Utah John

Cook is much tougher and stronger than you'd think.

The DaQuon Jones injury will probably turn out to be the most critical.

Bills can't adjust to playing at 1 pm on Sunday.

A Micah Hyde sighting!

The Bills continue to make marginal NFL QBs look like all-pros.

They're not playing against our defense.

You have to go around turnstiles. He just got out of the way.

Sloppy, frustrating game. At least the D got a stop.

It sure looks like the Pats know what the play is going to be.

No argument here. If he'd lined up right and then moved, it would have been illegal procedure. Maybe Morse should have told him to moved back. Or maybe there just wasn't a penalty at all.

Did you see that offside call? I couldn't see it with the camera from behind.

The call on Murray was correct, and his run into the defender was totally unnecessary. Dumb play. Cost us 4 points.

Are you sure about the HOF? Look at how QBs of 20 years ago, and how they're evaluated. How many SBs did he win? How many times was he All-Pro? How many times was he picked for the Pro Bowl? No one asks about the eye test, how good the guy was, because 20 years from now people will not remember the terrific plays. With luck, before Josh is done, he'll have checked all those boxes, but there are so many good QBs including the consensus best, Mahomes, he'll struggle to get that done.

Even Jerry Rice. OMG. Time for the Bills to sign another power back. With Harris gone, the Bills have no tough guy except for Murray. If HE gets hurt too, we're in trouble. Cook can't be the only RB.

No argument from me about Fields. I've never thought he was that good. He is making some occasional improvements, but in this league teams cut bait pretty quickly.

I'm pretty sure the NFLPA agreement is that draftees salaries are predetermined. All in dollars, not in property. This is going nowhere. Williams won the Heisman last year. This year there are at least two QBs in the PAC-12 alone who are better. Wiliams is by no means a lock on the first overall pick, or to be the first QB taken. Chicago has the first two picks next spring, unless it or Carolina starts winning, and may still be clinging to Justin Fields as the future, in which case either they'll trade one of those picks, or not picks a QB at all.

I counted 12 error plays in the first half, three in the third quarter, and only one in the fourth. The Bills were shut out in the first three quarters, scored at the beginning of the fourth, and then again later in the fourth. I'm guessing there's both correlation AND causation going on here.

I don't think the NFL will ever go to full-time officials. All these officials come up through HS and college ranks while holding down regular, full-time jobs and careers. You're gonna tell some person who's in the middle of a long and successful career on the outside, where they're making most of their income, to step away and focus on prepping for the next game, all week long? It's hard to see what they'd be doing all that time, and it's even harder to see many people accepting that. Does anyone think they'd be able to slide back into their other career after the NFL is through with them? And they probably LIKE their main jobs and won't want to stop doing them. So full-time refs is probably not the solution. But there are so many cameras catching all the action. Put half a dozen trained refs, not necessarily ready to be on the field but experienced at the college level, watching a dozen video screens, with controls to focus in on particular plays and actions, at every game. College refs will probably be happy to take the gig, make some money, and get noticed by the NFL for possible on-field jobs in the future. Their direction: When you see something, say something. If Davis gets punched in the face and loses the ball, let's not award the ball to the Jets, let's penalize Okereke for unsportsmanlike conduct and let the Bills keep the ball. Thanks for pointing that out. I missed it completely during the game.

There are 2-3 first downs every game just sitting there, waiting -- no, begging -- for Josh to run up and take them. But Zoloft Josh is turning down those opportunities, and throwing into coverage instead. And the defenses know he isn't going to run. So they stick like glue to the receivers and ignore Josh. What he needs to do is start taking those running opportunities, to force the defense to respect that. THAT'S what's needed to get the receivers some space; except for Diggs they don't seem to be able to do it on their own.

FWIW, even if 99 wasn't caught punching Brown, the NFL will review the tapes and see what's what. Hefty fine if he really did punch Brown in the face -- also possibly busted fingers if he wasn't careful where he punched -- and a slight chance of a suspension. The message I learned after that brawl, when the Giants got 3 UCs and the Bills got 1 and they all offset, was that if there's a brawl, go for it, big time. Don't actually punch anyone, which if seen will get you ejected, but definitely gang up on a single opponent and bury the poor guy. As long as there's a single UC penalty on the other side, it's time for some NHL action. There were missed calls favoring both sides, all through the game. I think the final play was perfect -- just enough contact to disrupt the play, not enough to draw a flag, and plenty to put the Giants and their fans into a mental tailspin.

The question ought to be, if the Bills don't make the playoffs this year, should McDermott be fired? If they play as poorly going forward as they did the last two games, they're going to struggle to finish above .500. Losing White, Milano, and Jones hurts the defense but the defense is still playing better than the offense, which can't blame the lousy O line of yesteryear for their struggles. And Josh looks like he's playing well, protecting the ball, hitting open receivers, and running with success but only when necessary. So what's left? Gimme a D, gimme an O, gimme an R...

By this time every year, we realize that the preseason strength evaluations of the various teams and divisions, are all hit or miss. By the time we play a team later in the year, they could be better or worse (injuries) than they are now. Just play the games and don't worry about it. That's what we heard the Bills say about sport science, but I've never seen anything other than that. I'd like to know how many sports and how many games are the basis for their conclusions. Show us the data, please.

Fournette was still playing at a high level last season. Maybe the Bills suspect he's now fallen off the cliff, like Dalvin Cook appears to have done, but it's worth bringing Fournette in to kick the tires.

He meant melee.

True. The article I posted a link to only talked about how many sacks each team's defense was getting, not how many its offenses were giving up. For three out of six games, our offense was tremendous. For the other three, it was terrible. We had the same O line for all six. I think it comes down to defensive personnel and defensive schemes on the part of the opponent, and whether our OC is putting our guys into positions to succed.