2003Contenders

For a guy who was ridiculed for being "slow", Coleman sure does well with YAC on those bubbles that for Diggs always seemed to result in a TFA. Clearly his physicality compensates for a slower 40-time.

Speaking of the schedule, something just dawned on me. The Bills are facing all 4 participants in the prior season's championship games (Chiefs, Ravens, 49ers, and Lions). Has that ever happened before?

There is a long time to go in the season (and beyond), so anything can happen between now and then. Hard not to give Lamar the nod up to this point -- of course, it helps having a RB at your side who is on pace to break the single-season rushing record. Goff is setting a new standard in terms of accuracy this year too, so it is worth watching to see if he can keep that up. The fact that Josh has yet to toss an INT certainly bears consideration, especially since his tossing too many INTs has been the reason given for overlooking him the last few years. I also wonder if the acquisition of Cooper will help his passing numbers to explode. In the first game with Amari, Josh threw for over 300 yards. He's never done that before WITHOUT Diggs on the team. Shows how important having a true WR1 is.

The slow starts on defense have always been a staple of McD's coaching philosophy. He has always come out on the first series or two in a somewhat base, bend-but-don't-break scheme -- waiting to see what the opposing offense is doing and then adjusting from there. Given his success rate, it is hard to argue that this is a bad strategy. The real key is that the offense needs to come out more on fire -- and please STOP these early-down play calls that are not designed to get more than a few yards, placing them in critical 3rd-down situations.

Here is what I will say... Beane and the scouts did their due diligence on Franklin. Even after what was described as a disappointing combine, they met with him on multiple occasions and attended individual workouts. Based on that, I was under the impression that they were high on him and I thought he was the likely WR they were targeting when they moved down to the 1st pick of the 2nd round (where they eventually selected Coleman). In reality it seems that their repeated visits with him confirmed whatever doubts they may have had about him after the combine -- whether that was limitations they viewed physically or something regarding his character/personality/mentality/etc. I guess we will never know, but what we do know is that obviously OBD valued Coleman over him. And even if they had better than a 4th round grade on him, they obviously preferred drafting Carter over him.

Not so sure about that. Franklin was selected by the Broncos with a trade-up to the #2 pick in the 4th round. In order for the Bills to have been in the position to draft Franklin they would have either: 1. Selected Franklin with the late 3rd they used on Carter OR 2. Traded up in the 4th, with the picks they used to acquire Ray Davis, SVP (and possibly more) It will take a year or more before we know for sure how all this pans out, but for now, I am leaning toward the choices that Beane and the War Room made back in April.

If this report is true, I wonder if the "no" to Buffalo was less about the city/organization and more about his unwillingness to be flexible regarding his contract, because supposedly just a week ago Buffalo was one of the teams he was interested in playing for.

I will say that early in the game every time something bad happened #24 seemed to be involved. Not so much in the 2nd half. Hopefully he learned from those early-game lumps.

Samuel HAS been missing all season.

I would do it -- provided that the hammy is indeed a mirage and he is healthy.

I was not a proponent of the idea of trading for Adams -- really did not give it much thought because I just never really saw it happening. But I keep having flashbacks to all of those targets that Hollins received in Houston, and wondering what a difference it would have made (especially in a close game) if it was Adams receiving those targets! So many moving pieces here. A few days ago Adams reportedly said he would be willing to go to the Bills, so I don't think his preference for playing with one of his former QBs precludes him from going to Buffalo. I have maintained all along that the 2 biggest holdups to making the trade happen are: the $ and the team's philosophy. That said, Beane showed that he is willing to shift gears in terms of paying aging veterans when he signed Von Miller prior to 2002. But the $ and salary cap restrictions remain a real concern. I am not sure that they can reasonably take on Adams contract without the Raiders picking up a sizeable portion of it -- at least for 2024. The latest reports indicate that the Raiders are not willing to do that -- but will higher draft compensation tempt them to do so? I for one would be willing to "overpay" in terms of draft capital (a 2nd round pick +) if it means getting the Raiders to do what is necessary to fit Adams under the Bills' cap and play in Buffalo for at least 2024 and 2025.

Concussions are so difficult to diagnose. When I saw Josh's head bounce off the turf I thought for sure that he was concussed. Afterwards he claimed it was a chest injury and then a bum ankle. That seems fishy, I know. He walked over to the sidelines and the trainers were looking at him -- and he appeared to be fine. After a few minutes they put up the blue tent and escorted him inside. My suspicion is that he told the trainers he was fine -- but the independent neurologist radioed down (after reviewing the replay of him hitting his head) and insisted on a concussion evaluation. Whatever happened in that tent was enough to convince the decision-makers that he was good to go. Was he really concussed? Possibly. But he appeared to have been coherent enough to answer the questions that were asked of him and did not articulate any concussion-type symptoms. At that point, what are the doctors and training staff supposed to do? I suppose you could argue that the medical folks should have sat him for the rest of the game for his own good, even if he truly exhibited no signs of a concussion. That could be a slippery slope. I remember Hines Ward admitted after his career was over that in one game he received a blow to his head, knew he was concussed but had the wherewith-all to know that a perceived head injury would immediately pull him out for the remainder of the game and possibly future games too. So he grabbed his knee and pretended that the injury was really to his knee. After the training staff cleared his knee (and missing just a few plays), in his mind the "cobwebs" were gone, so he hustled back into the game. Guys like Ward and Allen are competitive guys that desperately want to play -- but they are/were also young athletes with no worries about what their later years may be like. The policies in place are intended to protect the players from both the potential for an uncaring organization -- and even more importantly from themselves. I sincerely hope that this situation with Josh was not a Hines Ward type of situation. Like I said, that head-to-the-turf looked bad, and I am sincerely hoping that Josh simply got lucky there and avoided a concussion.

Hi, Coach Saleh. This is Sean McDermott. I heard what happened and just wanted to pass my condolences along to you. I think you're a great coach and do not understand what the Jets are thinking here... BTW, what is the Jets' game plan for Monday night?

Hopefully a learned a lot from his experience yesterday. He was brutal early on -- and played a significant role in both of Houston's TDs. But he definitely played better as the game went on.

It also seems like Shakir is the one who knows how to run a "fire drill" and help out his QB when he gets flushed from the pocket. I can't recall a time yesterday when Josh was running for his life and was able to find an open receiver. I do recall a few of those plays where receivers (Samuel, in particular) were just standing around.

Yes, the WR corps was terrible and, yes, the OL had trouble picking up blitzes, etc. -- but Josh flat-out had a bad game. He looked very uncomfortable from the get-go. That is one of the things I miss about Daboll: he used to recognize early when Josh was uncomfortable or pressing and would draw up plays to get him into a rhythm. Sometimes those plays involved designed QB runs. Brady just does not seem to have that ability to recognize game flow and make adjustments to get the offense in sync.

The sad thing is that those plays could have worked -- but the personnel on the field was so bad that there was little-to-no chance of having success. On the first play, Coleman (who I still have faith/hope will eventually emerge) gets no separation and pushes off. On the second play, Hollins fails to track a deep ball that could very easily have won the game if a competent receiver is running that pattern. On the third play Josh is pressured as he unloads and fails to get the ball to a wide open Samuel. Of course, part of being a good coach and designing the proper plays takes into account the quality of personnel you have at your disposal -- or lack thereof. I will say that every time a pass was thrown in Hollins direction yesterday, I lost my ever lovin' mind. Back to the original point about Josh being in shotgun, I will say that I was perplexed -- not because I did not necessarily want them throwing the ball there but because it took away any element of surprise, potential for play-action, etc.

We'll probably see more 12-personnel this game than usual with Shakir out. Hopefully that means more involvement from Knox than just blocking. We are going to miss Shakir for sure, but his typical 5-6 catches for 50-60 yards can be readily redistributed among Coleman/Kincaid/Knox/Samuel/Cook. (Notice I didn't say Hollins?) It would also be nice to see "playoff mode" MVS show up in this game as well. Through the first 3 games when the Bills were the top-scoring offense in the league, one of their hallmarks was their heavy use of pre-snap motion. For whatever reason, that was minimized in the game plan against the Ravens. Hopefully Brady makes that a bigger part of the offense again on Sunday. I remember after Coleman had that back-breaking drop at the end of the fist half Sunday night, he was clearly very frustrated with himself. He responded by making some difficult catches in the 2nd half. Maybe that will serve as a springboard for him to become what we hope (and need) for him to be.

As many have already mentioned, beyond everything else (including Adams' age, attitude, trade compensation, etc.) the Bills' biggest obstacle to making any sort of trade happen is $ and the team's' precarious cap situation. I do believe that Beane is interested -- and it is probably more than just due diligence. I think back to the A. Brown situation -- and the fact that Beane actually was willing to pull the trigger on a trade with the Steelers but Brown himself nixed the trade. Reports indicate that Adams would be willing to come here, so it sounds like that is not a potential roadblock. But in order to make a trade even remotely possible, the Raiders would have to pick up a SIGNIFICANT portion of Adams' 2024 salary. The only thing that the Bills have to offer to make the Raiders willing to do that is to up the ante in terms of trade compensation. I'm not sure that Buffalo could out-bid the Jets (or Steelers) both of whom are much more financially able to NOT ask the Raiders to kick in $. As much as I know a trade for Adams is unlikely to happen, I think back to Sunday night's game and wonder how much of a difference those 5-6 passes that were thrown to Hollins may have made if they had been thrown to Adams instead. And how much better would the rest of the receiving corps be if defenses had to key on a legitimate alpha WR like Adams?

Yea, I think on replays on that leaping TD against Arizona they showed him coming down on his hand with his own elbow.

Too eerily similar to the Diggs situation: Over 30? Check Large Contract? Check Disgruntled? Check No way the Bills pursue him.

Yes. I was at the game and noted that there was a 3rd LB -- and the safeties were playing up close rather than in their usual cover-2 formation. So those pointing out that their scheme of not crowding the line of scrimmage, may see this first play as the reason that the coaches backed off from it. The drawback is that if the ball carrier manages to break through the initial line of defense, there is no second level to contain him. And Henry is a special case (as we have seen) where he is like a freight train once he gets up to his top level of speed. After that they backed off (some would say "played scared"), willing to let Henry pop off 4-5 yards per carry in exchange for avoiding another back-breaking run.

Not disagreeing about Williams... but to be fair, he did make two key plays -- the forced fumble on Lamar and the near-sack that led to the intentional grounding call -- that very much could (and indeed SHOULD) have gotten the team back into the game on Sunday night.

Living in Maryland, I try to attend all Bills local (Baltimore and Washington) games. The team has had great success when I attend the games against the Commanders/Skins but has been winless for the last 20+ years when playing against Baltimore. I was at the 2004 Bledsoe 4-INT (including a pick-six to Deion) game, the 2006 season finale on New Years Eve with JP (when the Bills were fighting for an 8-8 finish), the overtime loss in 2010 when Fitz passed for close to 400 yards but the Raven "stripped" the ball on the overtime kickoff, the opening day 2018 game with Peterman (when Josh made his first appearance in the 2nd half), and yes I was there last night. More evidence that this isn't just coincidence? In 2022 my wife forced me to attend an out-of-town wedding -- and that is the only game the Bills have won at Baltimore in this millennium. I owe it to the team and all of Bills Mafia to stay the heck away from M&T Bank Stadium! As far as local games go, I will stick with just attending the Washington games.

I will say that the run defense (to my admittedly untrained eye) has not been that great. The defense is allowing almost 4.7 yards per carry, which is 22nd in the league. In all three games, RBs have had some success running the ball against us -- even against the Jags Etienne picked up over 6 yards per carry. The good news is that the Bills offense has been so dominant that the opponents had to abandon the run early. One interesting thing to observe is that while the Ravens' run DEFENSE is tops in the league, their run OFFENSE has also been tops in the league averaging over 5.8 yards per carry. I am sure much of that can be attributed to Lamar's own rushing abilities. You can bet that the Ravens are going to stay committed to the run, and if the Bills' own run game is stifled Josh may have to put the team on his back and win via the passing game. I have faith in the team, but this is not a great match-up for them. Bottom line, this will be a great test for the Bills.