Buddo

Totally garbage call.

I'm pretty much with you there, it's just that any opportunity to really rub the Jests noses in it, is worth the one shot.

Florence has been responsible for two of the funniest moments I've had when watching the Bills. The Sanchez fake was obviously one, but the other was in a game against the Patsies, when he was miming, Brady diving, trying to get a penalty. Pure gold.

A couple of things, really. The cap situation means he's unlikely to be cut this year, regardless. Secondly, I don't believe he's a guy that they have problems with in respect of 'the process'. The questions to be answered, relate to his diminishing play, and his degenerating knees, which appear to keep him both from the field too often come Sundays, and pretty frequently from practise, even when fully 'fit'. I suppose in that respect, he's taking less reps from the likes of Croom, but his lack of availability, is a serious issue and would be a reason for me to part company with him, after the season. I suppose it's not beyond the realms of possibility the Bills could snag a low pick for him, ina trade, assuming they take the half salary hit, which it would cost them anyway, but I'd just let him go anyway, eventually. That's not to 'hate' on him, just that with the youth policy going forward on Offense, his inability to get on the field regularly, I think will hamper others development, including Allen, who should be able to expect a reliable receiving TE as an outlet.

It did, but 2 guys have been brought up from the PS. (A DE and a CB) The thought is that the other spot will be used on a backup center/guard.

I think you are on to something, with your analysis of why Allen didn't make a better throw to Clay, but I think in context, it's irrelevant. Clay needed to catch the football. There was a play to be made that was going to win the game. It's what guys are paid a lot of money to do on Sundays. Irrespective of who could, couldn't have made the play (pass) in the first place, any other QB would rightly expect his veteran TE, to catch that ball. Situational football. I'm not sure you can expect guys to be perfect on 4th and long, with less than a minute to go in the game, and you need a TD to get ahead in the game. I'll take a 50 yard wounded duck, to a wide open receiver, every day of the week, and twice on Sundays Besides, if Allen had taken the time to set himself, he probably would have drilled it through Clays hands, and knocked his teeth out.

Slightly surprising due to timing, but I don't think either of them were going to be here long term. (Or after the season)

While every throw has (largely) a different set of circumstances and requirements that surround it, getting experience will count for a lot. More experience = more instances of similar sets of circumstances, which leads to better placement/accuracy. It's why 'live' reps are so important, imho. Tbh, I don't think that Allen is an innately innaccurate thrower, if anything, I think he's actually very accurate. The problem being that he's accurate when he gets himself properly set, which is often not the case under game situations. Again, live reps and footwork, will go a long way to sorting it out. One thing I will say about Allen, is that I see signs that he's working on things, even when they might not come off. An example of this would be the bomb to Foster. I thought he took some off of that throw, because he didn't think Foster would get there. He just didn't get it quite right. Imho, we are likely to spend quite a few years wrangling over Allen's numbers. Last week it was only 8 from 19, which looks horrible, except you have drops, catches that get pulled back for penalties, none of which are being accounted for in the stats. This week you have the Hail Mary interception, that will skew his numbers, and yet I don't think anyone actually blames him for that, yet they will still put it into an anti argument. Apologies for falling into the trap of making this about Allen, but the first part is still relevant, imho, to any QB.

At 20 years old, he's still growing. There's plenty of chance for him to fill out more, and become more of a handful inside. As you say, the kid still makes plays, even though he also makes mistakes, but he is no shrinking violet either - that was a terrific stop of Fournette at some point, when the Jags only needed a yard or so for the first down, on a 3rd down run. Soft he isn't, but perhaps not as strong as he will be. I also like the fact that he can take away some of the over the middle stuff, due to his size. QBs have to think twice about it if he's in the area, as he gets his arms and hands up and out, pretty well. he's already tipped a few this season. At his age, Edmunds has almost got Allen like potential as a MLB, and he's well on the path of improvement, imho.

As regards Allen's rushing in this game, apart from it being impressive, I think it was, in part, by design. I think his options often included the possibilty there would be running room available, as I think they identified weakness in the Jags contain. I'm not talking about when he stepped up through the pocket into space, but on a number of his runs that got us another set of downs, he always semed to have room available. As to the TD pass to Foster, it's one of the best I've ever seen tbh. Not only was I surprised it came out from under the Jags whole D line (it seemed like), but that it did so and absolutely on the money, was a thing of beauty. Somewhere on MMQB, Benoit says that he thinks it's the best TD pass he's seen this season, due to the duress he was under, and I'm not going to disagree, for sure. It's about time the Bills stood up for themselves. The fact that it got Fournette ejected, was simply a bonus. I think they had decided to stack the box before it all kicked off, and his numbers were down. It may even be that he was frustrated by that, as well as being an idiot. At least it showed an adjustement to the defensive front that might have been working. I liked McDermotts comments about Lawson not being blamed for defending a teammate, especially as it appeared he didn't even think twice about saying it. While we complain bitterly about the penalties, sometimes you have to just say it's because we aren't talented enough to compete fairly. While 'Disney' Coleman is one of the premier buffoons of Zebradom, his crew got some fairly important calls right, including those 2 consecutive passing plays Allen made beautifully, only to be called back. Progress has been being made, but it could still become of the '2 steps forward, one step back variety.' There are further bumps ion the road, I'm sure. One thing that Allen doesn't lack is the moxy to just go for it - as evidenced by the TD throw to Foster, and deciding to truck over the defender when getting his rushing TD - I bet Kelly was loving that one. I think we need some more patience with the kid, until the game slows down more for him, so he can make more adjustments, and get through all of his reads, as I think the options become ar greater then, with his arm. He just needs to see it, because if he sees it, he slings it.

Lmao at the guy in the bottom pic above, who looks absolutely overjoyed to be given play calling duties.

I’m pretty certain they use it in Australia, and I know quite a few people in the UK who do/have. ?

QFT. At least part of that though, entails using the lesser parts of the model smh. I suppose we should be thankful that they are amending their approach. The major concerns really, are that it’s taken them so long to come up with better solutions, both at QB (backups) and WRs (speed). Al Davis wasn’t ever called wrong for saying ‘Speed Kills’, he was merely mocked regularly for his obsession with it. ?

DILLIGAF Do I Look Like I Give A F**# Courtesy of a very ribald Australian. So far, I have to say that SLO, is my favourite - not that I currently believe it, but that it’s inevitable ?

It might have been possible in the past, but it’s a lot less likely now as from the UK you log into GamepassEU from this year. The only chance you may have is using a VPN like Windscribe that will let you log onto a US server and use your regular game pass. It might be worth checking out if there is a trial offer that lets you watch for free for one week - but that would need to be the gamepasseu.

Officiating is still uniformly awful. While you can make a case for some stuff to be missed, the PI on Jones, isn't one of those. After all, it's where the football is going, and so the zebras should be well fixed on it. Jones never got to make a play on the football, because the defender clearly hit him from behind, prior to the football arriving. Jones actually was pretty much in the perfect position to get the football, until he was barged out of the way. The only way the defender was getting to the football, was through Jones, which is pretty much what happened. As a zebra, if you can't see that, and make the call, you pretty much should be at home watching games, and not on the field.

Tbh, the Jest simply didn't know what hit them, from the Foster big gain and Shady's TD run. I think you can point to a number of other 'factors' in how the game became the blowout it was, as well, but unlike our D, the Jest seemed to be wondering wth was going on, from those first two plays. Other factors would be that they thought they were going to win, against a comparatively poor team, and came out overconfident. See the first two plays again. Barkley was much more of an unknown to them, and they didn't have usable tape on him. Similarly with Foster, and also the little quick guy, who has also only recently been added. Daboll did a good job of getting those guys involved, and keeping the Jest D off balance, and on the back foot, because of it. STs actually played well again. As in for the first time in a few weeks. The fake punt was well executed, and as McD or someone else on the staff explained, they had had Thomas as their up guy a few times recently, so while he was expected to be there, (by the Jest) he wasn't expected to be taking the direct snap. A nice play they had kept up their sleeve until Sunday, but had also had some forward planning to help it work. Competent, and positive, QB play shouldn't be ignored, at all, but tbh, did anyone expect anything much from Barkley in that respect - I'd lay good odds the Jest didn't. The Bills D can actually be pretty darn good - especially if the offense is finally giving them the expected breathers. Aside from some lax run D for a series or two, they pretty much had the upper hand all game - even when they went into 'prevent' mode occasionally. The O-Line actually had about their best game. There was only the one change, with Teller coming in, but we saw no turnstiles. Maybe the difference that Teller makes, is the thing that turns them into a unit, rather than just the sum of their parts. One last observation, although I'm sure there are other things I've omitted, is that for all of the different factors I believe contributed to the Bills blowout againist the Jest, at the end of the day, the coaching staff deserves credit for making the most of them, especially Daboll, and the young guys (and Barkley) for their execution.

Much of the failures of previous regimes, has to do with the inability of the HC to find the right people to run things for them. Gailey actually did have some talent on D, but couldn't find a decent DC. Jauron never found an OC, although the first guy he had, might have been decent given better talent to work with (Fairchild, iirc). Marrone might have been an exception to this - hiring Schwartz after Pettine was a terrific move, but while he came from an offensive background, he had next to no play-calling experience, and neither did Hackett, who he let do it. Marrone also let his ego get the better of him. As others have also pointed out, the biannual change from a 4-3 to a 3-4 D hasn't helped either - we keep using up picks on specific defensive types, while largely neglecting the offense. My current biggest concern, would be that we are going down a similar path again, with a HC who doesn't appear to know much about offense - unless it's what to do to stop it.

I assume you mean 3 ring circus, by ring.

I believe he is. I vaguely recall reading about a bunch of 'new' refs for this season, and then discovered that half of them were 'sons of' the old refs. Hochuli and Coleman are names I remember from that, but I think there may be another. Seems nepotism and incompetence, go hand in hand in the NFLRA, just like in the rest of the NFL.

Fred was one tough s.o.b. One of the many things I loved about him, was how often the guys trying to tackle him, ended up crocked. I have no idea especially why it happened, but it did, and regularly. And while I'm at it, did he ever miss a blitz pickup? Remember what JJ Watt looked like after Fred blocked him? https://247sports.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/Article/Bills-Fred-Jackson-Caused-JJ-Watts-Bruise-105216600/ Also shows the block that did it.

There were some signs of life in the Offense, well, the passing part of it, anyway. The D played its guts out, and the Pats had to work for everything they got, except the pick 6. The trouble is, offensively, the Vikings game aside, there's been no sense that the Bills could put drives together consistently. They probably did just enough in terms of getting a couple of first downs here and there, to keep the D fresh enough to keep competing, but you pretty much expected it to fizzle out at any time. I'd like to see them stick both Shady and Ivory out there regularly, with one of them splitting out wide often. I believe that could keep a defender out of the box, and give either of them more chance to make a play. As a DC, I wouldn't want either of them getting the football in space, as Shady will make the first defender miss, and Ivory will probably just run over them. As our TEs are not exactly great outlets, it could serve a purpose as a useful dump off, as well. Having said that, we still have a poor O-Line, which ultimately got Anderson killed. While I want Allen back, I think with our line, we're a bit in between the devil and the deep blue sea, with the possibility of our QB getting crocked at any time, and it's a major concern. As to the future, well, I'm very much in 'wait and see' mode. I have full confidence in McDermott in respect of putting out a good D, but the jury is definitely out as regards offense. I dislike binning McCarron for a scruffy 5th round pick, not so much because McCarron would have saved the season (I'm sure he wouldn't), but because when they did, they didn't get someone else in to back up Peterman, and keep Allen out of it. Contingency planning was non-existent, when it should have been a priority. I'm also not too struck on their QB evaluation skills, that ended up with Peterman as the starter. Not because Peterman didn't win the TC competition, as he clearly did, but that they didn't seem worried at all about the fact that he hadn't started but one game, and that was a disaster. Chan Gailey always emphasized the fact that true NFL games were a whole different kettle of fish to pre-season or TC. It's the reason he cut Edwards after two miserable outings as starter. At the time I thought it was pretty brutal, yet it was also absolutely the right decision. Thing is, we had 3 QBs on the roster, so had the freedom to do it. How does the expression go? - 'Don't paint yourself into a corner', yet the FO did just that by not getting another QB in. We desperately need to find ways of moving the chains with more regularity, while also keeping whichever poor soul who ends up under center, upright. If it's Allen, I hope the word is to keep anyone off of him at all cost, including penalties. Excuse some of the ramblings, but thanks for a good post as usual Shaw, and fwiw, the fans souded incredible throughout, even watching it on the box.

This would make too much sense. We could have done that before hiring Ryan, if we had paired Jackson with Schwartz, as was a strongly rumoured possibility. Goodness knows how that might have worked out, but the D would have been still wicked. My big problem with some of this stuff, isn't changing schemes when things aren't working, it's changing them when they are. Good business isn't changing the parts that are in profit, it's changing the parts that are making losses. Except the NFL appears to have this blind approach that says if one part isn't working, you have to change the whole. Irrespective of 'why' it happens, which I do understand, I believe that teams are missing a trick here, by not retaining coaches and personnel from the parts that are working. You will find a HC who is prepared to work under those conditions, because there are only 32 HC jobs in the NFL. You set out the terms in the first place, and you will get candidates for the job. It could be argued that you might get better candidates, as you will get people with flexibility.

Even allowing for his rookie status, the kid is making a few good plays a game, whether it be a QB pressure, a deflection, a pass breakup, whatever. In the grand scheme of things, imho, he’s doing the sorts of things we can hope for on a regular basis in the future, and I’m convinced it will be a good and significant one. I think we can be a lot more confident in him, than Allenby.

Does this qualify under the 'just when you think things can't get any worse' heading?