Bleeding Bills Blue

Well they were going to run a play on 3rd and 4. Likely a run... and staley called timeout for a personnel change. The new personnel gave up 10 yards on a run play they knew was coming - thats the sad part in all this. If its a no gain stop I think the raiders run the clock out - I'd rather play KC than have this blocked or returned, and play no one.

the key to me is tackling for buffalo. Keep them in tougher downs and distances and keep them on the NE side of the field - don't let them have any big plays in the run game and force them into punts and FGs. the key to NE is takeaways. They need to win the turnover battle in this one so i expect them to try and rip out every ball they can, and to try some different zone looks to try and get an allen mistake or two.

It turns into basically 2 years 20.2 M with 2 additional years at a total of 23.8 with some throw in workout bonuses. A lot for a running back, but a lot less than the 4yr 64m that they gave him. If you figure patterson and edmunds are looking for the 7-9M range his cap hit of like 8+ in 2022 is pretty reasonable. You could cut beasley and re-up mckenzie for some cost savings to make it work. He's not a straight slot WR like bease by any means, but you can absolutely use him split out as a weapon and challenging matchup for LBs. Obviously availability is an issue - but he would not be getting 400 touches most likely. Figure a chunk of beasley's that don't go to mckenzie, and the majority of RB targets. Figure 80 current running back targets, he'd get say 60 - and of beaselys 107 he might get another 50. Buffalo's leading rusher only has 170 carries, and it moss/breida adds another 120 or so. Take that 290 + some of allens and you have maybe 350 total carries to go around. I'd like probably like him to get like half of them. He'd be ideally more Ekeler or Kamara - not taylor/henry. All of this would be highly dependent on asking price, and how his physical goes.

I remember telling my buddies at the bar that it needed to be Allen. I always liked his fire and competitiveness - i also remember watching a Wyoming game that year and he made a throw on a speed out that was an absolute dime. LJ my concerns were the football IQ and arm strength, but i also thought if you just built the offense around this guy in a certain way you might have something. Rosen... just seemed like a smug jerk - I didn't want Jay Cutler's attitude with Matt Leinarts arm.

Too loose with the football, and not a big enough playmaker to be that loose. Too inconsistent on the easy stuff, inconsistent footwork, and not a top tier arm. He can make some great plays from time to time, but he doesn't have the athleticism or arm strength to do it consistently enough at this level. Surround him with some top end talent and I think he'd do just fine - he's never really had that. He had CMC - he got hurt. Moore and Anderson are solid, but the line injuries pretty much got him beat up this season. The jets never really could put anything of note together for him. Maybe 3rd time is a charm... but usually the 3rd team is when you're no longer the guy.

07 patriots were ridiculous. Brady/moss/welker/faulk. Samuel, Vrabel, Wilfork - Harrison/Meriweather. +315 points differential and undefeated 99 Rams are another example. Warner/faulk/Bruce/Holt. 85 bears - 1 loss team with the best defense probably ever. In a run driven era, they had 3 teams go over 100.

Missed QB sneak - loss to titans Drop on 2nd down, missed protection on 3rd - loss to Jags Wind game missed FG and red zone ending - loss to patriots Blocked punt making a 2 score game - loss to steelers Missed PI call on Diggs - loss to TB Literally some bounces, some calls, and some execution mistakes away from winning any of those games. Allen puts you on the 2 yard line against Tenn, into jags territory, into the RZ twice against NE, and what should have been 1st and goal from the 1 against TB. Teams know that this team can beat anyone, and there isn't some magic recipe that is going to shut buffalo down.

They played downright bad at times, and lost some that they should have won, but still punched their ticket to the playoffs which is most important. If they win sunday they'll have gone 5-1 in the division, which is almost a guarantee that you win it.

You need someone to take on a fully guaranteed 35M base salary cap hit... and the only restructure would involve extending him and increasing his guarantee from 35M in year 1 to... significantly more over another couple of years. Or adding void years which just hurts you down the line.

His cap hit for 2022 is 45M. 35M base salary in 2022 is to whomever he would go to. Minnesota eats the prorated bonus of 10M. I am not sure how retained salary/cap could work on a trade of that deal, but thats the standard basics of it. With franchise QBs and a good relationship things tend to work themselves out naturally avoiding holdouts. The cap hits get really high, then you tack on additional years so you can push bonus money out further into the future.

Cousins deal at 35M is pretty hefty. Is he worth the 20+ mill increase in cap charge? You could just keep baker and sign someone like mariota or trubisky for insurance.

If we had waited a year on the deal it likely would have been more expensive. It also likely can run close to camp, creating a possible holdout issue. Murray will be the one to get paid this offseason. Herbert and Burrow will be the year after most likely. All likely start the negotiation at the Josh allen contract.

Well the Titans game was a bad qb sneak away from a likely win. The Jags game was insanely winnable - Davis drop on 2nd and 7, and the whiffed pass pro by daryl williams was the next play which knocked buffalo out of tying field position and resulted in 4th and 16. Davis catches that pass and its 1st and 10 inside the 30 yard line with 3 timeouts.

He's looked terrible in that sling so its probably an upgrade tbh. Chargers can absolutely lose to vegas. And Buffalo can beat the colts.

The problem is its rare (especially in todays nfl) for a nick mullens to get you to a super bowl. I'd say the 2019 49ers are the exception - and look at the 4th quarter of that game and tell me they don't wish they had a better quarterback. Too much needs to go right for you to win one, and the inability to score quickly can doom you. The 2017 eagles may work considering they did it with foles - but they also avoided brees and rodgers in that postseason. Foles also played really well during the playoffs - far above what he's capable of on a season long basis. The Vikings were probably the "mullens' example from 2017 with keenum. And they immediately looked for an upgrade after the NFC championship game. Tennessee's certainly set up to be the next team to make some playoff noise with this approach- if they can avoid shooting themselves in the foot. When they get off game script things tend to go pretty poorly for them. I'm also not sold on how good their defense is - they're likely looking to avoid having to play buffalo/cincy/LAC in round 2, especially if they're likely to play KC in the afc championship.

You would structure it around the cap hit in 2022 - Allens is only 16M in 2022. After being injured for stretches this year - i would expect jackson to hold out if they don't extend him.

They're 8-8 using running backs who weren't even on the camp roster. They've used 3 different QBs. Peters missed all season. Humphrey banged up and now done for the year All 3 of their top WRs have missed time. Stanley has barely played. They've used a ton of linemen all year long. They're a good team when a lot of those guys are in the game, jackson especially. He'll get paid.

Baker has the 5th year option and i expect Cleveland to just have him play on it. I don't think they can get out of it as he won't pass a physical by that deadline. I think its a spot where they could look for some other players around the league like Trubiskey, Mariota, or Winston. The team is too talented to not have a serious backup plan.

5/6 on 4th downs over the last 3 games, and improved in the RZ the last few games too. 4/5 against carolina, 4/7 (5/7 if sanders catches that TD), and 4/5 against atlanta - 70%. I also like how McDermott is starting to coach a bit more aggressively - there's a time and a place for it obviously but he's picking more spots after some head scratchers a few times this year.

1 - Still only 26 sacks this year too with all the shuffling and a sack % of 4.1. The run blocking has been the biggest concern, and it really does have to factor into what you can do. 2 - Beasley is money for first downs, and still a good player. I'm not just benching him for Mckenzie - they both should have roles. Sanders has been a disappointment tbh. Mckenzie torched the patriots man coverage, and beasely is great against zone. 3 - They have a good TE, why do they need 2 TE sets? We mostly run 11. I'm not taking my 3rd WR out for a weak TE2. Play to your strengths. 4 - The play calling has been suspect, but with a constantly shuffling line they have had to make changes and adjustments as the year went on. They're also seeing a lot of man again so you have to adjust what you're doing. 5 - I think weather wise this has been a considerably worse season than last year. Allens home numbers are worse than they were last year - but the bills pass def. numbers at home are absurdly good as well. There's 5 games where they gave up under 20, and 2 others where it was low 20s and the Indy game where everything went off script. The red zone struggles are probably overblown (8th in the NFL in TD%, and they lead the league in RZ Atts), and they're starting to get more effective at running the ball there which will help create some opportunities.

Still made some big money 3rd and long throws. He zipped a few in there that were a bit too hot and were deflected. Diggs dropped a TD. The first INT was a dumb decision, 2nd was a miscommunication, and 3rd was another deflection. The first one cannot be thrown - you just scramble for the 6 yards. He had a blocker too so it could have even been a possible first. The 2nd one he missed the safety bailing off diggs and had diggs for an easy 15. 3rd one was a great play by the spy. After that i think they decided to just make them commit to stopping the run, and would hit them with PA checks if they brought the safeties down or committed to more effectively stopping the run - they did not.

If you can't beat them you can't beat Tenn/Indy either so it doesn't matter much.

He's had 2 punts blocked in his career. It was also the first game of the year with a new team and it was more of a protection issue than anything else - the player came in right up the middle and johnson missed the twist. I haven't really noticed any near blocks since then, they may have made some protection adjustments.

9 misses... yikes

Yep - almost like prioritizing consistency of holding/punting vs. poor holding with boom punt potential was possibly the intention. If you aren't going to punt a ton, make sure your FGs improve and you don't give up big returns. 38.7 vs 44 is 5 yards per punt - but extrapolate that out and its like 200-250 yards of field position on the year... which is 15ish yards of field position per game across 3-4 punts. The problem is CB was never super consistent. And yes - haack had one blocked. Both have been blocked twice in their careers - haack has 352 punts to CBs 215. Bass kicking is improved from 82.4 to 86.7 on FGs (with 1 miss coming in a wind storm, and another from 60+ against miami), and perfect on XPs after missing 2 the previous season. I think the misses in baltimore could have been something where they saw an issue that could have cost them a tight playoff game. Meanwhile - Crosby has missed 9 FGs this season. Punt stats in 2021 - Haack at 44.3 per punt vs. CB at 47.4. Difference of 3.1 yards. Buffalo has 90 return yards allowed on 14 punts, vs 268 on 21 returns for GB (and one for a TD). Where Haack missed the mark the most this season is with the 6 touchbacks (2 in a windstorm where NE was no longer fielding punts). It shows a lot in his net yardage, however he is only about 2 yards short of CB in net average 2021. So - superior holding by Haack. Consistent punting, and coverage could improve when trying to pin the team deep. CB - worse holder, and with 270 return yards allowed on the year, a tendency to outkick the coverage.