Mango

My guess is Erie County gave the Pegula’s an opportunity to manage attendance and use the Hopener as a litmus test. The Pegula’s failed. Vaccinated only now.

I fully agree. I unfortunately will not be going to anymore games. I am not a "hide in your house kind of guy". But I am a "follow the rules, and do your best not to accidently kill your neighbor" kind of guy. I had certain expectations of the game based on how I live my life and my inner circle. 70,000 people screaming packed in like sardines seems like a bad idea unmasked, the guy next to me was spitting on me every time he was talking to me as well, I ended up just being masked for most of the game. I cannot imagine going back to a game under current protocols/enforcements. I am not sure what my expectations were, but my experience was not them.

I will include it here because I am unsure if it needs a new thread. A more interesting stat is that Brian Daboll continuously seems to put together an offense that has the QB hold onto the football for a super long time. Josh is regularly in the top 10 for Time to Throw (TT). Twice in the top 3 for longest time holding the ball. Which is fine. Rodgers, Wilson, Mahomes, have had years where they have been near the top. These guys can buy time and make things happen. BUT! If we are going to have a difficult time either getting the run game up and going early, or we want to be a pass first kind of offense, we have to be able to mix in some more west coast concepts and get the ball out super quick when we want to. High percentage, short yardage plays.

From a general sense, I felt a little bit "dirty" being anywhere indoors or out with 70,000 people. I just got off the phone with a buddy who got married this weekend who said the same thing about his wedding, and that was only about 100 people. Surprisingly, I had people mock me about wearing my mask in line for entry to the stadium. The people in my section asked me WTF I was wearing a mask when I got back from the bathroom and went on a rant about mask wearing being a bunch of trash. There was no enforcement of masks indoors, bathrooms, etc. Maybe it was just my own assumption, but not a single person at the gates checked for vaccine cards or negative covid tests. Maybe it is because I have the NYS passport on my phone, when I download my ticket, it automatically authorizes it, but I never provided any of that information to anybody getting my tickets or going through the gate. I have to say, as much as I love the Bills, it was rather uncomfortable for a number of reasons, part of them my own, but a good chunk not. If the Pegula's are unwilling to enforce and/or mandate certain requirements to keep people safe, I am glad the county is stepping in. EDIT: For all the eye rolls, vomit, etc. responses. I am in my mid-30's with an extensive athletic background. I am on gabapentin for neuropathy and colchecine for an enlarged heart, both due to Covid in December. I lost family who did the whole "if you are scared stay home" thing, until they had to go to the hospital because of a trip and fall. That person then gave it to my grandfather (they lived together) who now has congestive hear failure due to covid. He went to the hospital with complications and never came home and has since sold the house. I got covid from him, because there was nobody else to take care of him while he was sick, pre hospitalization. It is no joke out there guys.

I don’t have a great answer for this in general. In addition to asking price there are a lot of comments on this board about how Bojo needed to go because of holding for Bass. Is there really nobody else on the roster that we need to swap out our pretty productive punter? (That I wish was still here)

I am not your buddy, pal! 😂 I admittedly didn’t watch the presser and was replying to the tweet. I assumed there was more color to the comment.

The Gene Parmesan of good fortune.

The road to 19-1 starts today!

At the risk of taking the thread off track, I don’t know the solution yesterday. Obviously running more would have changed things. But Singletary was averaging 3.28 YPC before the Steelers went up by 10. So it’s not like the ground and pound would have kept them honest. The defense was proficient against the run.

If I recall I used to ride Singletary hard about his pass pro. His rookie year he was a liability out there on passing downs. BUT!!! I have to admit he has gotten MUCH better. I still think Moss needs to dress. But somebody needs to take the TJ Yeldon role on the depth chart.

If this is indeed the same play, a lot is different. For one, the personel is. It looks like in 2000 the TE is the guy in motion, not your WR. In fact, it does not look like there is a WR on the field in 2000. If the concept was the same, I think Josh did a bad job of selling it is a sneak. It also looks like the snap might have been a little mistimed with McKenzie coming across. He did a stutter like it was a sweep. Gilliam just sort of stands there and lets the play come to him, which sort of keeps Breida stuck in the backfield waiting for the next guy.

Re: The screen game: I will have to go back and watch, but off the top of my head there was one to Diggs that was blown up and another that Allen threw into the dirt. The screen game under Daboll has not been terribly great the last few years. Re Singletary: I went through the play by play on ESPN and checked each Singletary run before the Steelers went up 10 points. Devin Singletary had runs of 8, 2, 6 1, 1, 3, 2, for an average yards per carry of 3.29 . Since you pulled up some his individual runs, we probably used similar or the same source. You just happened to stop at the half and I went to when the Steelers went up +10. I agree the amount of times we ran creates a small sample size. But I also think some of the takes along the lines of "Just run the ball more Singletary is killing it at a million yards per carry" are disingenuous Everything I pulled was valid, all you had to do was go one more quarter and add a few more carries. Maybe you try a little more....

Right there has to be something they can do. But they also did do some different things yesterday with little to no success. I wouldn’t say that the run production/block was inconsistent (assuming that’s what you meant.typo). It was situationally bad. Like when you are running the 2:00 drill and you protect the end zone/big play/sidelines but give up the runs and short passes over the middle that chew up clock. I will have to go through the game again to see what formations were were in for the run plays we called. I actually don’t hate that we can never get the run going specifically. I’m upset we don’t have reliable ways to pick up 3-5 yards with high percentages. I don’t care if we take a surgical approach like Brady and get carved up, pound the ball with Marshawn Lynch, or have a great screen game like Gailey or Marshall Faulk. My issue is we don’t do any of this at a professional level. And we have never done any of those things well with Josh and Daboll. Given our personnel, I am tempted to think that going with a quick as, Brady-esque philosophy is the most applicable. We are never going to maul anybody with her OL, and I have little faith in our ability to draw up a quality screen game. It boggles my mind that I can’t think of a single pass where Allen hit the top of a 3 step drop and fired it as soon as he planted it.

Part of the issue is none of that was working. The screen game sucks and most definitely sucked yesterday. Before we were down by 10 Singletary was only averaging about 3 yards per carry. Once Pitt got a two possession lead, Singletary was getting 10 yards a clip. Pitt didn’t get up +10 until midway through the 4th. The quick passing game has been a weir anomaly under Daboll/Allen. I don’t have a great answer as to why. But when you break it down, the run game wasn’t working until the game was in hand. The screen game was failing. Our QB was jittery. I am not sure what else to do other than to get the quick passing game going. But that’s not anything that this offense has ever had in its wheelhouse. I just don’t know what the executable solution was.

I did not take it as a dig at Sanders, more of a, "he was hurt at TC, the dude gets open, we are having to force the issue in season because of it" Sanders had a crucial drop on 3rd down. I thought maybe McD could have been covering for him publicly in a "Sanders is super quality, missed some time, he has got to get the reps to get the timing down on a new team".

What an odd response. Maybe I am missing something, but if Josh is not in rhythm, surely we can do more than decide whether to hand the ball off, call options, or have him throw the ball. You know, like, some short quick high percentage passes to get him going a bit.

"We were trying to be aggressive" See: Our core game plan had not been working or 3.75 quarters of football, so we threw poop at the wall to see what stuck"

So that was the result from a 100% Dawkins? Yikes, it will most certainly be a long year if that is the case! (which I do not buy. Dawkins is not at 100%. Either from Covid, or laziness, or his dog died. I don't know)

So the guy just got embarrassed out there at full health?

I can get behind this. But I am not sure who he replaces though. Thinking about the game today, it’s amazing to me that with all the 4/5 WR personnel we marched out there how terrible of a job we did at finding any desirable match up anywhere with any consistency. I don’t think Davis solves this. We have yet to find much of a competent(consistent?)run game once McCoy left and we haven’t been able to make up for it in a high percentage short passing game either. It’s been going on for years now, which makes it frustrating and places blame on Daboll/McD, Josh, Beane, and the RB room. leaving the WR Corp out of this since it’s been a good group for 3 seasons now.

Dabolls offense under Allen has always seemed to lack the quick pass and efficient screen game. We almost never see Allen take a quick 3 step drop, hit the top and release immediately to a WR on a slant, in, etc. When the run game doesn’t work we really struggle to either design or execute (unsure which it is) an efficient counter to help make up for it.

There were some issues yesterday that far surpass Allen’s fumble. Like staring down receivers pre snap, not identifying the open receiver only to throw into the double covered primary, as well as issues controlling arc and velocity on long balls. Ill trade any of the above issues before I even think about his fumbling.

Sanders seemed to be getting open quite a bit yesterday. Josh just wasn’t really looking his way much. Putting in Davis does not really solve that problem.

Hot take: Since the closing of the BBMB this place has become way more fickle. Daboll isn’t perfect, the hype around him last year was way too high. Him and Josh have their issues and sometimes they are the same thing at the same time. The 4th down play against Houston comes to mind. Why even call a play with Dimarco down the seem, and WTF did Josh throw it into double coverage.l? Daboll deserves some criticism. Hes gotten criticized for the same things year after year. Last year is the blip. He’s not terrible, but he’s not a stud either. He has done a decent job of developing our QB.

Probably not. He had a moment or two yesterday. But his 25 yard pick up is overvaluing his production to fans. He had a good day yesterday, but nor carry the team great. The offensive unit/staff as a whole lost the game. There is not a single quick fix for that other than just being holistically better.