vincec

What’s hardest for me to swallow is that for the last few years the Bills rarely find a way to win these close games. They eked it out vs the Giants last week, but that seems to be an anomaly.

They were even worse last week operating mostly out of 13.

The refs inexplicably take these games over in the last 4 minutes, but they’re not the reason the Bills lost today.

This was more even. Bernard was all over the guy on the previous play. Totally PI on the previous one.

When are the Bills going to win a close game?

From a time when game was played by legends who were bigger than the NFL. Dick Butkis was a titan from football mythology.

It’s not the end of the world, but ideally he’d be blocking on running plays. Obviously if the play is wide to his side, but also for plays to the middle or even the other side of the field. He should be looking for a deep safety or other downfield player in case the run breaks. WRs blocking downfield are often the difference between a long run and a long TD.

I assume this question is coming from musing about how the Bills D might play Miami and Tyreek Hill. Yes, NFL defenses will sometimes lock a premier CB (say Darell Revis) on the opponent’s best WR and play man /zone with the rest depending on the call. But who could the Bills possibly put on Hill that would have any hope of staying with him 1v1? Honestly, that goes for Waddle as well. Belichick, as mentioned above, is well know for putting his best CB on the opponent’s second best WR and then bracketing the best one with two players. But the bills have never done this, as far as I’m aware, so I’d be expecting a variety of zones on Sunday.

I’ve literally never seen that stopped for less than a yard since teams started pushing the QB from behind. I don’t see a reason to call anything else until they change the rules honestly

Not many players have

There’s a lot of bickering in this thread for such a one sided butt whipping,

“We lost the fort. The Indians were sober…”

I was thinking the same thing. Aikman has been an Allen critic and I was waiting for him to unleash, or at least throw an "I told you so" out there, but he was actually pretty nice about it. I don't think he wanted to pile on since the performance basically spoke for itself.

He was basically one read and run if it's not there most of the night. One of the hardest parts of having good pocket awareness is being able to stand in the pocket when you have time even though you've been rushed on many other downs.

Cook will never break a lot of tackles. Unfortunately, he’s not that elusive either. He has good speed and good hands. If he puts on some size, it will help his pass blocking, which isn’t great, and he can be a pass game specialist. My main problem with Cook yesterday was that he got the ball way too many times, which it’s not his fault. He’s not Marshall Faulk. Harris and/or Murray should have been more involved. That’s on Dorsey, IMO.

I thought Dorsey had a mostly legitimate game plan going into this game. The Bills OL was way overmatched, so they had a ton of short, quick throws to Cook, Diggs, Knox, Hardy and Kincaid in the plan, as well as quick hitting runs inside and to the edge. Sprinkle in a few deep balls and try to make a big play or two. The Jets basically just said, “Fine, go ahead. Allen will lose patience with that.” And they were 100% right. Allen played like a rookie. He panicked when the initial read wasn’t there, ran into sacks and hits, and threw ridiculously I’ll advised passes. My main problem with Dorsey is that Allen’s play had been on a steady downward trajectory since Daboll left.

Good to hear from you too! IMO, ... I can see the Bills finishing third as a possibility, although I don't think it's likely. No way they finish below the Patriots. I think the issue is that there are a lot of good teams in the AFCE now and the Bills play a really tough schedule. There may also be an emotional let down after failing to reach the Super Bowl the past three years when they had a legitimate shot to do so talent-wise. But the roster is still strong and Beane's done everything he can with the salary cap situation so I don't blame him. I think that when you reach a certain point, it just comes down to luck. One subtle shift that may pay dividends is that you can see that the Bills are trying to become more physical... bringing in power RBs, interior OL, looking to play more 2 TE formations, running a more aggressive scheme on defense. To me that has been a serious weakness with the pass happy offense and cover 2 nickel happy defense that they've been playing. I'm really looking forward to the opener. I think the Jets have a lot more riding on it that the Bills. If the Bills beat the Jets, in NY, on 9/11, with all the Jets off season hype, it will deal such a serious blow to the Jets psyche that it may derail their entire season. lol.

Wasn't the original quote looking for a DE who "turned into a monster"? It didn't mention WOF. I would say that neither Hanson nor Schobel were "monsters", but they are equivalent to each other, IMO. The only reason Schobel isn't on the wall is because those Bills teams he played on were mediocre. He's at least as qualified as Phil Hansen.

Aaron Schobel?

I wonder if the OP sees any irony in the title of this post? It was a phrase coined former VP Agnew to mock the media for criticism and negative coverage of himself and the Nixon administration. Ironically, it turns out that the criticism was mostly warranted since both he and Nixon were criminals. Now it is being used to mock fans who are critical of the Bills…

Exactly. So having a deep roster doesn't mean bupkis compared to having a good QB, and therefore who cares how many players the Jets, the Bills or the 49ers got poached? It doesn't really equate to wins.

Shows you how good an OC Daboll was.

I don’t understand the tweet. The Jets were 7-10 last season, so having the most players poached didn’t mean they had a great roster. Maybe their scrubs were better than those on some other teams I guess.

Maybe Klein didn’t think he got a fair opportunity to win the starting MLB job and was vocal about it.