fergie's ire

Maybe they could sign Tre, Dane, AND Stephon....put the band back together.

Candlesticks always make a nice gift.

Yeah, certainly looked better than that linebacker we drafted in the 3rd a couple years before him. That guy was undersized and completely lost his rookie year. Whatever happened to him?

I've seen others post this and it's not what they did. They would actually hop Cook so that he would run away from Parsons. Josh would continue to roll out the other way and Parsons would chase him. The Bills were going after an undersized back opposite Parsons. I forget his name.

Last year it would have been in the middle of OTAs about 2 weeks before minicamp. So....honeymoon in Orchard Park?

The sad thing is I think things have gotten better. I believe it was just before the Marvin Lewis years, there were reports that Bengals coaches were flying to college games to scout on Saturday and then flying back to coach the game on Sunday.

Do you remember Cook's rookie year? Not only did he do a fair amount of dancing but he also couldn't catch until this year.

I think losing a player like this is the best thing for a team like the Bills. He is a good back but looks better than he would on other teams because of the Bills O-line and the threat of Allen. So, if his success sparks interest in him, take advantage of it. In that scenario, Cook gets paid (which I do not begrudge him at all) and the Bills get assets back which is useful when they have late draft picks and limited salary cap space. It's how good teams stay on top despite draft order and cap.

Some people tend to hold Reid up as a coaching God and forget that he used to be generally regarded as a bad playoff coach. I remembered his poor clock management, but what I'd forgotten until this game is that he wouldn't or couldn't run the ball even in obvious situations. The Eagles had their DEs split really wide and had them charge toward mahomes. Brady would've put Anderson in against that formation and run duo all day long.

I agree that our offense was exceptional. However, someone pointed out that end of game drives have ended in failure. But why? Josh used to always find a way at the end of games, even the 16 seconds game and the hail Murray. So why these failures? Receivers or scheme...or just odds? Maybe the Daboll strategy of two plays to get 10 yards is better end of game than the Brady consistent 3 or 4 yards per play? I'm just not sure.

And one week earlier, the Bills took control of the game by running Ray Davis with Cook on the sideline. I have a lot of problems with the game Brady called but just saying you need your best back on the field is a little bit simplistic and shaped by hindsight.

Agreed. And it's not even really a rebuild year. It's really a tear down year and NEXT year they can start to rebuild.

What year is it out there?

Yes, it is an advantage that New England had all these years that I hadn't thought. When your division is crap and you can count on winning it, you can afford to take guys out. In years past, I'd hear people say "I would rest X because we know we can beat Y without him." I didn't trust that approach because the margins are so slim in the NFL, but when you know that even if you DO lose to Y you still control the vision you can sit guys. If you lose to a bad opponent then oh well...now we'll have to be more careful in the future...but until you do lose one or two of those games you can sit guys.

I agree about that particular play...and at least one lineman seemed to give up chasing him. However, in general, has anyone been talking about the Bills D being held? Ed Oliver, in particular, looked like he was egregiously held all day. He would split blockers and both would grab on to him. Was I the only one seeing what looked like really bad holds on every play? And Dawkins is the one called on a perfectly executed block? I am not usually a "blame the ref" kind of guy, and wondering if I'm seeing things because it looked really bad and obvious to me.