Hapless Bills Fan

"The guy between the snapper and the punter" is known as the "personal protector". Think about what that name means as far as that guy's primary responsibility on a punt, and whether you want our QB playing that role.

Hi. 2020 Bills called. Remember when we ran up the score to 28-3 on the 10-6 division round Rams? And 44-34 on the 12-4 NFC West champion Seahawks? Thought those might have slipped your mind Most teams, "any given Sunday" excepted, can thump poor teams but by and large struggle against good teams. Have you actually looked at the record of other teams where, IDK, maybe you'd note that the Chiefs slid by the Broncos 22-16 and the Falcons 17-14?

Sean McDermott said "no" but Dawkins in his presser this week said it was still bothering him. https://www.wivb.com/sports/bills-lt-dion-dawkins-still-fighting-through-lasting-effects-of-his-battle-with-covid-19/

Can the visiting team bring umbrellas or the like, or is that prohibited by NFL rules? No shade does seem brutal. I think the forecast for tomorrow is partly to mostly cloudy in the am, light rain at kickoff, and isolated thunderstorms during the game

That's true, but we'd like to feel the team and Allen will take a step. So its still disappointing. Someone on another thread made the point that we adjusted our routes in the 2020 game and got the ball out faster more than we made adjustments on the line (though I do feel there were adjustments). I think there's some truth to the point that we could have done more to try keeping guys in to block, and if Motor/Brieda weren't getting it done (they didn't from what I saw) perhaps try bringing in an extra OLman or using 2 TE. And if our gameplan for the week didn't have those plays in it, then that's a gap in our gameplan going up against a top OL. I think there's also some truth that in some of these games (and Allen has pretty much said this in his post-game and following-week interviews), Allen isn't doing what's designed into the play to cope with pressure - he's going for the deep play and not taking the short "what the defense gives you" 3 yard stuff. Daboll and McDermott aren't going to throw him under the bus for that, nor are his teammates, but I don't think it's just Allen saying that to take it on himself when he shouldn't. IMHO that's one of the missing pieces for the Bills to take the next step

You're a Bad Man (tm) Diggs has quickness and speed. Daboll has tried reverses and sweeps with Beasley and with John Brown and if I'm not mistaken a few times with Diggs. But McKenzie has more speed and more quickness. I also think we have some "tells" for those plays that are allowing teams to predict them accurately because they seem to be failing more often I disagree with this. I have seen Daboll try other players in these roles. It didn't work, so after a couple trials he abandoned it. By the way I could be wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen Kelce running a reverse or a sweep. Hill runs them because he's by far the fastest and quickest player on the Chiefs (which until Stevenson comes back from IR, is also how one describes McKenzie).

The injury that concerns me is Obada. He's new on the injury report as of Friday. He seems like a very hard working guy who has flashed some, so I'd hate to see an injury derail his season. Whatever it is, if it would be better for him to take a week off and "get right" I hope that's the decision. Related concern for Davis. Hope that he will "get right" and not try to soldier through an injury.

Of course you do

Beasley. Taiwan Jones.

What's the point here? Do you think the other top scoring teams didn't run up the score on worse teams and struggle against the best teams they played?

OK, I distrust going just off a Cover1 piece because when you break down a dozen or so out of 70+ plays you can some times create a false impression. So I spent some time with game film looking at the line, and I must say that Feliciano had a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. Now I grant you that Heyward is a terror, and to be fair Jon did have some plays where he was good enough to buy time, but by and large Heyward made him look awful. One other thing. Breida should never, ever be kept in to block again. There's a 3rd down play where not only does he NOT block anyone, he actually actively gets in the way of Feliciano trying to go help Morse. Yuck-o.

Never. You can always claim you're doing it for your grandkids. If you're in your 30s just claim you were precocious

Truth

The Pitts was late in the game NE, as I said, was between the 3Q and 4Q when the game was tied but we were overall rush-heavy all game 38 rush attempts 18 pass attempts. Chargers was 30 rush attempts 25 pass attempts LIke I said, there are times when Daboll runs consistently or even leans on the run. But overall he doesn't do it often enough or consistently enough that teams say "OK, we got to defend the pass but damn, we better not sleep on their RBs or they'll go off on us". Which is I think your point about not being a balanced offense? Just like teams can choke down on Lamar Jackson because they know there are certain throws he can't or won't make, teams being able to say "I don't need to worry about THAT" makes them able to choke down on other aspects of our game. A bit oversimplified, or how do you think the Bills ran for 190 yds against NE, 172 yds against the Broncos, and 172 yards against the Broncos last season? I promise, run blocking was involved. But, it would be fair to say we could not run block against the better run defending teams.

So who is this guy? From what he puts on Twitter, a podcast guy?

My overwhelming impression was that we kept guys in to block on very few snaps, but I do know that impressions can be mistaken I saw Singletary being totally ineffective and out ahead of the line seeking someone to block while Ingram put Dawkins in the spin cycle on 4th and 8 That's not to say he wasn't in there blocking valiantly and effectively other times, but that was the only time that stood out to me.

There is only one response to this, and it comes from Josh Allen: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/11/20/josh-allen-wyoming-csu-football/ And that is the Word from Laradise via Buffalo's QB

Different opinions. I live in MO and subscribe to both TBN and the Athletic. I think the coverage is worth, certainly the relatively low trial fee. I don't see how you figure that. The articles are collected on TBD as a service (I wish we'd add the Athletic but whatever). But why do you think TBD should either plagarize articles to spare you money, or limit links other people find useful? Agree about press conferences but we're the wrong people to complain to about that

It did show up once in a while last season. For example, we ran 8 straight running plays in the 4th against the Steelers last year. We had a lot of run plays in the first NE game, including 9 straight run plays in the first NE game culminating in a TD (3Q-4Q) Think there were a couple other games which featured a good stretch of running - Chargers? The issue I think many of us have isn't that he does it "once in a while", it's that he doesn't do it enough that teams feel we have a capable running threat and game-plan us accordingly. We're kind of the anti-Poebird

I didn't see Knox chipping too much last Sunday, but maybe I missed it By my count off the data cover1 presented (from Sharp Football Stats, I think, 1:59 in) Bills had a TE in the game on 46 snaps No TE in the game on 33 snaps, including 10 snaps with just WR and 23 snaps with just an RB I think those snaps underrepresent the number of empty backfields, since I believe I saw both Motor and Knox split out wide quite a lot I believe you that Dawkins last year had a harder job and got less help, and did it well But That was Then, This is Now. Agree. But frankly, Dawkins looked bad enough last week that it has me eyeballing Brown and asking "How Hard Could it Be?"

Then maybe we need to be bringing in an extra OLman or keeping in a TE or RB to help block. It seems to me one reason they re-signed Darryl Wiliams is that he did pretty well at RT without extra help most of the time. FWIW I think he showed up somewhat overweight and out of condition in OTAs and minicamp before becoming ill. And he was in the process of getting vaccinated when he got sick. I don't think they have energy to spare getting mad at him, just ask him to "control what you can control" going forward.

Holy crap, Hope he's OK. He's one of those guys with a backstory where you can't help pulling for him, and has quietly done a lot of good community service things.

I looked it up, and last season it was Boettger playing LG. IIRC Heyward totally terrorized Boettger for the first half, with the result that at the half our offensive drives were Punt-Int-Punt Punt Fumble Punt FG, and we were leading 9-7 at the half on the strength of a Taron Johnson Pick-6 with a missed XP. We made some adjustments in the 2nd half that somewhat neutralized him, but I don't remember what they were - anyone? That's all find and dandy like Cotton Candy, except when do we expect that "full game shape" transition to occur? And what we gonna do until it does? Because if we don't have a plan besides than "Dawkins should be able to do it so let's Make a Plan Like he Can" while he's getting there, we could be in rather a W-L hole before it goes down. I did not realize how awful Dawkins played at times.

Oh FFS, I give up. This isn't a "position" much less a "knee jerk" reaction. It's an adjective used to describe his specific observations about the game, backed up by detailed breakdown showing just what Pitts did. It has nothing to do with pronouncements about a player's overall status like "Winston can't win" or "Brady is finished", and it has nothing to do with a player's past successful performance. On this week, he seemed confused, and they break down what Pitts did to achieve that. You admit Brady struggled in the first 2 games of last season, it would be akin to the breakdowns explaining exactly why and pointing what Tampa could do to address this. The reason you should "get over it" is because it's off the mark. It's clearly something you're taking offense to and waxing indignant about "how Dare anyone criticizes our Great QB unless it's a former Great QB" without actually paying attention to what was really said and why (and if Bradshaw or Brees said similar then you'd find a different reason to take offense to it I'm guessing). But like I said, do it or don't, I don't care. Agreed on all points. And every player is going to miss some of those kill shots, which is why the best teams need to overcome the misses with overall solid play.