Utah John
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The storyline from last night's game will be that Brady beat Manning, which he usually does. But Brady does not play defense. I think Belichick spends days and days in the off-season working up new defensive schemes specifically to stop Manning. Manning is Belichick's white whale, except unlike Ahab, Belichick usually wins.
Brady played very well last night. No surprise there, he's a great QB. I don't think Denver does anything special to try to stop him, which is a serious mistake. Also I do agree that the Pats tend to get away with penalties that other teams get called for, but that's not the difference between the teams. The difference is coaching. As much as I dislike Belichick, I have to acknowledge he's a great coach.
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Schwartz. Partly because he's a great DC and was a good HC, and partly to take him away from us.
I would rather see the NJJs take a coordinator away from the Pats, of course.
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Style points don't count. Margin of victory doesn't count except sometimes in tiebreakers. What counts is winning the game you're playing, and positioning yourself to win later games.
Also, very few injuries came from this game. Another advantage to the boring, conservative approach.
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The point is, they were playing the Vikes and the Jets. I assume Hackett has plays ready to go that he doesn't want to reveal to opponents until he needs them. So he went boring and conservative, and bled the clock away against the Jets, and turned things over to the defense to win. Worked out. The question is, can they raise their game when they're playing a better team? Everyone is assuming that because they didn't do more against the Jets, that they couldn't have done more. Remember back to the preseason when they looked like a trash fire, and everyone was panicking. Then they went to Chicago and beat the Bears. Perhaps we should consider that the Bills are approaching games professionally, as opportunities to win with the least cost and without giving any edge to future opponents.
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How many points? Enough to win.
Box checked.
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Two points. First, the Bills were playing the NJJ in NJ, a week after the NJJs almost (shoulda) beat the Patriots in Foxboro. Tom Brady a week earlier was 20/37 for 261 and three TDs, and he was fighting hard for the win all the way. I think Orton could easily have had 400 yards against that secondary if necessary, but he did enough to win easily, he didn't get pummeled behind our rotten O line against the Jets great pass rush, he didn't throw any picks or do anything to light a fire under the Jets -- let's just enjoy the win.
Second, it's the season to talk about coaching moves, and I think the biggest threat is that Schwartz becomes the new HC of the Jets next season. The Bills pulled a rabbit out of their hat when Pettine left suddenly, but who would Schwartz's replacement be? And who's the better coach, Marrone or Schwartz? The Jets will get their personnel situation figured out in 3 or 4 years, and if Schwartz is still their guy, watch out.
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Weather determines the outcome. Bills can't run behind that O line, whether Fred is back or not. Chiefs run run run and can't pass. On a snowy field, advantage Chiefs since our D line won't get traction. Dry field, Bills.
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The 1999 team was one covered kickoff from a very realistic run to the Super Bowl, where I think they would have beaten Saint Louis. This year's defense has its strengths but let's not get carried away.
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So basically this move stashes a guy away for the rest of the year. The Bills still have to pay his salary, but they don't have to cut or waive him where another team could pick him up. Maybe they want to keep him around to compete for a job next year. But, he's not in a situation where he could latch on with another team that needs safety help right now.
To me, this sounds like an abuse of the IR category, which I thought was to be used when a player is actually Injured and therefore put on Reserve.
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Look not only at current ability but at future cost. Some of the Bills strong D linemen will get big pay raises next year, particularly Jerry Hughes. He deserves it too. But the Bills have a lot of money already locked up on the D line and he will probably not be here next year. I would try to re-sign him NOW and if that doesn't work then trade him. Seriously. Jarius Wynne has been playing well enough to take snaps away from Mario Williams so one of them could switch to the RDE position, with plenty of backups remaining. The Bills have a nice problem with so much D line talent but it's still a problem nevertheless. And the weakness on the O line is appalling.
This is the kind of tough, hard-nosed, cold-eyed move that Belichick makes ever year or so, that has kept his team younger and stronger.
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Not only did the Bills waste a 3rd rounder on Graham, they actually traded up in the round to be sure of getting him.
Not the worst pick in Bills history, by far, but still pretty disappointing.
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Under the unspoken rules of the NFL, it would have been disrespectful to put EJ in to mop up. Disrespectful to the Jets. To Orton. Most of all, to EJ, who needs to get past this time and get his head back around the idea that he's a starter, not a mopper-upper.
I really think the Bills' plan is to let Orton play this year and next, while EJ sits and watches like Aaron Rogers did, and then let him take over.
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I'm shocked we won, I thought we would come out flat. I'm not used to seeing the Bills win on the road.
Any road victory is fantastic in my book, especially against a division opponent.
The Bills have a better record playing outside New York State this year (3-1) than at home (2-2). This is a good trend. It has a lot to do with the strength of the team being the defense, especially the D line.
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Hey, Doug, my eyes are up here!
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bradham cant cover a tight end. Alonso & brown can.
weak- Alonso
strong- Brown
middle- Bradham
OK, the reason they call it the weak side is that that's where the tight end is NOT lined up. So if you want Alonso to cover the TE I see a problem right there. But I agree, Kiko is built to run, and he might be the Gronk solution in time.
Most importantly though, the personnel will still be very good, provided they pony up the cash to keep Jerry Hughes.
Yeah, I think Hughes will be the first salary cap victim. Jarius Wynne will be next year's Hughes. I love Hughes, I think stealing him for ...gosh I can never remember that guy's name... is a major reason the D is so good this year. But there's too much money on the D line and too many holes on the O line. Something has to give.
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Here's all I can think of in defense of Hackett's play calling yesterday. Napoleon said, 'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.' The Jets were clearly not in gear and seemed determined to screw up. The worst thing the Bills could do was toss an easy pick six or fumble on an exposed play like a screen, and give the Jets a chance. So the Bills had all those runs into the middle of the line, all those three and outs, all those 3 minutes of possession time that did nothing for us but gave the Jets less time to do anything of their own. So now and then Orton would pass, and that worked out fine. It was boring but still satisfying watching the game bleed away while the Bills slowly built up their margin of victory.
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I think the key isn't Kiko or Spikes, it's Schwartz. He'll want to leave if there's any HC job available. I hope there's someone on his staff who is picking up his system and who won't follow him to Schwartz's next job as (dare I say it?) HC of the New Jersey Jets.
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Another nice problem to have -- none of those guys are really getting old. Mario Williams and Spikes have been in the league a few years but have lots of mileage left. Kyle Williams is not slowing down at all and probably has three or four good years left. The rest are young guys with many years of dominance in their future.
We should face facts that we won't be able to keep all these guys. We have at least 7 starter-quality D linemen. If Brown and Bradham develop as expected, and Kiko returns, and Spikes comes back, I pity the opposition. But from our perspective we have too much talent to keep everyone, other teams will raid the Bills and overpay. There will be some tough decisions ahead about which ones to keep and which ones to let walk. The cold hard calculation is to let the older guys go (KWill and MWill) but KWill provides such leadership, we need him around particularly if Fred Jackson doesn't come back at full speed.
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The Bills are fairly consistent from week to week. The Jets are wildly inconsistent, and it usually comes down to whether good Geno or bad Geno shows up. I realize the Vegas experts have to set a betting line but if Geno is the QB I'd almost take their games off the board.
If Geno played against the Bills like he did against the Pats, it would have been a different game. I'm assuming the ridiculous play calling that Hackett inflicted on us was just a matter of not doing anything to interfere with the Jets self-destructing. No turnovers, no freebies, play good solid field position, score a few times, and watch the other guys shoot holes in their feet. If the Bills needed to move the ball more, they could have done so easily by passing almost every down. Every single run up the middle was a waste of a down. The Bills O line can't block the Jets' good D line, and I will have no idea whether Brown or Dixon is a legitimate runner until they get a chance to run through an actual hole.
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I haven't read all the posts on this topic so I apologize if I'm repeating something, but keep in mind that the Bills gave up a lot in the trade for Rob Johnson, and there's always a push from the front office to make their deals work out. I think I remember that Ralph Wilson was personally involved in the trade for Johnson, after watching Johnson look incredible with his former team in ONE GAME (I think he went 22 out of 24 passing). So there was always this controversy, that by playing Flutie the Bills were holding back on developing Johnson.
Flutie was a great competitor and leader, and we remember when he found ways to pull out a miracle win. We don't remember the losses or the times he didn't get the job done, when a more traditional QB like Johnson might have succeeded. We will never resolve this but the outcome was a big contributor to the disaster of the last decade.
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Geno Smith has good games from time to time. Hard to predict when the good ones will be. If he's on, our mediocre DBs will be the difference. If not our D line will devour him. That's why they play the game, because you never know how it will go.
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He compared it to a strike zone in baseball. You have different refs, but during the games the NFL refs seem to be greatly inconsistent.
There are a couple hundred pitches in a baseball game so the players have a chance to adjust if the strike zone is different than usual. A football game has fewer plays, but more to the point a given particular situation will come up only a few times. If holding is going to be called or not called for a particular technique, there is no chance to know that ahead of time, and the impact could be a drive stalling or being kept going. The point is there's a real need for consistency all the time, in all the games, because there aren't enough chances during a football game for the players to know what the rules du jour are.
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The way the Bills won was simply incredible and so out of recent character.
Well there were two teams on the field. The Vikings were playing the role that the Bills usually play, finding a way to lose. The Bills are simply a better team than Minnesota, which was usually the case in the past when the Bills snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Nice to be on this side of the divide.
Talking about capriciousness, Scott Norwood probably makes that SB kick 7 or 8 times out of 10. But he only got to try it once.
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Branch was a very good DT on a Bills team overstocked with great DTs. I'm surprised no one else has picked him up.
Bills 1.5 Point Underdogs to KC
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
The Chiefs are almost as inconsistent as the Jets. The Jets looked better playing in Foxboro the week before they played the Bills, than the Broncos did last night. Then the Jets went out and were a trash fire against the Bills, in NJ. Then they played pretty well yesterday. It must be an oddsmaker's nightmare to set the line for Jets games.
The Chiefs are also up and down. They destroyed the Pats then found it hard to get out of their own way. Last year they were a pick six on a stupid play, and a fumble recovery on a stupid play, away from losing to the hapless Bills while on their way to a great season record. Who knows what team shows up on Sunday.
The Bills OTOH are pretty consistent. They were about the same quality the first four games, trending gradually downward to the Texans game. Since Orton took over, they've been at the same B+ level every game, which has been good enough for three wins but not to beat the Pats. If they keep getting B+ play they'll finish 9-7, unless they chance into playing a better team when that other team has a bad day.