Utah John

The Bills D is loaded with first round draft picks. The O has one (Allen) and a lot of other guys who are determined to show the rest of the league they are better than they thought. It is time for the O to start getting top-notch talent. Drafting WRs high is almost as big a crap shoot as drafting QBs. Lots of WRs with athleticism, height, hands, etc still don't pan out for one reason or another. Generally Beane has been able to fill out the WR room with really good players without investing first round picks on the position. I think his focus will be on guard and center picks. Once again the Bills will have a very high draft number so the eye candy picks won't be options.

The Bills RG, Feliciano I think, pulled around the left side and was beyond the LOS when the pass was thrown. I think it was borderline whether he was so far downfield that he should have drawn a penalty. Fortunately we didn't get a flag (maybe none was warranted) and the TD counted. But because he was downfield he wasn't available to help block for Allen in the pocket.

I think Jairus Byrd might be a better match than Marcel Dareus. Byrd had a couple of good years with the Bills, then signed a big FA contract with the Saints, and suddenly discovered he just didn't feel like playing -- but getting paid was another story. He was good at that part.

Other teams are playing the Bills and Chiefs by keeping two safeties deep and denying the deep plays that Allen and Mahomes love. If we could assure ourselves that the Jags will do the same thing, the Bills could still win easily with Trubisky playing the whole way, making accurate short to medium passes and moving the down field. The Bills have too much talent for the Jags to stop them. But without Allen in the game, the fear factor for the defense goes away, and suddenly those short to medium passes won't be open. The Bills will be challenged and could be frustrated if the Jags can play even ordinary-level defense (I'm not sure they can). This is the difference that Allen brings. I would play Allen and make it clear to him that the crossing routes over the middle, or quick outs, 10 yards down the field, are all he needs to win. Force the Jags to bring a safety down, and maybe move their LBs back, and then let Allen hand it off to a RB with a decent chance of success. Only when there's a single safety deep should Allen look for the long passes he loves. Basically this approach makes Allen earn the chances he wants to take. Allen sometimes plays better on the road. I think the home crowd in Buffalo juices him up too much. On the road he's calmer and deadlier. Anyway, if the Bills are up by 28 in the second half, sit Allen down and let Trubisky get some work.

Consider the possibility that the coaches had a chat with Allen at halftime, telling him that he needed to take the easy stuff and stop trying to be a hero. Allen might be a demigod to some here, but to the coaches he's one of their good players but still someone they can criticize as necessary. It's their job to make sure Allen does HIS job. His stats for the second half were quite good. Double those (as if he'd been playing smart the whole game) and he would have had an excellent game.

No dome. It's football, not track and field. Weather is supposed to play a part in how games go. Now that you mention it, isn't it time to bring back the Jills? Probably the Eichel situation will get resolved before the Jills situation is.

I think this is right, that the rules are more complex. For every horrible call (Colts v Titans, Jets v Bengals, Ravens v Lions) there is an amazingly accurate real-time decision that shows these guys can generally do the job. But this is no excuse for the bad call. In fact it's a deeper indictment of the referees. They CAN do a good job, so why do they screw up so much?

That's true. Jerry only ties up one holder at a time. You never see an opposing O line dedicate two men to holding Jerry.

Call like the one you mentioned aren't just routine bad calls. They can change the outcome of games, and in a tough competitive league that can be the difference between a team making or not making the playoffs. The NFL is still a lot better than WWE but sometimes it's just laughable.

I think the Bills might have taken a look at Shaq after his time in Houston, maybe bringing him back, but there's no sense in doing that with a veteran when there are much cheaper rookies and second year players available who bring equivalent skills.

Let's put it this way. If the Bills ever have a statue of Hughes put up, it will have an arm of the opposing player across his neck. That's just how we see him most of the time.

About going for two on the last touchdown -- the Bills won by 15. What was the point spread? I think I saw it was 16. I could be wrong, and it could by one thing has nothing to do with the other. Maybe it was a case like someone else suggested, that the Bills took the opportunity to try something new. But that doesn't really make sense -- if you have a new play, you don't try it out so your opponents see it on film.

I think it was good news that the Pats beat the Chargers. The Bills should be able to win the AFCE going away, and I am not worried about anyone catching them. But I am worried about the other top teams in the AFC. The Bengals and Browns losing was great news. The one that really matters was that the Colts choked away a chance to hand the Titans another loss. We need the best record in the conference, and the Titans still have the edge on us.

Consider the possibility that Daboll had complete confidence we could come out and take over the game after halftime, so he used the first half to try things. Yeah I'm not really buying that either but it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world. Also if you remember the movie Seabiscuit, part of the strategy in the big race at the end was to let the other horse think he was going to win, and then to tear out his heart by winning going away while he can't do anything about it. Whether this was planned or not, it probably will have that effect on the Dolphins, who got themselves fired up for this game after being shut out by the Bills last time, and made a lot of good plays, and still were tied 3-3 at halftime. Then were gutted and roasted like a trout in the second half. At this point, if the Dolphins can't trade for Watson, they'll probably settle for Nathan Peterman.

Gotta have that .5

Does that mean the longest streak for the Bills beating Miami, or any team beating Miami?

Beane doesn't chase solutions to problems. He has been successively upgrading each position on the field. He's finally got the defense manned up the way he wants with the possible exception of CB2. Now he can move on to the O line. He found Brown this year and that's great, but guard play has been the weakest link. The Bills are solid enough everywhere that they can spend a first on a beast for a guard, the kind of mauler that Feliciano was before he went all Jenny Craig and got too light to be effective. So I expect the Bills to dance with the guys that brung ya. The team they started with is the team they'll stay with. Despite the O line being worse than average, everything else is considerably better than average. All teams have a weak link, and it might as well be that the O line is ours. With Allen's abilities the O line does not doom the Bills from success in the postseason.

I'd love to see a compilation of videos for all the snaps Hughes gets, and the number of times he's held or assaulted without a call. No sense sending something like to the NFL, which WANTS all the players to see what happens to a guy who complains too much. But put it on line and talk it up so it gets traction on the daily TV shows.

I think Tua is making a statement today, that he's not the problem for the Dolphins. He's been playing great, with accurate passes into small windows.

Oliver is playing great but he seems to be playing against air. What's the story with the Dolphins' O line?

How is that not grounding?

The Colts are much better than people realize.

NO PENALTIES

Sloppy so far, but they've switched from almost making plays, to making plays. Encouraging.

Those runs don't fool anyone anymore.