Tag: Sunday Night Football

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”dW5kZWZpbmVk”][/anyclip-media]The Buffalo Bills lost their first game this season, 35-10 to the Baltimore Ravens Sunday night.

The Bills coaching staff has some important things to look at in terms of what could have been done differently, and their players are doing so as well.

The Ravens scored an 87-yard rushing touchdown courtesy of RB Derrick Henry. He would have almost 200 yards on the ground in the game.

The Bills defense allowed almost 300 yards of offense in the first half alone, allowing a 21-3 lead in that first half, not to mention the total 35 points.

Linebacker Baylon Spector took responsibility and commented on the defensive issues that allowed Henry to have the success he did.

“I gotta do a better job communicating, getting everyone lined up, gotta read the keys,” he said.

Spector, who has stepped up in the absence of starting inside linebacker, captain, and defensive play-caller Terrel Bernard, recovered a Lamar Jackson fumble during the contest and also noted the importance of repeating and communication.

“We just got to come out and be ready to play; come out and communicate,” he added. “I’ve got to do a better job of communicating. I’ve got to do a better job of getting the guys on the same page and getting everyone ready to go.”

Starting defensive tackle DaQuan Jones also chimed in on how they can examine what led to Henry’s big effort against the Bills defense.

“We’ll know when we watch the film,” Jones said. “They just kept getting them creases and Derrick is one of those backs, you give him a lane and he’ll take it to the crib and first play of the game, he did that, and I felt that got them in a rhythm and that kept them going after that.”

Special teams had a missed Tyler Bass field goal, and the Bills offense struggled to get on score board and comeback in the game.

While he did comment on the struggles in the loss, Allen also saw the positive takeaways and spoke to those as well.

“Not everything was bad in this game,” the Bills QB said postgame. “I don’t want us to come away from this saying ‘We’re the worst.’ A lot to learn from. I’m glad this happened early in the season so we can correct things.”

Allen knows a loss of this kind is both one to glean from as well as one to move on from to focus on the team’s next road opponent, another AFC contender in the Houston Texas.

“A lot to learn from,” Allen said. “We’ll watch this tape, learn from it, flush it, and look to the next.”

The Buffalo Bills had their first loss of their 2024 NFL season on Sunday Night Football this weekend, falling 35-10 on the road in Baltimore.

After a strong 3-0 start, the Bills seemed to be soaring following their biggest effort of this year’s campaign, and one of their strongest outings with Josh Allen under center, in a 47-10 rout of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

But the Ravens quickly grounded them in NFL Week 4, and Buffalo found itself on the receiving end of the type of dominant performance they had delivered to the Jags.

The Bills struggled on and off the field and lost in all three phases, and their head coach commented on that after the game.

“Give credit where credit is due, Baltimore Ravens came out and they beat us,” Sean McDermott said to the press. “They outplayed us. They outcoached us, and we’ve got to identify the problems and get them fixed.”

Baltimore scored early on an 87-yard touchdown run by Derrick Henry, and never looked back, dominating the rest of the way.

“Schemed up well, yes, because they executed and we really didn’t even touch the running back,” head coach Sean McDermott said about Henry’s run. “They ran what we call ‘wham’ exactly our three-technique there. We’ve got to be in better position. I know we’ve done that before, so that’s one of the things.”

It was a tough night overall for the Bills coaching staff.

The Ravens out-schemed them in this matchup, Buffalo was slow to adjust until the second half and was not aggressive on some 4th-and-1 plays, and mismanaged the following sets of downs after conversions on others.

Then there was that failed trick play.

With the Bills trailing 21-10 in the third quarter, offensive coordinator Joe Brady dialed up a trick call on 2nd-and-7 that fell apart at the line of scrimmage.

Quarterback Josh Allen lined up at receiver, while receiver Curtis Samuel lined up at quarterback, flipping the ball to Allen, who then got hit and stripped of the pass from a hit by Kyle Van Noy who had broken through to get to the QB. The target, WR Mack Hollins, had been in double coverage downfield, and the Ravens recovered the fumble.

“I think that’s something Joe and I will talk about and something we’ll learn from,” McDermott noted. “Certainly a momentum change right there.”

Obviously the timing of the play when the offense was trying to stage a comeback was ill-advised, though successful trick plays were a staple of OC Brian Daboll’s offense with the Bills, he’d scheme them in a way that got the targeted receiver wide-open downfield.

“That’s something that Joe and I will discuss at length. I’m sure he wants that call back. I do as well. We’ll learn from that and move forward,” he added.

The loss does give them a game to reflect on and learn from before turning their focus to their next opponent, another challenger, and potential playoff squad, the Houston Texans.

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