Hapless Bills Fan

My take: Awesome game, still sloppy sloppy at some points. The pick, the fumbles. Crossing fingers that ‘Lil Dirty and Hyde are OK Wish that NO could have handed a L to Tenn Discuss

As long as it’s our big 2nd half coming!!!!! For The Brand!

Hate to see the Refs helping the Pats out like that though with the DPI

Patriots have the Browns looking Dazed and Confused Does not look like the same team that beat the crap out of the Bengals

No but Butler and Oliver can play there

Knox hand in that boarding the plane photo looked horrid

I think that last is it. When teams believe we're going to pass, they have no fear of needing to defend the run instead, so they are happy to hang back and take away the middle of the field. If we do (by some weird chance) call a run when teams expect a pass, they correctly believe that it will be self-limiting to a 5-6 yd play or if it breaks long, there's a good chance it will be called back by a holding penalty (as has happened on a couple of Motor's good long runs)

Oh, Geez. I have a gift for predicting these things: the Gameday Threads are just gonna be a Joy today.

It makes a big difference to the player to be elevated. PS salary is $9,200 a week, which is still good money to most of us ($165,600 for a full season) Minimum salary for a player with 1 accrued season (Butler may have more, hard for me to tell for a long-time journeyman) is $43,333/game/ So it's a $34,133 "bonus" to elevate a PS player, even if they aren't active. No reason not to reward a hard working PS player with that kind of monetary recognition if the Bills have an opening to do it. Plus, then he'd be able to be active if someone were injured in warmups.

If Star had contracted Covid on August 24, then this situation would quite possibly not exist because he would have been exempted from daly testing for 90 days.

It does, actually.

I think we're going to see some NFL protocol changes, but the question is before or after some team has a big mess, and will we be that team?

Again: When did Star catch Covid this summer? Please stop saying this until you show the evidence because I think it is incorrect.

He was not vaccinated at the end of August when he was sent home as a close contact, because vaccinated close contacts don't have to quarantine.

We do not know his vaccination status at present, nor whether he was sent home as a close contact or due to symptoms. He was apparently unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated in late August, when he missed 5 days as a close contact of an infected trainer. If he is unvaccinated, he could have been a close contact and could be back in 5 days if he tests negative. If he is vaccinated, he could also be back in 5 days if he's not symptomatic and tests negative. If he's unvaccinated and has Covid, I hope he has a mild case and recovers quickly.

When did Star have Covid "earlier this season"? I think you are misinformed. He had to isolate for 5 days as a close contact of a trainer who tested positive, which meant at the time (preseason), he was either unvaccinated or not completely vaccinated: https://www.wkbw.com/sports/buffalo-bills/buffalo-bills-wr-cole-beasley-three-others-identified-as-close-contacts-of-trainer-who-tested-positive-for-covid-19 At this point, we do not know his vaccination status, which may have changed since that time. Beane and McDermott both said that more players have gotten vaccinated since the start of the season.

So every draft with almost every position, one can play "Armchair GM" and find a player who is performing better than the one we drafted. I've pointed out that Creed Humphries has apparently never played guard and asked what the evidence is that he would be a good guard in the NFL. It amounts to, he says he can play guard. But there's at least reasonable question as to whether Humphries would have solved our problem of G play. Also, while he and Trey Smith are bright spots on the KC OL, it has to be noted that overall, the KC offense is racking up a mighty 0.2 ypa more than our offense is, and they have 3 fewer rush attempts per game than we do, and their offense as a whole is gaining 3 ypg more than ours and 4 fewer ppg than ours, for what may be some of the same reasons. I wanted to see the Bills draft an IOLman myself, and I cussed about Basham over Humphries, but based upon data, just possibly, pump the brakes on pointing to KC's OL as a potential game-changing Big Difference this year. I mean, how do you even draw that conclusion, when you're comparing a C and a G to a T and the results of the team overall are not better, but worse? Yes, Beane miscalculated by failing to predict that the play of Dawkins and Williams would regress markedly, failing to predict that Feliciano would decide on his own to lose 30 lbs and become addicted to conspiracy podcasts vs improving after a full off-season of training , and mis-evaluating Cody Ford as capable of improvement with a full off-season of training. As for the latter, it's looking like he whiffed on that draft pick. It happens. Move on, that's what the GM has to do.

I'm pretty sure that Feliciano said in an interview that the Bills had not asked him to lose the weight, that it was his idea.

I don't think it has to do with coaches feeling McKenzie would not be effective on the field per se. Less effective than the receivers who are on the field in the sets we run, sure (might not be correct with Beasley hurt). I'm sure it doesn't have to do with not risking injury. First of all let's define the problem. McKenzie got 25% of the offensive snaps last season, and so far 15% this season. The Bills are running 3% less 4 WR sets, and 5% less 3 WR sets. So that's 8% less chances for McKenzie to be on the field. We're running 2% vs 1% 5WR sets, but I believe that's still skewed by the Steelers game. Call it 7% fewer sets with 3 or or more WR. Part of that is the emergence of Knox as a better receiving threat AND a better blocker. His snaps have jumped up, Big Time, from 58% to 78%. What are we running instead? We're running a so-called (2,1) set 7% more - though it may be Gilliam, now labeled a HB - not a back - and a (2,2) set 2% more (that is sometimes an extra OLman and sometimes 2 TE). Is that putting the guys who are objectively, our most effective players on the field more? Probably not. It's trying to get more yards after contact on all the short passes we're throwing to backs, in part. It's trying to get extra blocking in both the pass and the run game, in part. In any case, it's probably driven more by what we can't do (protect long enough to throw deep, pull the LB closer to defend the run and hit the intermediate crossers) and what we need help with, than by either saving McKenzie or thinking he's on some objective scale a less effective player than the guys we're putting out there.

IMO the Patriots ran often and effectively enough that teams who faced them, including the Bills, could never abandon covering the run.

I think this has been a very low priority. I don't think this is true. I think when we call a run play, the defense knows it's coming, keys on it, and stuffs it.

Go Bills!

Go Bills!

I hate to say this, but Dawson Knox rt hand looks like crap in this pic. Swollen AF. I checked to see if BangedupBills would have anything to say about it but he didn't.