tale of two teams home vs. away...

[ajajaj]

Ok, before I vent I will try to rationalize our .500 record.

Has anyone else noticed the two different teams we appear to have?

We play at home and everyone has a bounce in thier steps, hustles into and out of the huddle, has a killer look of intensity on their faces. Then we play a road game and everyone appears to be kinda walking with their head down, like they are more "at work" than doing what they love.

We don't seem to play much worse on the road except for the focus simply is not their. @ home we play smart football, we still have the penalties, but seem to be able to operate better to overcome them. Away games so far we seem to get penalties at just the right time to completely destroy our chances and we don't bounce back as quickly.

I really beleive that has been the difference in our two wins vs. our two losses. We overcame 18 penalties for 108 yards, 5 turnovers and still almost won the game. Same with the Jets game we had like 12 or 13 penalties and 1 or 2 turnovers and almost one that game.

We had over 10 penalties in both our home games too, we just stepped it up and won the game in every other aspect.

 

[Shamboubou]

I think this is what you get with a young team facing adversity on the road. They also knew that they needed to win the Bills game to put themselves a couple games ahead of everybody so I'm sure there was some pressure to perform. I think we will see less of this as the season goes on, but personally I just think that is what you get with a team with a lot of new players.

 

[Canadianfishfan]

I think that this playing in the road rationalization is dead wrong. The field is the same size... the lines are the same... etc...
Execution of plays is about discipline. All good teams win on the road. With your rationalization you can say that we will never ever win anywhere that is snowing.

Its the same for bothe teams.... If players are intimidated by playing in an opposing teams stadium.. get off the field and give the roster spot to someone who wants to compete.

 

[Shouright]

Would you rather run out of the tunnel to 70,000 fans cheering FOR you or AGAINST you? Sure there's going to be more energy when you're playing at home. Plus, these two road games have been against division rivals who were basically playing to salvage their seasons. Not real easy games there -- those guys aren't going to roll over when they're trying to salvage their seasons.

 

[Hellion]

I think this is what you get with a young team facing adversity on the road. They also knew that they needed to win the Bills game to put themselves a couple games ahead of everybody so I'm sure there was some pressure to perform. I think we will see less of this as the season goes on, but personally I just think that is what you get with a team with a lot of new players.

Problem is that alot of the penalties were on the oldest defense in the league by the vetrans on the team. :mad:

 

[ajajaj]

I think this is what you get with a young team facing adversity on the road. They also knew that they needed to win the Bills game to put themselves a couple games ahead of everybody so I'm sure there was some pressure to perform. I think we will see less of this as the season goes on, but personally I just think that is what you get with a team with a lot of new players.

Yeah, I see your point, but it should be getting better with each passing week and game, instead it's going the other way.:cry:

Some of the problems were not their fault and that I understand, part of it was horrible officiating.:yell:

Mcmike call, RB fumble, JT offsides call early in the game, they showed it again and the ball was snapped before he entered the nuetral zone, and the one on I beleive it was thomas where the offensive player moved drwing us offsides, but they called a nuetral zone infraction on the D.:shakeno:

The officials made some bad calls, but we did deserve most of the calls and seemed to have really lost focus, which could be very much like you said, young players and a lot of new faces along with the new systems. We will be getting better before it gets worse I'm sure of it.:)

 

[Shamboubou]

Problem is that alot of the penalties were on the oldest defense in the league by the vetrans on the team. :mad:

Very true. The offsides penalties are unexcusible. Some of the penalties were cheap though. Like the Zach Thomas ruffing the passer, and the Sam Madison pass int, and the McMike taunting. You dont get some of those cheap penalties Buffalo is probably minus some points on the board.

But I do agree some of the vets were making very stupid penalties.

 

[ajajaj]

Would you rather run out of the tunnel to 70,000 fans cheering FOR you or AGAINST you? Sure there's going to be more energy when you're playing at home. Plus, these two road games have been against division rivals who were basically playing to salvage their seasons. Not real easy games there -- those guys aren't going to roll over when they're trying to salvage their seasons.

while part of me agrees with you part of me does not.

I have had jobs before that sucked and even on good days it was hard to muster the energy and enthusiazm to get through the day.

I love what I'm doing now I finally have the job I've always wanted, I don't make what the players make by any stretch of the imagination, but to say one team "shows up" or plays better against surtain apponants I can't figure out.

These guys are pro's making tons of money to do something they supposadly love doing. The high school and college football teams I played on were more fired up on the road then at home games to go on someone elses turf and "mark your territory" is huge motivation to any competative individual

 

[ajajaj]

Very true. The offsides penalties are unexcusible. Some of the penalties were cheap though. Like the Zach Thomas ruffing the passer, and the Sam Madison pass int, and the McMike taunting. You dont get some of those cheap penalties Buffalo is probably minus some points on the board.

But I do agree some of the vets were making very stupid penalties.

yes you are correct, but the offsides penalties came from a lot of the LB and end postions who watch the QB not the ball for the start of the play, they didn't once call holcomb for the head bobbing he was doing. With all his head movement I would think he was practicing for his alone time with his boyfreind later.

He should have been called for the head bobbing on at least two of the penalties that caused offsides, and once like I said earlier the offensive player moved, and we hadn't entered the nuetral zone prior to it. I beleive it was Zack, may have been spragan ran up to the line faking a blitz and stopped, the Offensive player moved our entire right side of the line jumped offsides and the called a nuetral zone infraction against us. Even the anouncers said it looked like a false start.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the penalties b/c yes our veterans did make mistakes and that's why I started this thread, but some of what the vets got called for was bull or (bill:D ) crap!

 

[Hellion]

I think that even though Zach pulled up his helmet still made contact with Holcomb's helmet. The Madison Penalty was definately BS.
Taunting was a bs because i've seen worse but have seen less like Sunday on McMike called. They (refs) need to be consistant with this rule.
The problem I have with the call is that being in a situation when your team is down and momentum is turning towards your team and with ALL the penalties that you already have you don't put yourself in that position to be called for taunting.
Run into the endzone and hand the ball to the referee, then go celebrate on the sidelines with your teammates, and when you get the ball back try and win the game.

If your team is dominating another team and your up by 17, 21, or 30 then whatever but don't take a chance when it's close that a ref may decide to be petty and hand out a unsportsman like conduct penalty because he is in a bad mood.

Know what I meen?

 

[Hellion]

yes you are correct, but the offsides penalties came from a lot of the LB and end postions who watch the QB not the ball for the start of the play, they didn't once call holcomb for the head bobbing he was doing. With all his head movement I would think he was practicing for his alone time with his boyfreind later.

He should have been called for the head bobbing on at least two of the penalties that caused offsides, and once like I said earlier the offensive player moved, and we hadn't entered the nuetral zone prior to it. I beleive it was Zack, may have been spragan ran up to the line faking a blitz and stopped, the Offensive player moved our entire right side of the line jumped offsides and the called a nuetral zone infraction against us. Even the anouncers said it looked like a false start.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the penalties b/c yes our veterans did make mistakes and that's why I started this thread, but some of what the vets got called for was bull or (bill:D ) crap !

Ha ha good one. :D
If head bobbing was that big of a deal then Manning,Marino Elway would have been getting penalized alot.
What we teach is this, when in doubt watch the ball . Even more so at away games.

 

[PerfectFinz72]

Yeah, I see your point, but it should be getting better with each passing week and game, instead it's going the other way.:cry:

Some of the problems were not their fault and that I understand, part of it was horrible officiating.:yell:

Mcmike call, RB fumble, JT offsides call early in the game, they showed it again and the ball was snapped before he entered the nuetral zone, and the one on I beleive it was thomas where the offensive player moved drwing us offsides, but they called a nuetral zone infraction on the D.:shakeno:

The officials made some bad calls, but we did deserve most of the calls and seemed to have really lost focus, which could be very much like you said, young players and a lot of new faces along with the new systems. We will be getting better before it gets worse I'm sure of it.:)

I agree, it's going the other way in the penalty department, but not from the fighting till the end standpoint. If you compare the first road loss to this one, they were closer to pulling off the comeback (even though they made more mistakes) which to me means they are closer to overcoming adversity. Maybe I'm just trying to be optimistic, but I never thought they were "close" to winning the Jets game.

Yesterdays game however, it looked like they were going to do it until the fumble. For all the mistakes they made yesterday, I was actually thrilled they even had a chance to win the game.

 

[ohall]

The TWO biggest things that took place in this game IMO outside of the so called fumble was Gus's INT in the endzone. If he doesn't throw that INT they should have scored a FG on that drive. The 2nd is McM's penality after his TD. That was just a bonehead move on his part. Not the 1st time he has pulled things like that I might add.

IMO that is 6 points right there. This means instead of driving for a TD to win the game at the end of the game they would have been driving to make a FG to win the game. That is a night and day change in circumstance IMO.

 

[AZfinfan]

no doubt we are certainly a better home team than away but we played a good second half in Buffalo. How do we expect to win when everytime the opposition has a third down we are offsides. If we give teams enough chances to win we will get beat

 

[bigmiamifan]

Young team, new caoch, new mentality, last year's weight and yet look how close we are to being awesome! I love it.

I feel better about the fins after this loss, then I did after any win last year!!