Hapless Bills Fan

There are some Tall Humans on our team

Found it! It's in here. ~40 seconds in. Near L sideline. #87.

Correct on Roberts. I think in general McKenzie has improved with the ball security. Hope so. I guess we'll see. Where he's scared me, is his ability to track the ball while assessing the gunners and calling it promptly - fair catch, catch and run, "poison poison" get away. There was a punt in the Miami game that he decided not to field that came uncomfortably close to touching him.

"I don't like to say too many good things about Isaiah....He needs to get a whole lot better, I'll say that, Just for him" 😂😂

Didn't see this. Check out Daboll playing QB near the end.

You can count me in the camp that believes "instinct" is something that can be trained with the right practice. The Bills gave Roberts a big contract not only because they wanted reliable hands, but because they wanted to add "home run threat" abilities to their punt and kick return game. For whatever reason, not only didn't that work for them. The last two seasons, Bills had one PR TD (McKenzie of the "lack of anticipation") and one KR TD (Micah Hyde). In addition, Roberts fumbled 3x (Tenn Pitts and Den) and deflected a catchable but off-target pass up into harms way for a pick (Tenn). Roberts absolutely brought the ball out at times when ST-knowledgeable members here pointed out why he shouldn't. I'm sure they coached him, but the point of paying good $$$ to a KR/PR specialist is you're not supposed to have to do that so much. He was pressing, I think; he wanted to make a big play and contribute to the team's success and sometimes it backfired. I think there will be a downgrade with McKenzie back there, but hopefully not too large and we absolutely needed another WR who could really contribute well enough to put the "walking wounded" on the bench at times.

So it will be interesting to see where he shows up on Saturday

I'm persuaded that below some threshold, no QB can play behind an OL Above a certain threshold, a QB who is skilled at reading the defense, knowing where his "hot read" is, and having some ability to escape can function, but a young uncertain QB will still flounder. I developed this theory when the Bills 2010 OL magically improved from "non functional sieve" to "poor, but functional" after Fitz took over from Trent Edwards. I have the impression that Burrows is pretty good at reading the D and understanding what his options are, so I hope the Bengals improvement moves into the "poor, but functional" range for him. This is probably a fair correction albeit at the beginning of the season, Brady did not appear to have the arm left to make those deep throws. Somehow his armstrength seems to have improved as the season went on 🤷‍♂️ But perhaps the improvement was that he could make them 4-5 times per game but not 20

Thank you for the kind answer to a decidedly snarky post. Just want to throw @GunnerBill’s excellent post about special teams roles and who filled them last season/might fill them this next season here for reference. https://www.twobillsdrive.com/community/topic/233173-53-man-roster-projection-after-otaminicamp/page/4/ Edit: this goes to the right page of the right thread, I’ll try to fix it later from my ‘puter

I dunno about that, but it’s a fact that Roberts gave us poor field position sometimes by trying - brought the ball out when he shouldn’t - and his 3 lost fumbles hurt us.

Did anyone else ask him how many other players he’ll get to tag and keep on the roster because they’re better special teamers, ahead of younger players we can develop or players who may contribute more at their offensive or defensive positions? Nah, that’s loaded. I’m not sure tagging McKenzie as the “Front Runner” will get the McBeane Seal of Approval on the competition front. Edit: It sounds as though we can pencil in Bam Johnson and Reggie Gilliam, ahead of perhaps Obada or Zimmer who might do more for the defense. Did he mention Taiwan Jones? Siran Neal sounds like he’s Earning his Stripes on Defense, so no problem with him. And truthfully have no problem keeping Gilliam - I though he contributed when called upon on offense last season and our TE room is thin.

HOOOO! Talk about cherry-picking data, Exhibit A right here. You’re omitting something highly relevant: When Winston threw for those 33 TD, he threw 30 interceptions. THIRTY. Show me the OC who thinks a QB who throws 30 interceptions can “diagnose a defense perfectly well and slice up a defense with the best of them” and I’ll show you a Deed to a bridge in Brooklyn. And this wasn’t an anomaly. The previous season he was on-track to throw 25 (normalized to a full season). “Taking risks he didn’t need to” is another way to say “couldn’t distinguish between a risk and a good play at game speed”. If he knew what he was doing and could just dial his Risk-O-Meter down when he came back from suspension in 2018, got put back in the starter’s role over Fitz, and a few games later proceeded to throw 4 picks, get sacked 5 times and get benched for Fitz. I’m sure Koetter had a few choice words for him. And he CERTAINLY would have dialed it back in 2019 after his 5 pick, 7 sack game. Instead he went on to throw two more 4 INT games. Don’t you think Arians tried arse-kicking? Oh while we’re at it, let’s talk about sacks. Some pundits consider sacks to be as bad as INTs in that they often result in a COP and can switch the field. Winston took 47 sacks that cost his team 282 yards in 2019. Tons of sacks are also often a sign of poor QB judgement: the QB either doesn’t recognize the blitz and adjust the protections, or doesn’t know where his “Answers” are, or they’re coverage sacks where he shows poor judgement and hangs onto the ball too long. No, a starting QB who has shown the same sack-taking INT-making proclivities into his 5th season can not be considered a dude who can “diagnose a defense perfectly” and just needs a little boot in the butt. What, if anything, did they do to shore up their abysmal OL?

This

To be fair, NE did have the highest number of players (including starters) who opted out. So the team was depleted at other positions.

Once again - this looks to me as though Wildgoose grabs Davis before the ball actually arrives (but Davis makes the catch anyway).

Fair. But I think (maybe it's wishful thinking) that the Bills FO have learnt their lesson from the Peterman debacle: Looking good in preseason does not guarantee regular season results. I think they try hard to "hedge their bets", though how they're gonna do it with all the guys they got, I dunno I tend to think Hughes has more value to the Bills than he has in trade right now

You realize this is the same logic train driven by those who want to say last year was an anomaly and Allen will "regress" to his 2019 level of performance? Last year is just cherry-picking one year stats trying to prove a point! It doesn't reflect an actual change! McDermott and several players talked about Hughes having "matured" a lot last season due to taking a leadership role on the team and being elected a Captain. Therefore, it may be significant that he had zero unsportsmanlike conduct penalties last season and appeared to lose his cool zero times. Whether or not you believe that Allen will inevitably regress because quoting last year's stats is just "cherry picking trying to prove a point", the point remains: In the very same post where you tear down Hughes as too old, too expensive, and drawing too many penalties - you then turn around and suggest that the Bills could get "a lot" (eg a high draft pick) for the same old, expensive, heavily penalized player you just critiqued. If you can't see the contradiction there, others surely can.

Hughes had 4 penalties last season, 2 for defensive Offside, 1 for neutral zone infraction, 1 for roughing the passer that was arguably bogus How many penalties of that sort do you think a high caliber pass rusher should get? It always amazes me how some of us will tear down a Bills player - too old, too expensive contract , too many penalties.....and then turn around and think another team will give up a high pick in trade for him 🤦‍♂️

Curious about the “Josh has been throwing him the ball”. Saw an overthrown deep ball from Josh in OTA and ever since then everything reception seems to have Trubisky or Fromm on the other end

It’s in one of the tweets linked here, I’ll try to find it

Exactly. Some of the depth guys think the way to impress the coaches is to go full-out in practice and hit extra hard. Part of the lesson is "do your teammates that way and it'll impress us all right - it'll give us the impression your ass needs cut"

Nice article from Mark Gaughan of the Buffalo News. For those of us who have been wondering about the run game, the first day in pads provides a first look: https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/training-camp-observations-bills-rbs-hit-holes-hard-on-first-day-in-pads/article_5807e900-f49d-11eb-b6a4-f309a5dae46b.html#tracking-source=in-article Gaughan makes the point that with no tackling, it's harder to tell who had the upper hand, but it sounds at least like mixed results where the offense had some good run plays as well as some that got stuffed. By the way, since others are plugging the Athletic, I'll put in a word for the quality of the Bills content at the News. There is usually football content I want to read there, and it's $1/month right now. I subscribe to both. Edit: and for those who are wondering how Gentry and some of the other WR "lower down the chart" are doing: Gentry's catch is in one of the clips up on Twitter - it was indeed outstanding.

Friendship matters - but Josh seems to have the gift of making friends of almost everyone, everywhere. Look at how he said in his presser that Trubisky is already becoming one of his best friends. Here's the thing. Those guys - Hollister and Gentry - were getting open against lesser defensive backs in the Mountain West Conference. I think John Brown and Cole Beasley were a revelation to Josh as far as what a skilled NFL-caliber WR could do. Then Stefon Diggs came along and dropped everyone's jaws, before setting to work trying to level-up the whole WR corps. I think Josh would like to see his friends from college succeed, but I also think the chemistry they had in college, with the college playbook and level of competition in college, doesn't matter so much now as whoever can master the Bills NFL playbook, run crisp routes, and get open against NFL DBs. It's fair for Josh to maybe go to the FO and coaches and say "hey, after 3 years of throwing to different receivers I think these guys are worth a look, I think they can play in the league" and be heard. But they have to stand or fall on their own now. Hollister has already made it onto the 53-man roster of two different, highly competitive NFL teams (NE and SEA, not the Jests or the Jags). He's played in 50 NFL games including 25 games where he took at least 20% of the offensive snaps. His major competition in Buffalo is himself. If he can get and stay healthy, he will be on an NFL roster somewhere else if not here. Gentry got onto the field for 4 games for Chicago in 2017, but after that it's been practice squad and last year out of football. Part of that may be turnover of the coaching staff - new OC in CHI may have a bias to develop guys they've scouted. Part of it may be, perhaps the Bears aren't very good at developing depth players. But every FO has a bit of a bias towards guys they themselves draft. I don't see Gentry's college chemistry with Josh bumping him up the depth chart over Hodgins or Stevenson. He may not even make the practice squad, though if it's expanded this coming season, perhaps. By the way, I don't think Gentry gets many looks in 11 on 11 from Josh. Although the reporters apparently can't tell us who is running with the 1's, 2's etc.

Josh got in on it in 2019 when being interviewed by Denver press: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/11/20/josh-allen-wyoming-csu-football/

The thing is, we may have had as much of a “brawl” when Ed Oliver and Spencer Brown went at it: The differences being: 1) Allen wasn’t involved, which is a testament to either his good sense or his teammates holding “The Franchise” out of it 2) The players evidently broke it up themselves pretty quickly. Ed Oliver referred to it as “just a little scuffle, competition, you know” and said “we might go eat together”. Anything the coaches had to say about it was left private. I can’t help wondering if Joe Judge magnified and focused attention on it by his reaction vs. keeping the coaches focus on what the players are doing right