BarleyNY

This is ridiculous. The Bills have the best scoring defense in the league. It’s the best per game and the best per play. It’s not a perfect metric, but it’s also not particularly close. Bills are giving up 14.8 ppg. Second best is Denver at 16.5. Link There is certainly room for debate about whether the Bills have the best Defense in the league, but it’s certainly been good enough for the Bills to win every game they’ve played.

What part of town are you staying in? Also are you from Buffalo? That would impact my recommendation for Italian food. If you are near Tonawanda, Prescott’s Provisions is my rec. Make reservations, share a bunch of plates and get dessert.

Good points - especially about the laxity. I was thinking that the worry would be making a partial tear worse, but a loose joint could also lead to a more serious injury.

A partial ligament tear is also known as a sprain. (A sprain can also be a stretching of ligaments.) The only possibilities were those two or a full tear. They’d have know right away if it was fully torn, so that’s out. It seems like this would all be put to bed already if the UCL was just stretched out. So we’re left with a partial tear. That could range from something very slight to a bad, but not complete tear. The guy might know something or he might just be making a logical guess, but he’s probably right. Here’s hoping it is something slight and some stretched ligaments.

🤣 That is ridiculous. It’s not so much that the run game isn’t working, it’s that run plays aren’t being called enough. I haven’t had a chance to look for stats on this but it seems to me that we start out with a higher percentage of runs, but then drift to much more passing. If I was a DC going against a team like that I’d wait for the playcalling to drift to heavy passing and then I’d have my DL pin their ears back and go after the QB.

This is Case Keenum’s 10th season in the NFL. Everyone knows who he is - and didn’t need 2022 preseason to make a judgement. He did have a very good 2017, but has been pretty bad otherwise. STATS

I had 45 minutes to kill before MNF started so I watched the condensed Vikings-Commanders game. The Vikings did not look like a 7-1 team. I haven’t seen any of the other 7 games of theirs this season, but they looked bad. Like below .500 bad. If Allen is okay - both elbow and concussion - I have no fear of the Vikings.

Good question. The bandannas. I blame my wife for putting them on them. They didn’t chose it.

Easy to see it coming. So many people acted like the Bills were going to go 20-0 with nothing but blow out wins along the way to a championship. The Bills are going to have to earn it against some other good teams.

True. And he sure couldn’t say he thought he was concussed publicly after playing out the game. My surprise is that it didn’t appear that he was even evaluated. If it was a Tua situation where he passed the test, that’s different. But he didn’t get the check. I can’t believe the NFL didn’t give him one.

Players who play thru nagging injuries often get criticized for their performances. If Oliver’s performance is due to the nagging ankle injury it is worrisome that the bye week didn’t help more. I’d hate to see it linger all year. If it’s not, then that’s a bigger worry. The good news is that Beane and the coaches know which it is.

I’d allow that a concussion is a possibility. But the team’s and NFL’s medical staffs (and probably some others) failed Allen if that was the case. After the Tua fiasco I can’t believe the NFL allowed Allen to continue playing after the head shake - whether or not he was actually concussed.

The defense gave up 20. Even the last drive was only a FG. The Bills should win every (non-hurricane/severe blizzard) game if the D only gives up 20. This one was not on them.

Wife put Bills bandannas on our dogs. They are cursed. Last time was Miami. First time was KC playoff game. Debating whether to pack them away or just burn them.

Allen trying to do too much is a good call. I wonder if Dorsey and his offensive scheme and play calling are also a factor. It’s very possible the two are related.

Thanks. I missed that they came in at all on the drive.

It’s worth mentioning that I did not see Oliver in on the final drive. It makes sense as the Jest were running and run D is not his forte. I saw Phillips and Settle at DT on that drive.

Why would you specifically put the blame on Tauron Johnson for the run D issues late in the game? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try it in some circumstances, but I don’t know that it would have made a big difference in this one. We were already without Milano so we’d have been bringing in our LB4 to replace Tauron. Poyer, Hyde and Milano were out and we lost Rousseau during the game. We still had a lot of players on the DL rotating and we were coming off a bye so I would have expected them to have more energy at the end, but I didn’t see it. Missing Rousseau really hurt our run D IMO. I saw a tired defense getting bullied by a team playing at home with a lot of emotion. That happens sometimes when you let a team hang around. Still, that defense only gave up a FG on that drive and only 20 points total. The Bills offense should be able to put up 21 against anyone.

Tauron Johnson plays the run very well. McD has discussed how his ability in this regard enables him to run Nickel even when most teams would chose to put a 3rd LB on the field.

This one is mostly on Allen.* Two picks. Two more should’ve been picked. Two fumbles that we recovered. The OL gets some of the blame too. They were not good. Beane and McDermott share in that blame for not putting together a more talented unit. * I would like to acknowledge that Allen is a helluva QB who has been responsible for a while lot of Buffalo wins too. The original commentary was specific to this game and not a general criticism. Even the best have a poor showing on occasion.

CB turned to the ball. Would not have been a DPI

The late trading deadline does give smaller market MLB teams a chance to compete in the playoffs. The rich, large market teams will almost always be in the thick of the playoff and championship hunts most years. A small market team that have a good team in a given year can make late trades to complete with the big boys in the short term, often just that season. Other small market teams (SMTs) can feed the large market teams and competitive SMTs for prospects and picks. Luckily the NFL is a league of parity and isn’t plagued the the inequities of MLB. If the trade deadline were to be moved back there would be a handful more trades as more teams would be throwing in the towel on that season, but it wouldn’t look like the MLB. Maybe a half dozen more trades would happen this season if it were moved back to week 10 or 11. Kareem Hunt, Jerry Jeudy, Brandon Cooks and a few others would probably get moved. It’d probably be a slight positive for the league since it would shore up some playoff teams and only negatively impact teams that were out of the running anyway.

But by and large it is not about feelings, though some players do make emotional decisions. Mostly it’s about the Bills being able to afford both of them if they have to pay them both equitably - especially if they overpay for Edmunds. Milano has two years left on his deal after this season and is 27 now. If Edmunds takes a more reasonable deal it could still work out. But if he’s looking for something more top of the market - and the Bills give it to him - then they won’t be able to keep Milano too. Best case would be a Poyer scenario where he plays out his deal, but that’s best case.

Positional importance is a big factor IMO. To pay a MLB large, they’ve got to be a very special player. Then it can be worth it. It’s just a really high bar for that position. The top MLBs will be getting $17M-$20M AAV. Edmunds has really taken a step forward this season and that’s obviously great. But the downside is that he can demand a bigger contract. The Bills couldn’t come to an agreement with him before he took that step so I don’t know how they’ll do it now. I also worry about paying him a lot more than Milano as it could cause issues there. Milano has been the better player for longer. Getting leapfrogged by a guy with one season of play at that level would not sit right with most players.