Hapless Bills Fan

Good post. Agree. Way way too early to tell on Mac Jones. He's been a promising QB so far, time will tell if he's maxed out, he'll get "solved", or if he'll be one of the QBs who keeps climbing. I may be an atavist, but there's been a downside to the rookie wage scale where teams can shed even a first-round draft pick during his first contract without big harms. I thought Tannehill was always a QB you could win with, given a strong run game, good OL, and play action. Adam Gase and Dowell Loggains tanked all that. Lo and behold, Tannehill got away from them and he's been winning ever since. It's not a matter of "shiny new toys" it's a matter of taking care of the toys you have and using them properly vs. holding a "fire sale". Dalton is an interesting story. I feel he was always a QB that needed a super-star WR to succeed, and also that he's physically too beat up from playing behind that line.

Fair, he did. On the other hand "that was Then, this is Now" for the Pats defense. Given the Pats occasional susceptibility on run D and the weather forecast, it wouldn't upset me to have all 3 RB active if healthy.

I don't think you're the target audience for this lack of information. Me too. Although it's possible that McD feels the weather might be a factor, I guess.

He's right, you know. You're mailing it in now. And postage is so expensive these days. Oh, dear. That Should Not Be. Sorry, McD, but Breida clearly adds a dimension to the game that Moss does not. It should be his job to lose at this point.

Like you say...."No Place to Hyde" 😅

How did Dawkins blow up Drive 2? Drive 4 is arguable, he did have the holding penalty but we did convert and gain another 11 yards (and the INT was not on him). I can see the point that in general, holding penalties sink drives but I don't think it sunk that particular one, myself. Drive 5, absolutely. How about providing a link to this interesting breakdown, or at least the name of a Twitter account, so that we can all benefit?

There actually were. I have a good friend who's a Pats fan and a totally decent guy even while watching Pats football. But he's my age,started his fandom in the Dark Days of the late 60s, and lived through the '80s and early '90s when they were the Patsies and a perennially bad team. We have a Pats fan on this forum who can comment knowledgeably about on Tony Eason. So they do exist. ***** that ***** ***** let them leak. Let them flood.

It's not quite that hopeless. The protections have different names, but there are a lot of similarities in what they are from team to team. There are some guys who do play-by-play breakdowns who dig deep into the protections and how the blocking assignments vary with what the defense shows. Some of them are helped by having played OL (Fina, Wood) or RB (Erik Turner, our @Buffalo716) at some level, so they have an idea about the assignments. Going back to early Nov after the Bills lost to the Jags, Erik Turner of Cover 1 has been doing a lot of deep-diving into the run game. Start here where he actually puts up a diagram of one protection and how the rules for who to block vary with defensive fronts Keep in mind this is one protection, and then if the defense is showing something that isn't part of this adjustments must be made. Anyway, I don't always agree with him and he's obviously influenced by fan-dom at times one way or the other (too positive or too negative), as all of us are. But he's been doing a LOT of focus on run blocking and run defense in his twitter feed, and if any of you have an interest in this kind of thing, I would definitely recommend going back to the tweet above and then working through his feed. For example: You don't need a twitter account to do this, although sometimes if you want to click to embiggen you need to "open in a private window" (Twitter has been pushing hard to get casual viewers without accounts, like myself, to sign up) I would especially like to recommend their "Film Room" session with Eric Wood after the Colts game And their short piece on Breida:

Are we still talking about the same game? How did Dawkins "blow up" the first drive, which ended in a TD after 7 successful run plays and had no penalties? https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/202111250nor.htm I don't how about "The Ford Report" but @Freddie's Dead openly acknowledges he's got no knowledge of the assignment and is going play-by-play what he sees. Neither he nor Joe B have played organized football. The thing is at least our Freddie goes through play by play and tells you what he's seeing and how he's grading, which is more than I can say for Joe B.

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/erik-brady-hate-is-such-a-strong-word-but-when-it-comes-to-the-new/article_3b64e054-52a9-11ec-a837-7f00c49b8f38.html Some prime stuff there. As I write this, I can hear Josh Allen in an interview, gathering his thoughts a moment and saying gently to us "That's the difference between being a fan, and being a professional. When you're a professional, it's just the next game". But this time, it's the next game with the division lead and possibly a chance at the playoffs on the line. So I'll have extra Salt with that Asterisk, please. GO BILLS!

Our first 3 drives resulted in 2 scores. So perhaps that was not the problem? The 4th and 5th drives perhaps you'd have more point. Dawkins had a bad holding penalty on the 4th drive (although the Bills overcame and converted), and let 94 get to Allen and hit his arm on the 5th drive leading to an INT

Joe B. IMHO puts a key factor in the better passing results last and gives it one line: He says, "The Bills quickly got into their offensive groove on Thanksgiving, using the quick passing attack, going after the rookie cornerback and employing a more legitimate threat to run the ball." Kubiak in TBN points out that against the Saints, the first series featured 7 runs in 10 plays. He had 11 runs and only 4 passes in the entire first Q. https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/jim-kubiak-how-bills-run-game-helped-allen-plus-breaking-down-crazy-whip-route-to/article_cb8a0588-509c-11ec-b445-979a945d9867.html The message to the opposing defense is clear: you got to play the run In contrast, the 1Q play selection against the Colts was 8 passes and 3 runs, 2Q 10 passes 5 runs. The passing game worked OK until Mistake - 6 of 8 (but with a pick) in the 1Q, 8 of 10 in the 2Q - but the message to the Colts was "no serious run threat to worry about here". Then once the Bills went into the 2nd half down 24-7 with our defense unable to stop their offense, what were the alternatives? https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/jim-kubiak-more-bills-running-game-sputters-more-josh-allen-will-try-to-do-too/article_aa71dab2-4c0d-11ec-baa9-d75d7bba8cc7.html Frankly, this article illustrates a problem with Joe B's analysis overall. He gets caught up in stats and doesn't stop to consider if the stats are cause, or if they are effect. The Bills started out the Colts game trying for a relatively quick passing game IMHO. But because the Colts didn't see a real commitment to run, they were able to do what other teams have done - Cover 2, smother the middle of the field, change coverage after the snap to force Josh to figure it out. They were also controlling the clock on offense when they had the ball. So Allen had to look for the deeper passes, especially in the 2nd half. In contrast, in the NO game, the Bills sent a strong message from the start "we will run, and we will run Allen, and you must account for this". This opened up the short/intermediate passing game. But the point is - it was enabled by an initial commitment to the run, IMO, and it was able to continue because our defense was stopping the Saints and we had a lead. Credit where Credit is due: Joe gives a good analysis of Dawkins struggles (though again - no consideration of who Dawkins has been playing next to for the last 4 games - MAYBE who Dawkins is next to might make a difference?). I like his play breakdown of Davis (and how the RUN THREAT set up that play, am I showing a theme here?) As usual, Joe B's grades are opaque to me and therefore I can not give them much weight.

That's Priceless

He pretty much did during the 2019 game when we had brilliant ideas such as having rookie Dawson Knox block him 1:1, leading to a strip sack Or possibly, that was lack of brilliant ideas on how to adjust the blocking for wherever Judon went He did get a sack and a hit on Allen during the playoff game last season, but I dont remember him being a (relatively speaking) a factor On the other hand, he's having the best season in his career this year, so hopefully the Bills are paying attention and have a plan.

If you want to look at the take Patriots.com has on this https://www.patriots.com/news/game-preview-patriots-at-bills-x5737 They lost me here:

I mean just don't then. We all know the models don't become reasonably accurate until about 48 hrs out. So just Chill (on looking at models) until Saturday. New NWS data and forecasts (a lot of sites use these) come out at midnight, 6 am, noon, and 6 pm. Beware of the time - a lot of sites use GMT Until Saturday night, this works about as well as anything:

There's a reason the Pats used a 1st round pick to select a QB, and that reason is wearing a Tampa Bay uniform. Cam Newton was not the answer, and neither was Jared Stidham. Once Brady left, the need was there. But, I just went looking for the interview, and I actually think he is sincere. He has the tone of voice he gets when he's seriously talking football, and not the flat tone of voice he gets when he's condescending or saying one thing while thinking another. Of course, The Evil One still could be seeing a dozen weaknesses he thinks he can exploit. It's sort of like McDermott saying before the Chargers game that Justin Herbert wasn't your typical rookie and you couldn't make him "see ghosts" as you can some other QB - right before we sacked him 3 times, picked him, forced a fumble twice etc.

"There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather, Only Inadequate Clothes" So....if you start a GoFundMe for a dome....whatcha think you'd pull in? (and despite the above inadequate clothes snark, please note that I'm not one of the anti-dome contingent)

No, it's not the forecast. I don't know where these guys are getting this stuff. Here's weather.com. 26 degrees is the overnight low, should be in the 30's at game time. Here's Weather Underground: The point here is that there's likely to be some poor weather moving through, and at this point 5 days from kickoff the models are not gonna be accurate enough. It could move faster, it could move slower

So, who is your favorite Pat? Pat Benatar maybe?

In his case, severed head of a prize trout or 6

So what % of Bills drives end in points? I make it 31%-ish but that's me doing math.

Mac Jones is playing very well within his system. Baker Mayfield's rookie year is actually not a bad comparison. They both came out of big-time college programs where they were surrounded with talent. Jones has a higher completion % (70.3 vs 63.8%), but lower YPG (237.5 vs 266) and similar ypa (7.5 vs 7.7), which says to me that completion % may be taking a low-% shot or two less (32 vs 37 attempts per game agrees). Likewise Mac has a lower TD% (4.2% vs 5.6%) and INT% (2.1% vs 2.9%) than Baker had, but a higher sack % (5.9% vs 4.9%). Where things went off the rails a bit with Baker is that I think the success went to his head, along with essentially participating in firing his HC and picking his next HC. It wasn't that he'd reached his ceiling, so much as that he thought he'd arrived there. As long as Belichick is at the helm in NE, that's not going to happen to Jones. On the other hand it's completely true that as teams get tape on Jones and learn his tendencies, his life will get harder. Like Mac Jones, Brady started out as a game manager, making short accurate passes supported by a strong run game. The Patriots pass 54% and run 46% of their non-punting downs. But Brady evolved to become far more than that. He became a master manipulator of defenses, an adept in the pocket, and a master of the game. It's possible that Jones will become all that - but it really depends upon him. Brady was uniquely driven. Is Jones? Time will tell. Was his early DUI a sign that he's a good-time-guy, or a youthful wake-up call? Time will tell. I said elsewhere that I LOL at the Boston press during McDermott's interview today. Boston Globe guy basically asked McDermott how Jones compared to a young Brady and McDermott neatly ducked and let Boston Guy slide off his back to the floor.

I think the theoretical minimum is only 48 hrs. Let's say the player has no symptoms (which could be a trick, depending upon what the NFL lists as symptoms - could include runny nose, sore throat, fatigue). Then they test negative the following day, and the day after that. Back they come. The NFL has not indicated what % are back in 5 days, but I think it's probably a very good guess indeed that it's considerably less than 20%.