For the rest of this week (and possibly longer in western New York), Bills cornerback Leodis McKelvin will face the blame of Buffalo’s epic fourth quarter collapse Monday night in Foxborough, Mass. — but as a former player, I just don’t see it that way.
McKelvin didn’t lose this game for the Bills. Instead, Tom Brady won it for the Patriots.
APLeodis McKelvin will be feeling the heat in Buffalo for awhile. But is it deserved?
Yes, the decision to take the ball out of the end zone by McKelvin with the hands team on the field turned out to be disastrous because players on the hands team don’t practice the techniques required to block on kick returns. Instead, they panic when the ball is kicked deep and usually roll out a feeble attempt and try to block coverage men. And McKelvin, well, he was asking for trouble bringing the ball out.
But that’s football, and bad things happen throughout a game that give someone an opportunity to make a play — and that’s why McKelvin didn’t lose this game for the Bills in front of a national TV audience. Sure, his fumble didn’t help because it put the Bills in another adverse situation as a defense — but this is the difference between the Patriots and the Bills.
Because Buffalo still had a chance to win this game — twice — in the last five minutes, and on both occasions it was beaten by Brady and by its own tendencies as a defense.
New England is very familiar with the Buffalo defense under coordinator Perry Fewell. Last night, they showed a lot of different looks, applied pressure to Brady and played a good combination of man and zone coverage.
But when the Patriots began to move the football on both of their scoring drives late in the game, they knew exactly what Buffalo would resort to in order to protect the end zone.
And they exploited it.
Buffalo is a Tampa 2 football team, and when it’s pushed back into the red zone — as it was in this game — it plays “Red 2,” a version of Cover 2 in which the corners sink with the No.1 receivers, almost as if they’re in a trail technique — taking away any vertical threat that comes off the line of scrimmage with an outside release.
The safeties then play over the top of the No.1 receiver — and rally to any ball thrown to the middle of the field, because in the red zone, the field shrinks and the safeties have less ground to cover to overlap any inside vertical seam route.
In fact, only a perfect throw to the inside can beat this defense if you threaten the safeties with an outside release by the No.1 receiver.
And Brady did that in the final five minutes — twice.
APBen Watson and Tom Brady exploited the Bills' defense in the final two scoring drives.
What New England did is create a one-on-one matchup versus Buffalo’s red zone Cover 2. They released Watson down the middle of the field — almost as if he was running a skinny post. With the safeties occupied by vertical routes to their own zones, the responsibility of Watson falls to Bills’ MLB Keith Ellison — who runs the middle of the field and matches any inside vertical route.
Watson bent both of these TD catches to the goal posts, away from the two deep safeties, and Brady threw the ball to Watson’s up-field shoulder — where only he could make the play.
You can call it the weak spot of the defense, or your classic Cover 2 beater in the red zone, but the throw still has to be perfect because Ellison was in good position to make the play.
And both throws from Brady were…perfect.
Sure, we can say that McKelvin’s poor decision lost this game, but the fact still remains that the Buffalo defense let Brady and the Patriots offense exploit them twice by running a simple offensive scheme designed to take advantage of the Bills and their tendencies as a red zone defense.
Buffalo knew what it was going to get as a defense in the red zone, and it will see this from almost every team it plays this season.
But it was Brady and Watson who made the plays when they counted.
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I thought running it out was smart...NE only had 2 timeouts and they needed him to burn the 2 minute warning.
Matt, Have to disagree, situational football... if that kickoff is to the 5 or 10 yardline, by all means bring it out. 2 yards deep in the endzone, and LM was backpedaling to catch it. Should have taken the knee. On the other side, the pats executed good situational football to get them advantages- that 2nd to last drive started with about 5 min to go, guys got out of bounds when needed, and they did notuse any timeouts. They kicked off at 206, and were sure to get a clock stopage on the 2 min warning if Buff didnt fumble. That would have saved another timeout. Bottom line is he should not have taken it out, and once he got hit he should of gone down.
Think about that SD game two years ago when Mcray picked of brady to "seal" the game, but was foolishly running around trying to return it , and got striped by Troy Brown. Good coached teams consistently give themselves every chance to win...
Matt, nice article, but I respectfully disagree with your assessment of McKelvin. If the Bills started at the 20, went 3 and out (Pats burn timeouts), then punted, the Pats would have had to go 60-70 yds for a TD. This scenario gives Bills best chance to win.
Matt, excellent review of the Bills defense.
Matt, nice article, but I respectfully disagree with your assessment of McKelvin. If the Bills started at the 20, went 3 and out (Pats burn timeouts), then punted, the Pats would have had to go 60-70 yds for a TD. This scenario gives Bills best chance to win.
Dave, I am with you on McKelvin. As a pats fan I was cursing as he ran the clock past the two minute warning, as that was worth 40 seconds of game clock to the pats. Obviously, the fumble changed everything, but the decision to take it out was a good one.
Bills' D still let them down. If they stop Brady with five minutes left the kick off isn't even in question this morning.
To those criticizing LM for taking that one out - in interviews afterwards, he said he thought he caught the ball outside the end-zone and his momentum carried him in. So basically, he lost track of where he was. In his mind, he couldn't take a knee because he thought he'd already stepped out and given that he was backpedaling, it's a pretty reasonable assumption on his part as they weren't expecting a real kick-off.
Plus it cost NE the time stopping at the 2min although he shouldn't have attempted a full on return with basically no blocking - THAT was where he really and truely went wrong.
Why wasn't McKelvin deep in the end zone to begin with? He wouldn't have been in position for the squib kick where he started, and Gostowski has a big leg. He then could have ran it down to the 2 min warning, and then take the knee in the end zone.
But how can you put blame on the Bills' D, who played great against the high-powered NE offense for the entire game?
I didn't fault McKelvin for running the ball out, especially if he thought he was outside of the endzone, but he's got to protect the football at all costs there. But also give credit to the Patriots players, Brandon Merriweather and Pierre Woods, for making a great play by standing up McKelvin and wripping the ball out, and also the kicker Gostowski for diving in to make the recovery. As soon as Buffalo lost that fumble, you just knew it would cost them the game.
Matt, great column. This is the kind of stuff you can't get anywhere else. Keep it up.
I don't blame the guy for running it out. But he has to go down, not fight for yardage. Ball security is everything in that situation.
Matt, why didn't the Bills go to a nickle or dime package or even an exotic scheme with 7 or 8 dropping back? Thye weren't getting pressure anyway at that point. How would you have defended it if you were the Bills D coordinator?
Knocsucow-
How can you not blame the defense? Try and spin it anyway you like, but they gave up 25 points and 441 total yards to the Pats.
It was misleading. They got toasted when it counted as well on those two final drives before Brady even had a shot at them in the red zone.
Meateater-
I thought Perry made the right call, because Red 2 is a good call against the Patriots--where they actually rush 4 and drop 7. Schobel had been generating pressure all night.
And, if you draw it up, the Bills had what they wanted: Ellison matching to the vertical route by Watson--he just has to make the play. It is a so called "Cover 2" beater, but there is a way to attack every defense.
Bills were counting on Ellison to make that run with Watson and make a play in the football in both cases--but the throws were almost perfect
Thanks
Good article. I don't think it would have mattered what scheme or coverage Buffalo played in the last 2 minutes. Once they lost the fumble, everyone in the stadium knew the game was over.
Love your articles. I am wondering why your inconsistent with your "8" in the box segment. I have started to look forward to Fridays and now you never know. What is up with that?
Ron,
"Eight in the Box" now appears in our Daily Jolt section of the site... there is a tab at the top of the page (next to Fantasy 2009) that can take you to every "Eight in the Box"
Thanks
Matt, I think Mckelvin made the right play in running the ball out of the end zone (kill some clock) but where he secrewed up was trying to get an extra yard after the initial contact, you gotta know they're gonna hold you up and try to strip the ball, get your butt on the ground with 2 hands on the ball. The Bills special teams are one of the best in the league, punting from the 30 if NE held them to no gains on 3 runs, the Pats are gonna be starting at their own 30 or worse instead of the bills 30......give your team a chance, instead of risking it all for an extra yard. DUMB PLAY by McKelvin.
Matt, you're just pissed because Perry Fewell cut your ass! If McKelvin doesn't fumble, the Bills may have run-out the clock. The defense was exhausted. The scheme (Tampa-2), didn't lose the game.
Vince,
Thanks for the laugh guy....
Great post, Matt. This is the kind of really informative content I get on NFP and nowhere else, and I appreciate it.
Vince,
Your right.... Scheme didn't lose it.... Tom Brady dominating the scheme won it.
Great analysis. Really good. I love reading this type of content.
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Sep 15, 2009
12:14 PM
Matt, excellent review of the Bills defense.