Hapless Bills Fan

So far, 2 out of 2 moderators seem unsure.

You're never one to rouse the rabbles --- except when you are

I love the way some of our fans attach conditionals and "style points" to wins. It's not enough to WIN, we have to ABSOLUTELY KILL THEM. Just winning means "serious issues". 🙄 I hope we win, but while Rivera is a coach McDermott knows very well, it's equally true that Rivera knows McDermott and his defensive tendencies very well. And Heineke has played decently in the 5 games he's played, including against Tampa. Judging by what I read around here, apparently we aren't

Oh, My Bad. I thought we were talking about how Allen has looked in 2 games this season, so cherry-picking other seasons seemed fair

IDK man, McDermott made some Squab calls in the AFCCG

I'm not gonna judge the guy on whether or not he can play with a certain injury. It's hard to judge how bad it really is from the stands. But Tua took a pounding in part because of his lack of pre-snap awareness. It's like he sees the TE or the Back coming in and the DB doesn't move, and he goes "oh, OK, gonna be Zone coverage!" but the lightbulb doesn't flicker "waitaminute, if that guy is coming now he's unblocked, we need someone blocking him or I need to account for him" We all know how that translates.

On the other hand, Woof! Bad missed tackle by Edmunds in the 2nd of those clips. Got to stick that, Tremaine.

Heinicke looked pretty good against Tampa in last season's playoffs against Tampa, especially for a guy that was sitting in an Engineering classroom a couple weeks earlier and had to email his professors and ask to postpone his exams in order to Take The Gig. Our fine contributors here will be noting that as of now, Heinicke has a better completion % and more yards than Allen Up to us to change it. The real advantage Washington has is that like Andy Reid, there are few areas of McDermott's defensive thinking and personal tendencies with which Ron Rivera is not deeply acquainted. And I think going up against his former mentor/master, McD has a tendency to over-think things. Another factor is that Washington's current BU QB, Kyle Allen, is Besties with Josh and probably knows how to get in his head, if anyone does. Hopefully the Miami game will let us build some defensive momentum.

So as a related interesting stat. Right now the Bills seem to be #5 for "intended air yards" but #10 for "completed air yards". That tells me right now part of the problem is missing on deep shots.

No, I think the score is more lop-sided. Tua seemed to be really struggling understanding our D and leaving pass rushers unblocked off the edge.

At times in 2019 Allen's play was elite.

Yes, you're correct, I transposed the numbers. I didn't catch it because I had thought Hyde went out for a while with an injury.

😆 One of the things that Baldy shows is how Tua was unaware of unblocked rushers on those first two sacks. TE goes across the formation leaving Taron Johnson unblocked, and somehow this doesn't register. Next sack, back motions into the backfield, and somehow no one notices that means Micah Hyde has a free shot. It's like "the Wheel is Spinning but the Hamster's Dead" Now don't get me wrong, young QB and rookie QBs make these mistakes - Josh Allen certainly did as a rookie and sometimes his 2nd year - but Tua or whoever is setting their protections Needs to be Better. It's not like Johnson or Hyde were being subtle about it. They were like, "we're coming, Prepare to Die". I thought the Word on Tua was that he was gonna succeed as a Brees-type cerebral QB who could figure things out and process at lightening speed. Not seeing it. So glad Miami didn't draft Herbert.

That's actually interesting because I thought YAC was a big gap for us last season. I didn't know we had 3 guys in the top 100. As far as YAC passing, the Bills were overall mediocre last season (14th)

That was a crazy drive, for reals. Flores must have been building up to a froth. First, they force us to a 3-and-out. Then, the result of the ST sequence (and the Fins take pride in their ST) was to give us a 33 yard field position advantage! Finally, cap it off with Bass-O-Matic missing a 53 yd FG, which has NOT been his habit. Agree on the penalties. There's an element of chance to the holding - sometimes the refs call 'em, and sometimes they don't. But the false start, we can't have.

A little ambiguous, but I think you mean "best game of the 3 he's played against the Steelers" not "best game of his overall career"? The Steelers are a matchup nightmare for us because of Cam Hayward, TJ Watt, Alualua, and Tuitt/Ingram. Josh Allen quotes his college coach saying, "Football is a man whupping man game". Bluntly put, their front 4 on DL can whup our 5 on OL and twice a day with Dawkins sub-par. Be that as it may, we'd beaten the Steelers solidly our last 2 games, since McD took over as coach. Don't think for a minute that a "Man's Man" like Tomlin has forgotten the days when he was the star WR at William and Mary and "McNasty" was the punk walk-on CB who taped up his wrists and "went at him" in practice. And especially last year, we punked their offense. I'm equally confident that Tomlin and Butler "took it personally" and spent a lot of time this offseason figuring out how to decode and defend the Bills passing attack. That's pretty much what McDermott means when he tells the team, and the press, that we have a "target" on us now and we aren't going to "sneak up" on anyone. As soon as the schedule came out (for teams outside our division), I think it's a safe bet that other teams circled us on their calendar and the coaches and DCs put in extra time in the film room over the summer, trying to figure out how to take us apart. I'm sure you're right that it was a highest priority for Flores though, given that 1)we embarrassed him in the Season Finale, with the backups playing for half the game 2) if Miami wants to take a step and win the division, we're in their way Yes, the passing game being "off" is a big concern. I think there are a number of factors. Part of your answer is above - DC's spent the summer decoding our offense and figuring out how to take it away, helped by some of what the 3 playoff teams we faced did effectively. I'm sure Daboll also spent the summer trying to figure out how to counter that, but "everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth"; part of the answer is that I think Daboll's answers have depended upon protection our OL has not been able to deliver, and also on Josh being willing and able to take the quick stuff that's there instead of looking for the "kill shot". I think they'll sort it out, and it won't look as it did last year, but it will look better. Some folks like to complain that "criticism" isn't allowed here, but I think it's at least equally true that people watching film and trying to figure out what's going on in the cause of hoping the Bills can fix it, get disparaged and dismissed as "making excuses"

Haha I was not losing my temper there. Believe me, when I lose my temper, there's no ambiguity. And I usually delete those posts I take it as a fair point that you didn't intend "crapping all over" the Bills effort, but I think when you write that the effort "felt like" a drastically different score, perhaps some awareness that IS how it comes across (at least to me, and I don't think I'm alone). I may be influenced by the number of such takes in the GDTs and postgame. It's become irksome. I absolutely understand being surprised, seeing the score before watching the game, that it wasn't the Pass-fest that one might have expected. Still seems like a serious Diss on both the defensive and the offensive effort.

Mixed in with the offense: M Hyde FS 82 61% Couple things: 1) I had not realized Wallace only played ~ 1/3 of the game. Someone said "cramps" but I wonder if the taunting penalty had anything to do with it? 2) Any update on Hyde? He met with the media after the game and I didn't hear questions about injury. 3) In addition to the guys with cramps (Edmunds), I had not realized how many of the starters got pulled, including Taron Johnson, Poyer, Milano etc. Makes the "pitching a shutout" even more impressive I would love someone in the media or who was at the game live to do an assessment of which DL are playing where. It's very hard to decode from the Network film. From this a guess at the rotation: Rousseau-Hughes Oliver-Butler Zimmer-Lotulelei (Zimmer is listed as a 1TDT on the Bills) Addison-Epenesa with a handful of % mixing things up and around But it's hard to tell, and some of the PR about Zimmer pass rushing up the gut: sounds as though it could have been Oliver-Zimmer Lotulelei-Butler with a handful of mix-n-match Anyone?

🙄 Seriously? There are no "moral victories". Likewise there are no "moral losses". The defense doesn't get to take 7 points off the board against the Steelers because the blocked punt was on the ST watch. You don't get to take 11 points away from the offense and award 17 to the Dolphins because of "your feels" The score is, what the score is. There were no flukes or flakey plays or questionable ref calls on INT or fumbles giving the Bills the ball. The Bills offense earned every point of those scores with long drives. Give me an 'F'in break Yeah, so "heartened" it feels to you like they gave up 17 points they did not Yeah, liked the running so much you want to take away some of the points scored on rushing TDs

You're "on" to something here IMO. The Bills put enough on tape last season (and their opponents put enough on tape) that part of the Bills juggernaut offense has been "solved". DCs have been watching tape of the Colts and the Ravens and the Chiefs and now will watch the Steelers, and have figured out 1) how to confuse the mind-meld between Josh and Beasley about what he's gonna do 2) how to bracket the Bills option receivers and take them away Toss in that our OL (which we believed to be at least as good, if not better with Feliciano and Ford healthy) has been struggling to provide enough protection for the deep routes to develop, and that Daboll seems systematically slow to adjust, and you've got a recipe for a slow offensive start. Think a QB should be able to look just as sharp without a pocket as with one? Look at Mahomes in the SB vs the AFCCG. I wish I had all-22 but my impression is that Allen is floating balls he should zip because he's trying to avoid deflections, which easily can become picks. Now he needs to figure out timing, that he can't get the throws there as quickly by floating as by rifling it in there and he needs to speed up his decision if he slows down his throw. We had a bit of a problem with being "solved" after a fast start last season, and we figured it out. In the meantime, being on the "giving" end of a 35-0 filleting is not a bad place to be

But then they've relaxed the rule on celebrations, because they're popular with the fans so....

Depends upon which defense the Steelers bring - the one we faced, or the one the Raiders faced (missing 3 starters going in, and 5 starters most of the game)

Interesting you should mention Rodgers, given that there have been a couple of years here and there were the Narrative was "he's done" 2017 2018 for example; earlier in his career he had great seasons followed by "Meh" seasons. Remember R-E-L-A-X?

No offense (see what I did there? heh) but generally speaking when someone picks a non-standard grouping to analyze, it's a sign of cherrypicking data to prove a point. Why not pick the last 4 regular season games, or the last 8 regular season games? I expect you could pick a couple 4 week windows in 2020 and argue that Josh Allen is looking like 2019 Josh Allen. Try week 3-6 or week 4-8

https://www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/2021/09/the-buffalo-bills-have-shut-out-just-2-teams-in-5-years-both-were-led-by-jacoby-brissett.html Interesting factoid that both the Bills recent (last 5 years) shutouts have been against Brissett. Carr is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. He'll look really pedestrian like he did when they played us week 4, then really really good like he did when they drubbed the Chiefs in week 5. It's worth noting that the Steelers were missing like, half their defense most of the game - CB Haden, LB Bush, DE Alualu, DE TJ Watt in addition to Tuitt still on IR. It's amazing how lowering the quality of the D improves the quality of the QB. Steelers also lost Diontae Johnson on offense. Bad day for injuries for the Steelers. Ugh.