Hapless Bills Fan

Actives and inactives come out I believe 90 minutes before game time. Can anyone correct? Also let's not wish for ending anyone's career although there's seldom a player who deserves it more than Mr. NFL Sanctioned Club-Arm Used to Commit Assault.

I'm contemplating locking this thread since it's had a disallowed "name only" title for a week and the op hasn't been back to it. However, I can see that there's sensible discussion going on and I guess if we didn't have an Edmunds discussion thread we'd have to invent one

Any specific games we want threads for? Any games of particular interest? I'm rather interested in Dallas at Washington, since McCarthy appears to have gone out of his way to deliver some good bulletin board material https://www.nfl.com/news/ron-rivera-delivers-fiery-speech-to-washington-players-in-response-to-mike-mccar

Interesting viewpoint. I think most of us perceive a number of differences.

OK then, the Bills have played what, 1 quarter or so of that against the Colts?

We don't need a statement game. We just need a W

What you meta? "20 years later were doing the same thing expecting different results." what part of that is "just sharing his day"?

Well, he did cheat (crawl forward under the pile for the first down)

I'm sure you were saying these exact things as the Bills went to the playoffs in 2017, 2019, and went to the AFCCG last season.

He was on the Practice Squad before Feliciano went on IR. I expect this is strictly a move to make a spot to activate Feliciano, and Douglas will be re-signed to the practice squad. I had wondered if Douglas would get a chance to play ahead of Ford or Boettger, but 🤷‍♂️

How do they define "garbage time"? The Steelers went into the half 23-0 and looking absolutely defeated. They came out of the 3Q 29-7. Does that mean the whole 2nd half of the game was "garbage time"? They were in it with a chance to win it in a 1 score game at the end. That's what I don't like about the use of the term "garbage time". Another team gets a big lead and its all "garbage time points" until enough of them mount up. Then it's a brilliant 4Q comeback.

So that does bring up an interesting point. I remember Back In Da Day under Marrone, sandwiched between Urbik at LG and Pears at RG, Wood appeared to be a whirlpool of suckage at C. This despite having clearly been the Engine Who Could between Levitre and Urbik in 2012, when we were like 6th in rush yards. Then the next year between Incognito and Miller (and book-ended by Glenn and Henderson the whole time) we were #1 in rush yards and Wood was laying the lumber again. So clearly you have a point that one stout G can make a difference, and the inferred point (about Miller) that scheme and how the guys are used makes a difference, too. Oh, and a cautionary tale for all those guys (not you) who are clamoring for us to draft a LT and move Dawkins to LG. Pears was a servicable RT with Gailey. Marrone moved him to RG where he blew great big wads of suckage all season long. Pears moved on to San Francisco, where he played 16 ok (not good) games at RT albeit on a bad team. Fellas, don't assume that if you don't like how a guy is playing at T he'll be better at G. Miller, BTW, is still in the league starting at G (though he's no Wyatt Teller)

TBH, in this particular instance I think it had less to do with "respect for the passing game" and more to do with perceiving Johnson > Dodson even vs. the run.

I think there may be some truth to that - either that, or had some plays/schemes they wanted to try out. But I think the "within a FG" is the reason for the lack of urgency and the lack of adjustment. Keep in mind the Bills were moving the ball, and the Jags didn't take the lead until early in the 4th Q after the Bills 2nd interception. I think the feeling was, our D has "got this", we'll avoid mistakes and be able to drive down and take the lead on the next drive. Hopefully they learn from their mistake. There were rumors linking the Bills to Norwell at the trade deadline - I'm unsure how well-founded. I'm with you, I want to see us try to add talent through the draft but we really need 3 IOL (unless we have a most well-hidden belief in Bates as our center-in-training) and that's hard to achieve through any one strategy. Norwell would make a good addition at IOL.

The Bills played a spread offense with no run threat - only 9 attempts by the RBs. Guess what kind of offense Meyer knows how to stop. Oh, and 2 picks and a fumble didn't help

Ah. Well, Knox has said his hand only bothered him the first game back. That said, it would be reasonable to expect that Allen was throwing with a "zip" that made his passes hard to hold on to, but that just highlights that perhaps the Bills needed to play more outside where Allen would be throwing with zip into cold-handed receivers, and work extra if they were struggling. The Bills did practice outside, but only Saturday as far as I know, while the windy/cold day in OP was earlier in the week - Weds and Thurs?

Joe B. thinks too much is being made of McDermott's comments about "being a physical offense and controlling the line of scrimmage" = "he wants us to 'ground and pound' ": https://theathletic.com/3009858/2021/12/10/what-you-should-really-make-of-the-bills-offensive-identity-comments-this-week-5-thoughts-and-a-prediction/?source=emp_shared_article&redirected=1

I agree with what I believe to be your point, that McDermott doesn't see it as a huge problem if the opponent racks up 222 yds, provided the Bills successfully limit their scoring (1 TD and 2 FG probably counts as "limited") However, somewhat ironically, the Bills played base D with 3 LB the majority of the Pats game - only with Dodson instead of Klein. I believe they might have played base even more if Klein had been available. Dodson instead of Klein is a pretty clear downgrade.

This was discussed, quite a bit. The thing is, I'm not sure it made as much difference as people thought FWIW Kubiak in TBN (I was a little disappointed by his article this week, but he's always worth reading) has this to say about the 3rd Q, when the Bills had the wind: Point is, the Bills were able to move the ball effectively both with and against the wind, and the wind wrecked havoc on our game in both directions. It's a point that we might have succeeded with the missed FG in the 4Q if it were with the wind, but then, would we have failed on the FG in the 3Q and wound up in the same place? And, if the Bills had used a play to line up the FG correctly, would it have been made? Don't know. Don't get do-overs. What I do know is that there were failures in execution (dropped passes, fumble) that could have made it our ball game whichever way McDermott chose.

I don't think that's 1) McDermott's style 2) McDermott's point about the run game. I think his point is just that we have to run enough, and well enough, that defenses respect the possibility of the run and defend it, lest they be gashed. Starting with Pittsburgh, teams have said "you're a spread offense, you're not gonna run, and when you do run we can see it coming, so we're not gonna pretend to defend the run when we don't need to" And this: I think McDermott, as a former DC, would 100% agree with you, and I think that's his point. So, there's two reasons for this. One is that the holes they get from our OL are small and transient. Our OL can't hold a block long enough for these plays to develop. Two is, with their relative lack of speed, if they have to make any moves, the hole is closed before they get there. A speedier back like Breida can get there; a stronger OL could hold their blocks long enough for Singletary to get there. (I will say, Moss seems very slow at cuts, but he may still be rehabbing his ankle) I'm not sure of the details why we moved from gap to zone runs. I'm sure there's a football reason having to do with how we want to operate in the passing game we want to employ, but the fact is the demise of our run game seems to me to correspond to moving away from the pin-and-pull blocking we did pretty well with essentially the same cast of OL characters in 2019.

I think there's something to the idea that when it comes to run plays, Daboll has a "low interest rate" and his blocking schemes and plays tend to be overly complex. You might notice that a number of teams with a strong run game but no "dominant" or star back share carries. For example, the Pats**** split carries between Damien Harris (164) and Rhamondre Stevenson (100). The Ravens don't have their top guys, but they split carries between Devonte Freeman (89) and Latavius Murray (79). Last season they split between Gus Edwards (144) and Dobbins (134). I don't see how anyone can watch play breakdowns and not place some blame on the Oline. Go to Youtube and watch the Cover1 stuff, or Erik Turner's twitter. It's possible that with the same OL, we would run better under a different OC, but I don't think it has to do with "legitimate run scheme concepts". I think it has to do with primacy given to the pass game in practice (so that we're not as proficient in run blocking) and with "tells" in formation and tendency that give the defense a big heads-up that we're running. I think it's equally possible that if you sent Moss to NE or Tennessee or the Colts, we would discover to our surprise that he's a solid back.

We're trying something new - a couple of good contributors here asked if we could re-open the game threads after the game so convo could continue. But if folks are gonna trash each other and sling insults about, that won't last.

If you're talking Knox where and when did he blame his hand injury? The interview I saw, he said there were a few passes he'd like back, he's got to catch those, and he's not making excuses.