You guys can argue about whether this last drive meltdown with 3rd-and-22 and 3rd-and-25 were the fault of Staley or the player execution, but in a culture of taking ownership, how can you not blame Staley ultimately? These impossible-to-gain first downs happened with many players defending GRASS? This is definitely a coaching thing.
Dude of course Staley is ultimately to blame. But should we just say "welp we lost guess Staley needs to get better." Is that an answer? Because it's not JUST him that needs to get better. The players need to unfuck their mistakes and play the fucking call. The call on this play was fine, there was no mismatch and at every level the play by the Bills was accounted for. But one player fucked this up. And another probably gave away the scheme pre-snap as well. And lastly a rookie who was IN POSITION because of a good defensive call slipped on his break and was late otherwise it would have been 4th and a mile instead of 4th and 8 on the next play.
So let's take a look and clear this shit up...
Pre-snap we see Rapp make a mistake in where he lines up. He has responsibility over the top of Williams and Hill here, but throughout the game that was joggled around to keep the Bills guessing (Williams was on an island at times with Ramsey having help for example). Problem is he doesn't line up in the split safety look that the Rams usually show, where they switch post-snap. Instead he has crept over pre-snap and that gives Allen the whole fucking defensive call. Basically at this point he knows Ramsey is on an island and Burgess has the middle. And he knows it's man underneath to his left.
At the drop things look pretty good for LA. I would say most young QBs in this situation jump on the back with the outlet pass here and pick up what they can. But Allen wants Diggs, who is Johnson's guy, and not only is Johnson in position here but the defensive call anticipated this and has a safety sitting over the top no matter what direction Diggs goes. The RB in the flat is probably a 5-8 yard gain which the defense accepts and probably prefers.
A beat later Diggs is about to make his cut. He has Johnson beat by a step but at this point it's not a huge concern because the safety (Burgess) is there. In fact you can see that Allen stared down Diggs the entire fucking route but Burgess either isn't watching his eyes or is terrified Diggs will get behind him and doesn't drift up to allow himself a better chance to break on the ball.
Ball is in the air. Burgess breaks on it and might have a shot to disrupt or pick it off because his positioning isn't great but it's pretty fucking good. Now with Allen and that gun he has it's tougher on the DBs but still the Rams have a guy in position to make the play.
Burgess slips instead and goes down, giving the receiver time to make an uncontested catch and a huge gainer.
