Archives for December 8, 2016

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'Ryan acknowledged that fans and media have placed a great deal of heat on Taylor for his mostly unimpressive showing all season and especially for his poor performance through the final three quarters of last Sunday's loss at Oakland.'

'Taylor was clearly irritable about the line of questioning, interrupting a reporter who started to ask a question about what could happen if the Bills were to miss the playoffs with these instructions: “This week, fellas. This week. Talk about this week.”'

'More than half of Gillislee’s 64 carries this season have gone for first downs or touchdowns. He's a perfect 13 for 13 when called on to get 2 yards or less. His average of 5.9 yards per carry would lead the league if he had enough attempts to qualify.'

'Otherwise, McCoy's 949 rushing yards, which rank sixth in the NFL, will go to waste. So will his 5.5 yards-per-carry average, better than that of any of the five backs ranked ahead of him. So will his nine touchdown runs, which are fifth-most in the league.'

'The Bills were 6-6 at this point a year ago and lost two in a row. At the quarter marks of the season, they were 2-2, 4-4, 6-6 and 8-8. This year, it's 2-2, 4-4, now 6-6. You needn't have nailed a perfect score on your SATs to complete that progression.'

'Wood has been a mainstay on the offensive line since being a first-round pick out of Louisville in 2009, starting all 104 career games. He is also active with community and charity events, raising nearly $400,000 for seriously ill, special needs and physically challenged children in Western New York through the Eric Wood Foundation, according to the team.'

'We actually have some guys that quite honestly, I don’t know if we can bring him down. So but there’s other ways to combat that and we’ve got to go after the football. I think is one way and I remember I had a little nickel, weighed about 175 pounds, but he had two or three sacks against him. And he couldn’t tackle, but he kept knocking the ball out. And so if it’s that, or if it’s getting guys around him, and with these guys you’re so right that he’s hard to bring down. So we’ve got to keep our coverage, you’ve got to plaster in the back end. You know how good this guy is at extended plays and he’s been that way for years.'

'If we’re going to take Taylor at his word and believe him when he says he hasn’t heard any of the grumbling that has taken place — especially in the days following his dreadful performance against the Raiders in a 38-24 loss that, regardless of what he says, has pretty much buried Buffalo’s playoff chances — then why was he so irritated by the line of questioning he faced after practice?'

'"Nope," Taylor said. "I don't have Instagram on my phone, Twitter, I don't watch TV so I don't see it. Don't hear it. Continue to keep pounding away. We're still in it the last time I checked."'

'"I just think that if we're able to get … there's no excuse or whatever," Ryan said. "Guys step in roles and things like that. But for instance, Robert Woods is limited today. I think that's a positive thing. It is going to be interesting to see how we perform if you have a healthy Robert Woods, a healthy Sammy Watkins, a healthy Goodwin to go along with McCoy, what he's able to do. I think it makes us really hard to defend.'

'"How much better he's going to get, I'm not sure," Ryan said. "The fact that he's out there and he's playing, I think it helps us. How much better he's going to get from this point on, I don't know."'

'As mentioned by Clayton, Taylor put together one of the best performances of his career on Monday Night Football against the Seattle Seahawks. Since that loss, Taylor did enough to help the Bills get past the Bengals and Jaguars, but he struggled against the Raiders in Week 13 after playing well in the first quarter of the game.'

'“My future in Buffalo is this week, against the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Taylor said. “That’s what matters the most. I’m not, I don’t feel like talking about my contract right now. We still have games to play.”'

'“I think our crowd is going to be into it,” Ryan said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt.”'