Bleeding Bills Blue

I agree that 2 DE's that early was a bit strange. Isn't humphrey a center though? Wouldn't it be morse who would have to have been moved?

I'd bring someone in during camp, but bass is making the call on holding at the end of the day.

The only one where they had a solid oline/run game. Thats basically rookie QB 101 - be able to effectively run the ball and keep your QB standing. Limits turnovers, keeps you in plus down and distance. They used all their prior year cap space to get some weapons too, not sure it was the greatest use of money but its a considerable improvement over what they had.

That's why its always a challenge to make a pro bowl as a kicker/punter in buffalo.

See I thought that as well, but I'm willing to eat a few yards of field position on average if it means our kicker is more accurate. Haack has had a bad year so far, but we also have to be near the bottom of the league in total punts attempted. Aside from the blocked punt, he's also had some issues with touchbacks (which could be a coverage issue). However even with 4 touchbacks in like 25 punts his net average is still only a couple of yards off the league lead. 5 yards in 25 punts is 125 total yards of field position. Meanwhile Mason Crosby is having the worst season of his career with Bojorquez holding for him. And Jason Sanders has already missed 4 kicks this year, after missing 3 total in 2020 with Haack. I'll take the guy who makes my kicker confident as I'm more inclined to want the guy who helps put the maximum number of points on the board.

Yeah, its just the part i'm not into. There's so much fantasy content out there just make the show about football.

My only issue with kay is that she oversimplifies things and takes things to fantasy land too much. I know fantasy football is part of it, but how many targets etc. is often just game flow not a concerted effort to throw to a specific player. Like whoa, that worked, lets just hammer them with it until they bite then hit them with the fake or something like that.

He's only turned it over twice during the winning streak. He played really well against cleveland, not so much against carolina and LA. 6 games over 70% completion, but he's got a pretty short average depth of target, but the numbers been trending up. I think he's playing well in their structure.

I think NE is playing good football, and they're built for a playoff run. Just need to avoid any serious injuries and they'll be dangerous. Honestly i don't think there's a team in the AFC that wants to play either of them in the first round. Good defenses that don't let you establish a rushing attack , and take the ball away. One offense that pounds the rock/exploits the boundaries, and the other has a top 5 QB with weapons. I think both teams stats are propped up a bit from weaker opponents - but that doesn't change the remainder of the AFC's perception of them. At the end of the day, fans posturing (not saying you are doing this, its a bills board so its probably bills fans) and media coverage is meaningless and this will be settled on the field at least twice this year - possibly 3 times.

Would be fun for kickers too! Or they could do it like Horse. Put the ball wherever they want and the other guy has to try and kick from there. Get some weird rugby angle kicks

Oh good call - 11-6 then. Which, if buffalo can (worst case) tie and split with them they'd take the division based on the tiebreaker.

Agreed. They should just do a shootout after 10 minutes. But its FGs at the same goalpost. Start at 50, then move backwards. No increased chance of injury or anything.

I didn't watch the game - interested to see how it got so out of hand. 7-9 on 3rd downs, 1 punt, 1 FG, and no turnovers. Defense absolutely dominated on 3rd downs, and had a pick that set them up for points at the 5. Really good red zone efficiancy. Offense was mostly clean on penalties. Any team that plays this efficiently is a problem, but those 3rd down splits are extremely uncommon. I had them at 10-7 before the season, but i could see even 12-5 if they split with buffalo and drop 1 of tenn/indy. People ask if I'm worried about NE, and I say no. Because Buffalo will most likely be in the playoffs pending some sort of major injuries. Would it be nice to win the division? Sure - but its doubtful either team is getting a bye in the first round and they'll probably split the home games anyway.

I don't see it having much blowout potential. This is a tough matchup for NE. It is a home game which helps but, they're playing a team that doesn't turn it over much - and one of the better defenses in the NFL. Both things NE thrives on - takeaways and bad defenses.

Eh - it can. Especially when you run 80% of the time under center. They are almost expecting you to run when you PA.

Yep - traditionally that means you run out of shotgun, and you run toward the boundaries and cut up field. The big problem in buffalo is the backside blocking is brutal, so the cutback lanes that are created get swallowed up by backside players. I think you could try some jet action to create an additional conflict (or pin block). You could also run speed option instead of read option - get to the boundary faster and pitch to the back or create RPOs with sprint out plays. The team doesn't run well under center. And those splits are terrible. If he takes the snap under center its almost always a run, and they don't run heavy play action much from it either. A lot of the pass plays are RPO screens where the ball is almost immediately thrown.

Yeah. Julio worked out... fairly well? But i don't think I'm trading multiple firsts for a non-QB. I know LA and Seattle did it for like, established all-pro players coming off rookie deals. But still, you're giving up a ton of value to then pay someone a ton.

Gonna go with Hughes. I feel a nice blindside FF coming.

He just had this wonky running style and catching style that I didn't notice until he was with Buffalo. Hindsight is... if you sit there - beckham? Or ya know... aaron donald, taylor lewan, zach martin.

No - they're worse at running the ball than buffalo, and they don't have a QB to carry the O. They've scored 20 or fewer points in 7 of 10 games, and they're statistically poor on both sides of the ball. They're good at taking the ball away, but also good at giving it away. If their receivers get healthy i can see them making some more noise, but saints titans patriots to end the season likely kills it. I wouldn't feel particularly confident against NYG or Carolina either. They did a good job of crowding the LOS, and daring the ravens to adjust. The ravens continued to run RPOs and run into a wall. Kind of the exact opposite of what teams have been doing to buffalo - they were also attacking LJ in his drops with DBs. Its a smart strategy though - Roman loves to run out of condensed formations which makes crowding the line easier. They should have spread out more to force them to adjust out of the blitz.

The offense was just killing themselves though. 2 big drops that would have been first downs. Total whiffs on a few pass protections. Holding penalties setting them back behind the sticks. Dead on arrival run game. Allen just being horrifyingly careless with the ball.

I just feel like we could have hammered them with Diggs in this game and won.

I think it'll be chiefs. They need a better #2 - hardman isn't it, and gordon hasn't played enough football to trust down the stretch. He'll see some easier DBs and easier looks - and he's money on shorter routes and creating YAC. If teams play their 2 high against that look, they'll just heavily target beckham and get back to using hill deep to catch you when you adjust.

Depth? I thought singletary made some nice plays in the passing game. Almost all of his catches were like at the LOS and he made some plays to get yards in space.

The problem is the DEs were getting super far up field - which traditionally you just... let them do that. You've created a rush lane for allen to escape, and you've created space to step up in the pocket. But in this game the twists and stunts and 5 man fronts they saw just confused the hell out of the interior so it was constantly muddy. Boettger looked absolutely lost out there.