike in West Seneca up next.
11:58Hey, Mike.
11:59Hey, guys.
11:59How are you?
12:00Good.
12:01Okay, here's a couple things.
12:03I'm going to say what I've been trying to tell you guys for a long time.
12:07You've got to get Trey White and you've got to get Jordan Poyer back.
12:11And here's the reason why.
12:12They are experienced and they can teach the guys that are young.
12:18And Brandon Bean is a lousy picker for a corner and a safety.
12:27He's only done it once for a real good corner or a safety.
12:33He hasn't picked anybody other than Trey White.
12:35Yeah.
12:36He didn't pick Trey White.
12:38He's not on the team at the time.
12:39He's not the GM at the time.
12:40You're right.
12:41You're right.
12:42That was actually Sean McDermott that did that.
12:47His pick would be Benford.
12:49His best cornerback pick would be Benford.
12:51Yeah, but that was a sixth-round pick and that was lucky.
12:55Okay?
12:56I'm talking about a first and second-round pick.
12:58No, I agree.
12:59I tend to understand why you'd say that at least.
13:01And then the last thing I'm going to say is, as far as Josh Allen is concerned, it is not
13:07his fault.
13:08It is Joe Brady is holding him in the pocket instead of letting him move to the right and to
13:16the left.
13:17That's what makes him the greatest quarterback in the league is the fact that he moves to the right or
13:24the left and stays out of the pocket.
13:26When he's in the pocket, he's not the greatest quarterback of all time.
13:31I mean, he's pretty...
13:33Who is?
13:34Tom Brady?
13:35He doesn't play anymore.
13:36No, no, no, no.
13:38Not even close.
13:39His numbers in the pocket are absolutely elite and incredible and awesome.
13:44He's great at nearly everything.
13:47And the idea that Brady would be directing him to not leave the pocket, they just don't.
13:53I think it's near...
13:54The teams have, of course, done cage rushes, trying to keep him in there.
13:58It's one of the things the Chargers did.
14:00Yep.
14:00But, I mean, passing from the pocket, Allen, has been great.
14:04You're saying he's not the best ever.
14:06All right.
14:08Stafford might be better than him.
14:10But passing outside of the pocket and extending plays is definitely part of the sport.
14:15Definitely part of the sport.
14:16Lamar is great in the pocket.
14:18People think he's not great in the pocket.
14:19Lamar is incredible in the pocket.
14:20Yep.
14:21Sometimes it's one of those things where if you're a mobile quarterback,
14:23they just assume, people assume you're not great in the pocket.
14:26And Allen has been.
14:28So, it does, of course, clip his wings when you keep him there all the time.
14:33But it doesn't mean he hasn't been great there.
14:36I mean, the point about the secondary and the draft picks,
14:40like, they're, you know, I don't want to give no credit for Benford in the sixth round.
14:44Like, all right, you've got a starter, starting caliber player that late.
14:48But, right, like, there are four big investments in the draft in the defensive backfield.
14:53It's Elam, it's Hairston, with this GM.
14:57It's Elam, Hairston, Bishop, and Igbenosin.
15:00That's two first and two second round picks.
15:02And at the moment, I've got one guy that really feels like he's, I don't even,
15:08do you want to say that about Bishop right now, that he's contributing in a positive way?
15:11To get back to the point about Poyer and Trey White, hire them as coaches.
15:15I don't even know if they can speak to these guys and teach them,
15:19then hire them as coaches.
15:22We do not need to see them bring back Trey White and Jordan Poyer for a,
15:26what's the number, ninth season, eighth season.
15:29They're not in the league.
15:32It's something that the Bills did under McDermott that people thought,
15:35oh, it's McDermott, he just needs his guys, his guys.
15:38Hire them as coaches, bring them back.
15:40That sounds great.
15:40I think it's possible with Bishop that maybe he's not playing the way he would have
15:44with Poyer.
15:45Poyer came in and it helped.
15:46He instantly made a difference helping Bishop, whether it was as a coach,
15:51as a presence on the field, whatever it was.
15:55803-0550.
15:56Thanks for the phone calls.
15:57Bill's bottom five pass defense.
15:59What will happen Monday against the Rams?
16:02Well, I got to get a Shots of Audio.
16:03Let's do that on the other side.
16:04Shots of Audio Conspiracy Edition coming up here on WGR.
16:10Well, it's very friendly, but I ha anіє it.