Buffalo Bills Head Coach Sean McDermott
Q: Defensively, they went to the run game. Can you talk about the struggles in the run game today?
A: Yeah, they controlled the line of scrimmage. Give credit to them. They came out and established the line of scrimmage early in the game and that carried through the rest of the game. We had bad fit on the run after half there. So, have to be able to fit it right and you have to establish the line of scrimmage, really on both sides of the ball.
Q: Do you think it was a problem defensively in the first half? It didn’t seem like they were able to stop any runs.
A: You know probably getting more than I would have liked, than we would have liked. Whether it was four when it should have been two. Some of that. Some tackling, to your point, wasn’t glaring, but it was there. It just, give credit to them again, their offensive line.
Q: Do you play into the theory at all that that was a very desperate team coming in here, coming off of two bad losses, backs to the wall, all those clichés? Do you play into that at all, that it was a dangerous team you were facing today?
A: Well, that’s not an excuse. That’s not a reason for us to not come out and play fundamentally sound football and do our job. Were they in that position? Probably a better question for them, there’s some urgency for sure. I understand that. But other than that we got to do our job better.
Q: You talked about line of scrimmage, you talked about fundamentals. Is that mainly a physical thing in this case or is there tactics too?
A: Well, I’d have to look at the film because sometimes techniques baked into that. I don’t believe it was effort at all. Our guys play hard. They played hard every game to this point and they played hard, I thought, today. So we have to look at the film to see if it’s technique, if it’s fundamentals, sometimes both.
Q: On the surface it would seem that Josh [Allen]’s fumble in the first half was a turning point?
A: Yeah, momentum, momentum. Before half, I think it was seven to three at that point. And we’re thinking, ‘hey, run the ball here, we got a chance. If we get it we’ll go. If not, we’ll punt it,’ and we turned the ball over. So we can’t do that.
Q: From a run game standpoint, you run the ball well at times this year in key situations, but bad weather game, that sort of thing, it seemed like when you needed it today you weren’t able to get the production.
A: Yeah. You have to establish the line of scrimmage, really. We came out, tried to run it early in the game there and they were playing on our side the line of scrimmage. Again, give them credit. So, we have to go back and look at it and say did we have it dialed up the right way and then how were our fundamentals and our technique? How was our pad level? So, that’s what we’ll learn from the film.
Q: How concerned overall are you from a defensive standpoint?
A: Well, I’m concerned any time a team can run the ball like that on our football team. That’s concerning.
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Tagged with: Buffalo Bills, Philadelphia Eagles, Sean McDermott
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