Utah John

Imagine a concert by a great pianist, who hits a few wrong notes over the course of 3 or 4 hours. Do you remember the beautiful music, or the wrong notes? Probably both. Stockton is still a very good announcer, with a great voice and a sense of what to say and not to say. Much better in this regard than a lot of the CBS announcers the Bills games often get. Some mistakes, sure, and they stood out to me too. I don't hear his games that often to know if this is a trend or an aberration.

The Bills D last year stunk. It was no surprise they went heavy on D in the draft, and considering the injuries to 1 and 2 it was good they went D on 3 as well. I think part of the improvement is due to the coaching and the players being on the same page this year, and the Ryan system making stars out of LBs and DEs. Still, if you had been asked before the season to pick the two Bills defenders who were likely to have a shot at the Pro Bowl, would you have picked Zach Brown and Lorax? Not Dareus, not Gilmore, not Kyle Williams, not Darby...? Considering some of the moves that have turned out golden (TT, Shady, Incognito, ZB, Lorax) maybe it's time to see our FO is doing OK. More to the point, that our pro scouting team is doing great. Now if we could just draft college players with as much accuracy as we pick up pros...

The Steelers have been winning with offense for a couple of years now. Their historically great D is no more. They have some good players but not enough to dominate. Unless injuries or bad officiating happen, the Bills should do much better against the fish.

It was great downfield blocking. Here's my question. Shady started the play to the left, and then cut back. The Bills had three receivers out to the right, and they didn't go downfield past the stick, which is odd considering it was third and long. Instead, they got into position to make the blocks. So could it be that the play was designed to start left and then cut back? I just thought it was Shady and his great vision and instincts and quickness that made the play work, but maybe that's not the story at all.

Sherman had his head around, looking at the ball, for quite a while, and it might have looked like he was competing for the ball. If the ref saw those things and not Jones' arm being held, I can see why there was no call on the field, particularly from behind the players. The replay makes it clear there was interference, and what else is replay for if not to correct gross errors? The problem is that most PI calls are not so clear-cut. If PI calls and non-calls are allowed, there will be no end to the arguments, first whether or not there needs to be a review, and then about the call itself. I think the league just doesn't want to go there at all, and it's willing to accept the gross mistakes when they happen a few times a year. In this case the PI happened at the end of a close game, so the magnitude of the incorrect non-call is larger. Too bad for Atlanta. They got robbed.

Kap has the right to his opinion and to express it peacefully, as he's been doing. You have the right to disagree, and to express that opinion peacefully, any way you want. But if you're spending all this time and effort on talking about the protest and the counter-protest, he's achieved his aim, which is to draw attention to the problem.

I wasn't paying close attention, but I thought the Bills had signed him last week. This is a disappointment. KW has good skills and there have been several times this season where we could have used him.

Was that Butch Byrd? Jarius Byrd played safety.

The Jets knew their early schedule was a killer, and it's working out as expected. How many more losses before they write off the season, and start to look at guys like Marshall as expendable for future assets? My view is Marshall is exactly the kind of receiver the Bills have needed forever -- Eric Moulds was the closest we had to Marshall's size and strength, and that was a generation ago. I'd give up a 3rd if we could sign him to a long-term contract.

The field will likely be wet, with mild and humid conditions (high 60s, cloudy, rainy). Perfect for a productive run game.

If I were there, I'd stand at attention, too, like I always do. That's my statement of what's proper. Kaepernick's is different, and that's OK with me.

I think the Bills fans should treat him like they would any other opposing QB. As for the protest thing, that's his business. The fact that he's free to do that does more to show the world how special and exceptional our country is, far more than waving flags ever will. As a retired Air Force officer, I can say my service was intended to preserve the rights of everyone, including the right to speak your mind.

There are legitimate reasons for the media to question the Bills recent success. OK. But, few teams consistently blow out opponents. Few teams have balanced attacks and solid, aggressive defenses, and reliable STs. Nearly all teams are weak in one area or another. The Bills are a pretty balanced team, pretty good in all phases (with rushing making up for passing on offense), without obvious weaknesses. They belong in the second quintile, I think. A quintile is 1/5th of the total, or 7 or 8 teams in the NFL. There are 7 or 8 teams clearly better than the Bills, at least now. The Bills belong in the second group of 7 or 8 teams. Exactly where they fit in that group will vary week to week. If not too many more serious injuries happen, and we get Shaq and Sammy back, we could challenge to get into the top quintile. It's nice having this discussion, and not being Cleveland.

I thought Hughes earned a sack too. But all these plays will be reviewed by the league, and adjustments made as needed. Hughes has somewhat fewer sacks this year, at least that's my impression without checking, but he's playing at an even higher level. He was back in coverage a lot yesterday, doing more LB than DE work and making plays all over the field.

Every player has a range of quality where he usually plays, with a ceiling and a basement. TT's showing us his ceiling is occasionally pretty high, when he makes some spectacular play to escape a pass rush, or hits a tough throw (or both). Generally he's an average QB, with his overall score pulled down by often missing routine, must-make throws. He has GOT to be able to keep drives alive by hitting quick outs and slants, and he misses 50% of throws that any NFL QB should make 99% of the time. He sure is fun to watch, and he's the best we've had since Bledsoe, but gosh he's not dependable. The thing that I really don't like is that he doesn't seem to be improving in this area. At the same time, he's not hitting his deep throws anymore. As for the game, I think the Bills play to match their opponents. If they're playing a strong team, they play well. They were better than the Rams with the Rams missing 3 out of 4 D linemen, but the Bills played down to them, particularly the O. Without the pick-six I don't know if we win.

I work for the federal government. There's a law called the Hatch Act that forbids political activities at work. We aren't at work to talk politics, we're at work to work. There are times when something's bugging me and I would love to chat about it with someone at work, but if that gets started it would not only waste time, it would cause divisions and resentments among the work force. What if the senior government civilian in an organization came out for one of the candidates? Think what that would do to people. Thank God for the Hatch Act, seriously.

J Williams is a rookie and hasn't earned game playing time, which is not to say he's not playing well. There's a clear pecking order with McCoy, Gillislee, and then scraps. Williams has to show he can manage blitz pickups (speaking of that, Mr McCoy, how do you spell o-le?), hot reads as a receiver, motion formations, etc in order to get time on the field during games. It's all part of the learning process, and with McCoy and Gillislee in front of him, he's not going to get much of a chance for now. That said, during preseason Williams looked really good, which is what kept him on the roster. Will JW turn out better than KW? I honestly don't know. But KW was a real force last year, a true weapon, and the running game this year misses him

Giving him a tryout, sure. If he's in shape and has his head on straight, signing him and cutting Bush would be an improvement. Maybe Bush isn't showing anything in practice these days, but I don't see him on the field. KW would be a complete improvement when we need a power back who also poses a home run threat.

It isn't a curse as much as a bad choice. The Bills players from the Fredonia days talked about how the town's layout was conducive to a bunch of guys hitting the bars for a couple of beers after practice. The result was a strong sense of team bonding. I haven't been to SJF but what I hear is that the layout just doesn't work out the same. Moving to SJF was a financial one, to regionalize the team. Are there more Rochester-area fans buying tickets because training camp is near there? I don't know, but it would have to be a heck of a lot of tickets to make up for missing the playoffs since Fredonia.

Speaking of AZ, maybe the decisive loss to the Bills got them questioning themselves, and they followed up with a stinker against LA. Probably won't happen to NE, what with Brady coming back. I'm not sure whether to root for the Browns, or tell them to duck.

Oh, come on. Give Affleck a break. Really. He's a fan of a team, the same as us, just a different team. I've had worse reactions than that to a Bills loss.

SAS is a jerk, no question, but a lot of his criticisms about Ryan are valid. This week I'll call him Rex, but more often than not he's Wrecks in my book. Hoping to be proven wrong as long as he coaches the Bills.

Games like this, with teams that don't know each other particularly well, and with more or less equivalent talent level and strengths/weaknesses, usually come down to good coaching. Can the coach find weaknesses to exploit? Are there tendencies that are revealed from film study and analytics? Does the coach have his players focused and confident? I have no clue how good the Rams are this year. They've been pretty bad lately but sometimes improvement comes quickly. Fisher keeps getting hired because he was working somewhere else, like a guy who's famous for being famous. I think he's consistently ... meh. Ryan can do a great job getting a team ready, with lots of creative defensive plays, or his guys can just show up and get beat. We've all seen both. Who knows what next week will bring.

Well if the pats don't give up, what team was that yesterday that didn't even try to get a quick TD with five minutes left?

Here's what I liked best of all: During the last five minutes or so, with their team down by two scores (16 points), the Pats just gave up. Really. They quit. Amazing. You assume any pro team will make its best effort, always, under any circumstances. Their TE, Bennett, was killing the Bills' DBs. Gronk was on the field. Amendola, Edelman, Hogan, all ready to go. And, the Pats were running routine running plays into the line, apparently to pad stats for their RBs. No effort to score quickly to try to win. Incredible. They GAVE UP.