Hapless Bills Fan

WTF is the Saints love affair with Hill all about?

I don't think that article says what you think it says: The "overall vaccination rate of 95%" I believe, is NFL personnel (100%) + players There is nothing in that article about the Packers and Vikings being the only two teams below 95% However this is interesting:

He says: I don't agree with this. I feel all of the 4 losses come down to one core issue: Lack of a credible run threat on offense. It allows teams to run overload schemes and stunts on DL while still flooding the field, on 3rd and long and even shorter plays. It allows teams to tee off on us and pin their ears back in the passing game. This issue extends back to the playoff games last winter. In addition, the scheme McDermott and Frazier run seems vulnerable to teams with a strong OL, top RB, and sufficient pass game.

Source? Because that doesn't match McDermott's "single digits" or Beane's "91%" I do think the source of the problems is likely to be elsewhere.

The point is, every team is dealing with this including several very successful teams.

I mean, what do you want him to do? If he tore his shirt and gashed his chest bloody and screamed, would that be more impressive?

FWIW John Wawrow had a take on this. During the drought years he won my respect by having one of the more fair and balanced perspectives in the press room. To be fair, John's point about "no difficulty forcing turnovers" when the opponent is trailing, is somewhat "cause and effect"; opponents who are trailing throw more, push harder for those extra yards, and take more chances - which causes turnovers. Also to be fair, if a team gets frustrated when things don't go their way, that could be a result of coaching - that they lack faith the coaches will help them make adjustments and get right.

To be fair to Williams, as far as I know when you see a picture like that, there's almost certain to be a communication issue where the tackle didn't get the snap count correctly communicated to him (source: former NFL tackle).

Just a note here that this is only true if a player is asymptomatic and tests negative 2x 24 hrs apart. That's not always the case for vaccinated players (though they could sometimes come back sooner than 10 days). For example, vaccinated Big Ben went on the Covid list Nov 13, Saturday. He said he tested negative for the first time on Nov 19th, Friday, then the 2nd time Nov 20th, Saturday, and played on Sunday. It's still a difference - if he were unvaccinated, he would have had to miss a 2nd game - but it's not necessarily that big of a difference.

Wow. I respect that your friend doesn't know and won't guess, but from his experience, would it more likely be a player who has been there a while and has become dissatisfied, or a new player? Because if the latter, I wouldn't think it would be a rookie, but we didn't bring in that many vets, and a lower-tier vet fighting for a future big contract like Obada wouldn't seem to be a candidate. Yes, the Bills are playing other NFL teams with NFL talent, but the point is how they are losing. They are not losing like a well prepared, well coached team of recent games. It's not just a coin flip. How the team prepares, plays, and executes comes into it.

You are correct that the vaccine does not prevent players from testing positive, but I don't think you're correct that "virtually every player testing positive has been vaccinated". At least in the preseason, the NFL's data was 7:1, (unvaccinated to vaccinated). That ratio has inevitably shifted since almost everyone is vaccinated, but I don't think it's "the exception". The link you presented does not present any new data on the topic, just that 94% of players are vaccinated. (on a roster+practice squad, 94% means 4 unvaccinated players; 91% means 6, not "1 or 2", but that's a nit) The thing where you're completely right is that injuries and illness happen. And the teams just have to adjust as best they can and move on. All the teams are dealing with these issues. The Titans have won 2 and lost 1 since losing Derrick Henry, around whom their offense was built. The Cardinals have won 2 and lost 1 without Kyler Murray, again - around whose unique skillset their offense was built. The incontrovertable point is: Winners find a way; Losers find excuses.

There are plays where no one is open, but there are also plays where there is an open receiver underneath or in the flat, and Josh simply won't take it. I don't know if this is because of how he's being coached (to read deep to shallow) or because of his head (he wants the kill shot) or because of lack of trust (he doesn't trust his teammates to get to the sticks if he throws short of them on 3rd down) but it needs to get fixed, and fast. Part of the problem is that we can't play sufficiently error-free ball to sustain a dink and dunk drive. We will commit penalties, and find ourselves in 3rd and forever, then we press. (yesterday 1st drive). Jim Kubiak on TBN does a good job in going through each game play by play and pointing out when everyone is covered, and when there are open options. Kurt Warner in his assessments, annoys me because he tends to overlook details like when the QB is running flat out for his life, but he also has done a couple assessments where he points out the open underneath stuff Allen isn't taking.

I think this is a pretty accurate take. Playing against lesser teams or teams with known flaws, some of our player leaders say the right things as Poyer and Hyde do about the talent margin in the NFL being thin and records not mattering, but the team as a whole seems to act as though they can just show up. The players as a whole seem "too loose" sometimes. I'll give you an example. In this past week's practice photos, there were several pictures of Josh Allen celebrating because apparently Jordan Poyer had picked him in practice and he ran him down and stripped it. That's the wrong focus. The focus should be on, what did Josh see or fail to see that led him to throw the ball Poyer picked? It's as though Josh and his coaches think, "Oh, Poyer is just super-good at picking the ball so that won't happen on Sunday". Except that the other team gets paid too, and it did, and at a crucial time.

There was some talk about this in one of the threads after the game. A divide between covid vaxxed and non covid vaxxed players is one theory. I don't know if it's true; almost every team is dealing with this, and per Beane, the Bills are 91% vaxxed which by my math means 6 players. I disagree with that interpretation (the context of how McDermott was asked matters, it's not like he was asked "how are they doing?" he was asked 2x in rapid succession "how did missing.....affect you?" and he said first "with all respect, I'm going to talk about the guys who played" and then asked the same thing on the very next question said "we respect their decision and I'm going to talk about the guys who were here". I thought it was pretty clear 1) he was ticked 2) they were known to be fine but it's not like he was asked "how are they doing?" and showed he didn't care

I'm sorry but you don't get to claim "right". First of all, we don't get a "do over", so while we can speculate, we don't get to know we're rght Second, look at it from a logical perspective. We were already replacing our starting MLB with good LB who is not as good in coverage - the one who would come in for 4-3, Klein. So going to base defense would mean bringing in a 2nd backup player, probably Tyrel Dodson or Matakevich. Are they better players, more capable than Taron Johnson? Probably not; at the most, "not proven". That's possible. Wentz could have had a 300 yd passing game and 3 passing TDs instead. Any time you turn the ball over twice down near your own goal line and spot the opponent 14 points, it's going to be a bad day. I think the point people were making to you is like my first paragraph above - you're talking about basically putting a 2nd backup LB on the field to play 4-3.

The defense couldn't stop a nosebleed

Here's the thing though. McDermott prides himself on his teams not having pre- and post- snap penalties. He makes an issue out of it in press conferences. That being so, he needs to demonstrate he can get his teams to execute what he preaches.

On the basis of observing the actual sequence of events in the actual game

Say more, why do you say that and why so?

You’re correct about the lack of blue chip talent, but it’s also a valid point that a lot of FA $$ have been invested (Lotulelei, Addison, Butler, last year Jefferson) and a lot of first 3 round draft picks (Harrison Phillips, Epenesa, Rousseau, Basham). Last year I believe we had the most expensive DL in the league. The problem is that the ROI doesn’t seem to equal the resources put into it, and in part that may be due to the desire to have 8 or 9 starting players rotating instead of several blue chip guys and a couple backups

I think the underlying assumption that the QB goes into ‘panic mode’ at the first sign of trouble is flawed Those were two awful penalties, though, that took us from converting.a 3rd down to “out of FG range and scrapping to get into it”

He says it starts with me. He’s never going to throw his players under the bus like that, and he probably can’t 100% control that it won’t happen again. What would that be?

It will hopefully be a moot point shortly. Once they come back, they aren’t subject to daily testing for the next 90 days.

That could be a point if true, but Beane said it was 91%. McDermott said it was “in the single digits”. Math says largest single digit being 9, 53 reg + 16 ps players =69 so minimum vax rate consistent with “single digits” is 87%. 91% would be 6. Of course, that doesn’t rule out your hypothesis - depending upon who those 6 (91%) players are and how they behave, but is the difference between 6 and 3 or 4 significant? I dunno It did seem clear to me that McDermott was pissed off in his presser when he said “Respect their decisions, I’m going to talk about the guys who played” Nothing to disagree about there!

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