Utah John

Lots of draft picks coming up next year, and the guys cast off by other teams are probably feeling like rent-a-guys who will be replaced with more talented younger players next year. Still, you'd think players in that situation would at least be playing hard to try to get held on next year.

My wife took one look at the Seahawks unis and said they have Gumby on their team now.

Every team has a crap game at least once a season. This is a wake-up call that they need to keep making the effort the did before, and take the breaks when they're delivered on a silver platter between the 2 and the 4. These guys are professionals and will get what passes for their A game back. New Orleans at Orchard Park -- a home game against a strong opponent. I think they'll have no trouble getting up for this one.

There is no way it makes sense to cut multiple players on a playoff-bound team for a draft pick NEXT YEAR. Create holes NOW on a tight-knit team, eliminate depth we'll probably need later in the season, "reward" players who have been making good contributions by cutting them -- you've got to be kidding.

About trading Watkins and trading for Benjamin -- There are some secondary considerations that make this a win. 1. We got a second and a good player for Watkins, and gave up a third and a seventh for Benjamin. Win. 2. Watkins is in the last year of his rookie contract and was not going to re-sign in Buffalo. He'll be a FA after this year (and probably a Patriot next year). Benjamin's option year is picked up so we keep him next year too. Win. 3. Watkins was not a good influence in the locker room. Beane and McDermott know Benjamin and they wouldn't be bringing him in if they didn't think he'd be part of the process. Presumed win. 4. Watkins little, Benjamin big. Probable win. 5. I don't know if it's possible to have too many draft picks in one year, but the Bills might have found out. They had too many in 2018, to be able to absorb so many rookies into a tight knit veteran team. Look for the Bills to package more picks to move up on remaining picks.

What the Bills are doing is sometimes called addition by subtraction. Get rid of certain people and end up with more than you started with. What they're doing is establishing a core of team-first players. They will bring in a boatload of rookies next year who will find out what it NOW means to be a Buffalo Bill. When Dareus, Watkins, Gilmore and others found when they got here was a group of guys, not a team. The purge is now complete, I think. The Bills are doing much better than I expected considering that the purge also cost them a lot of their top talent. Their success is really important because it validates what McDermott is doing. He could have done the very same things, but if a couple of the games had gone the other way, there would be terrible grumbling. As it is, this is an exciting, tough team to play and I haven't had this much fun watching them for years.

The Bills are an imperfect team in a league of imperfect teams. For once they have their heads on straight, they're working together, playing football good enough to win most of the time. They did addition by subtraction, building the team's interconnectedness by getting rid of the prima donas. But, they also got rid of some real talent. So they're winning by putting good not great players out there who are devoted to each other. That formula will work most of the time. But our offense is just not reliable enough. I do not blame Taylor, I blame thinning out of talent at WR, TE, and O line. The Bengals tried hard to give us that game and we couldn't accept. The Raiders gave us four turnovers and except for Milano (on defense) we didn't do much with them. There will be games where the O just can't get it done. They will probably lose a couple of games they should win, the rest of the way. 9-7 is within reach, and 10-6 is manageable. If they beat the Jets (NO guarantee about that) they'll be 6-2 and just need to split their remaining games to get to 10. They're halfway to the magic threshold of 10 wins. They beat the Broncos, a likely wild card competitor, which is very good. But they have to play two good AFC West teams on the road, and the head to heads with the Dolphins will be opportunities for the fish to derail the Bills. I don't know if they hate us as much as we hate them, but those will be tough games. And Brady. He and Grouch are watching all the Bills tapes, taking notes on how to carve up that defense with quick passes. Their offense is really good. There are some tough games ahead and the Bills will lose some of them. They've moved up to the top third of the league but they'll have to keep struggling to stay there. One caution: The Bills are one Shady hamstring or one TT anything from disaster. Chicken counting is hazardous.

The biggest lesson I am taking from this season, so far, is that character and heart are far more important than people have been thinking. Most teams and fans focus on the measurable factors (speed, time in agility drills, weight lifting, jumping, etc) and no one pays attention to the intangibles. Whaley drafted some real locker room cancers. Young kids coming in at 21 thinking they're God's gift and just entitled to show up and get rich. Some of them outgrow this, learn to take their craft seriously, take care of their bodies, and work hard every day to improve. Some don't do this. The guys who work hard must shake their heads or throw up in their mouths at how much the lazy slackers make. The guys who have the intelligence to figure out how plays really work or don't work, must have the same reaction about the dotards. I look at guys like Hyde, Poyer, TT, Kyle Williams, and Eric Wood as examples for how players should approach the game. Not all of these guys are the most talented at their position in the NFL, but they are all strivers. I look at Jerry Hughes and I see a guy who's grown up and become one of the leaders. I look at Marcel Dareus and I see a tremendously disappointing, highly talented but lazy prima dona. Hughes and Dareus are buddies, so why did one guy turn around his game and the other guy just piss away his chance? Put aside for a moment all of Watkins' injuries, which clearly affected his performance. He was just a bad guy to have in the locker room. Why didn't Whaley find out about that? Why on earth did he give up so much to get him, without finding out what kind of man he is? Whaley spent a pick on Karlos Williams, probably the most egregious waste of talent I can think of. So he had a good rookie year, big deal, he couldn't act like a professional, take care of his body, stay in shape. Gone. Chris Hogan would fit in great with this year's team. So would Gillislee. The fact that they're not here is a major failure of Whaley. The "loss" of Gilmore is an example of addition by subtraction. The Bills are simply better off without him, and it's just great that NE is paying so much for his services. McDermott and Beane are clearly much more in tune with what kind of person a player is. Also McDermott's style of leadership is helping the players become leaders themselves, and when that happens in any organization, the whole place gets better results.

How was it that Lynch was beaten out by Freddie Jackson in Buffalo? Jackson has far more heart and determination, but Lynch had more physical talent. If he had used it while in Buffalo who knows how things would have shaken out. I say all that as a fan of Jackson -- one of my all-time favorite Bills. But I don't think other teams game-planned to stop him, where the Seahawks opponents probably did game plan Lynch.

Whoever it was who replaced Humber against the Bengals managed to play while invisible. I don't think I ever heard his name called or saw him make an impact. Humber please come back as soon as you can.

I thought it was interesting that on all the replays of Crabtree's catch, they started well after he pushed the DB away. There's no indication from those replays about the obvious foul Crabtree committed. You can't blame the players or the teams. They want to win and they have to play in the environment that exists. WRs and TEs will push off all game, catch a lot of balls and are willing to take an occasional OPI call like it was a tax they have to pay. If they didn't do that, they'd catch fewer balls and be benched or cut. Teams could teach WRs not to play like that but why would they? The NFL is on a steep, slippery slope toward WWF standards. No one will take it seriously, and the fans of actual sports will move on.

I'd be happy to pay for access to Courier-Express articles. If you ask me the wrong paper went out of business.

The only defense I can muster for Dennison isn't much of a defense. It's that the WRs and now the TEs are so talent-deficient that the defenses are stacking the box. There aren't any cutback lanes for Shady. The reason this isn't much of a defense for Dennison, is that this year's WRs aren't much worse than last year's. Watkins hardly played. Woods was better than people realized at the possession game. Now the only option for possession is the TEs, and with Clay hurt, they're too easy to cover. OK, so, you've got a very elusive RB, a pretty good power RB (Tolbert), the best running QB in the league, and a pretty mobile O line. You've got two weeks. Put in a very heavy run-first offense, including the option plays for the QB to run or hand off. Dennison doesn't have Payton Manning here, a great but immobile passer. He has the opposite. A decent passer (yes, really) who runs great. But TT just looks hesitant to run now, like he's having it drilled into his head not to. I agree with the OP that what's going on is a coordinator who's determined to impose his vision on the team, not to use the talent that's there to win. Greg Roman would be a big improvement. He put in the offense that Anthony Lynn simplified to get good results.

The Biils showed you can't win in this league even with a strong defense and a good running game. If you can't throw, you're too easy to stop. Take out Watkins, Matthews, Charles Clay, and Robert Woods -- what would you expect to happen? Andre Holmes is the opposite of a 7-11 -- he's never open. Zay Jones could turn out OK but he's getting doubled. There just isn't any talent left. Kaelin Clay's biggest play of his career came when he was playing for the University of Utah. Utah was playing Oregon when Oregon was really good, and Clay caught a long pass and was running in for a TD that would put Utah up by 14. But the showboat dropped the ball just before crossing the goal line, just friggin dropped it on purpose thinking he'd already scored, and the Oregon defender picked it up and ran it back for a TD the other way. Tie game and Utah would go on to lose and lose a chance for the Rose Bowl. So that's our new go-to guy. It hurt a lot to have Mabin playing in place of E.J. Gaines. And apparently no one playing in place of Humber, whom I'd never heard of before this season, but who showed by his absence how good he is. If Charles Clay is seriously injured, it's tank time. Either that or the Bills mortgage their future by trading too much for a third-rate WR or TE. I'd prefer the tank. Let the friggin Jets beat us twice to get to 5-11 and we edge them out for whoever the second-best looking QB is. Cleveland will take the best looking one and sprinkle poison fairy dust on him, and his career will be over before it starts.

Just wondering if Gilmore has made any tackles this year. I mean, intentional tackles, not where he happened to get run over on the play and couldn't dodge out of the way, so the ball carrier tripped over his prone, inert body. And Gillislee looks like a guy who's a great offensive or defensive coordinator, but lousy as a head coach. As a backup for Shady, when Gillislee came in, he could attack the D with energy and aggressiveness. But when he's on the field all the time, maybe he just can't keep the energy levels as hight

I think the biggest difference between the O and D is that the D plays consistently well much more of the time. Other teams generally get a couple of long drives (Atlanta did better, but with a really good offense), but the Bills force a lot of 3 and outs or short drives. The Bills O sometimes gets it going and dominates, but the next possession is a 3 and out. What's up with that? I really would like to see the Bills get MORE dominant on O when they have a lead. Step on their throat, as the current buzz phrase has it. I don't think this is correct. My understanding is that when the Bills came to him and told him they wanted him to take a pay cut, that essentially released him from his contract and let him offer his services to any other team. He got no takers, at least none he wanted, so he re-signed for less money.

We won't know who the best QB in this year's draft is for a couple of years. It takes some guys a couple of years to find their game. Aaron Rogers sat for a year or so behind Brett Favre, for heaven's sake, and he's the best QB playing now (my opinion). Other guys light up the league for a year or so, and then get hurt (so bad about RGIII, what a waste), or it turns out they played great because their O line and WRs and RB were great and he was not so much. Or the league figures out their game and how to stop it (Kaepernick). For now, enjoy watching Watson and the other new QBs, and watching to see how they develop. If you love football you love watching good players, even if they're on other teams.

He and the other DBs have played very well, but I think a big reason is that the D line is putting so much pressure on the other QBs. If Dareus gets healthy and gets his head on straight (not holding my breath), the D line will be even better and the DBs will miraculously get even better too.

Not sure if anyone else posted this, but on the fourth and 1 play, the missing Bills defender was the LB who should have covered the RB who came out of the backfield, ran across the line to gain, and turned around, wide open. But Ryan was not looking his way. The biggest break of the game was Ryan failing to take advantage of our biggest mistake of the game. Whoops, my mistake. The play with the RB wide open over the middle was a little earlier, on second and 5 from the 14. The RB makes the first down easily. Instead Ryan completed to a WR and White pushed him out of bounds, setting up the final two incompletions.

What Ryan was able to do, was push the ball. He couldn't throw it, which requires his hand to be around the ball and in control of it. The announcers kept saying that Ryan had regained control of the ball. If he had, the ball would have travelled farther and looked like a pass. This wasn't a case where the QB has control, has his arm go forward, and then someone blocks his arm's motion so the ball squirts out. That would have been an incomplete pass. But, nothing like that actually took place. No one interfered with the motion of Ryan's arm going forward. Therefore the reason the ball moved like it did was that it was pushed and not thrown.

You fellow old timers can probably recall message boards reading just like this from 1999. Just substitute "Doug Flutie" for "Tyrod Taylor". I've been making the point for a while now that they're very similar in what they bring. Both short. Both extremely athletic and elusive. Both pretty good passers but not elite. Both focused on good down and distance, moving the chains, protect the ball. The difference is that Flutie actually had a lot better offensive weapons to work with. Eric Moulds and Andre Reed and Peerless Price. Thurman Thomas and Antowain Smith. Much better O line. And the defense still had Bruce Smith and Ted Washington. Taylor is winning with a very good D line, which is making the LBs and DBs look better than they probably are, an O line that hasn't figured out its blocking schemes yet, a great RB, a good TE, and the worst starting WRs we've had in a generation. Another big difference: Flutie was 37 in 1999, at the tail end of his career. Taylor is in his prime years as an NFL QB. Also -- In 1999, the Bills didn't have a single game with 300 yards passing. Enjoy the ride. Taylor will continue to show he's very good but not elite. He'll miss some critical plays, and you can choose either to remember those or the excellent plays he makes including some no other QB can make.

It's nice to have DBs who tackle. Ask Gilmore how 2-2 tastes.

This week I made the comparison between TT and Doug Flutie, who are very similar. Both short, both pretty good but not elite passers, both relying on strong defenses and not beating yourself, both focused on staying in good down and distance, keeping the ball and moving the chains. Also both supremely athletic and elusive. That's gonna be my story and I'm sticking with it. All the way to the playoffs, just like Flutie did in 1999.

Yeah. Ordinarily the FG is the smart call but the LOS is clearly owned by the Bills.

Can we get ANOTHER break?