Dr.Sack

Curious where does Knox rank?

Four reasons to think the Bills will struggle in the playoffs. They will play a road game. Even bandwagon teams sellout and the crowd noise becomes a huge factor. Add in a dome & the noise is amplified. The Bills haven’t been world beaters in the 1st Qtr so the crowd being taken out early is less likely to happen. McD is content playing a 3-10 game. In Jacksonville McD rarely dialed up the bomb. Rather asking Tyrod to check down & not turn over the ball. Conservative play calling rarely works out in the playoffs. Taking risks is necessary. Think Sean Payton onside kick to open 2nd half of the Super Bowl, Pederson’s use of the Foles QB home run pass. McD won’t go for it on 4th down. Another concern McD will likely need to extend drives & give his defense a rest. Does McD have the ‘faith’ in Allen to convert 4th & 1 on our side of the field? Josh Allen is wildly inaccurate. Rarely do QBs win playoff games completing 50% of their passes or less. For example Allen hit 50% of passes vs New England while Brady was around 70%. This level of inaccuracy leads to more punts & allows a ball control offense running up a 39 to 21 minutes time of possession advantage. Singletary can generate yards after contact but Daboll is sending him into 7/8 man fronts routinely on 1st down not mixing in the PA pass. Conservative play calling and predictability is not going to win playoff games. Rarely does a team win on the road playing vanilla offense unless they simply dominate at the line of scrimmage.

Ranking the AFC Playoff QBs #1 Lamar Jackson #2 Patrick Mahomes #3 Deshaun Watson #4 Tom Brady (if Brady plays like he did vs Buffalo in the playoffs he is #2). #5 Ryan Tannehill #6 Josh Allen

I like Josh Allen as a person & in the locker room. I’m also of the opinion the Bills should have brought in a veteran like Fitzpatrick in 2018 to groom him & give him a year to adjust to the NFL game. This should be year 1 for Allen and at age 23 he’s doing fairly good things. I don’t like the mechanics but the fact he can complete 50 yard bombs flat footed shows the arm talent he has. He’s got a lot of work to improve into an elite QB but the raw talents & guts are all there.

This offseason we need to get a starting caliber RB whether it come via FA or draft. And I’m not even saying we need to blow our load on a 1st round talent.

Agreed but I also think sending Kroft or Knox down the seam a few plays per half stretches out the defense & opens the underneath passing lanes.

Houston is beatable IF we can get our RBs over 80 yards on the ground & Allen contributes another 40. I don’t see us winning on Allen’s arm alone as he just misses too many wide open WRs. Kid needs another offseason of boot camp & improving his mechanics and throwing.

Curious thought, how many passes has Allen failed to complete this year because he was off the mark & how does that compare to the rest of the NFL? I’m talking specifically about those throws less than 20 yards downfield like the one to Beasley where he was 10’ too far ahead on.

Yet no critique of Allen’s early game woes, or a coach who doesn’t go for it on 4th & 1.

But Singletary hasn’t proven he can get yards when the D knows it’s a run. He looks to be wearing down.

Sweep the leg.

He’s good but IF he goes down Gore is no longer a viable #2 back. We need another back who can come in & grind out tough yards.

Mahomes.

Well he decided to punt on 4th & 1 and the rest is history, Patriots 11 Bills 0. We will never know if Allen converts & it would have been nice to see him do what he did on the final drive in the 3rd Qtr up 17-13.

Assume we stopped just one of NE’s 2 TDs forcing a FG instead. That’s 17-20 with a chance to tie on the final drive. I would have loved to see us make to OT. No doubt we would have prevailed given our ability to take the top off their defense with Knox or Brown. That said our defense was missing a helluva lot of one on one tackles.

We need a bigger back who has explosiveness & top end speed. Singletary can’t do it all by himself.

Burkhead’s TD run was two missed tackles. Then there was all the 2nd or 3rd & long’s where they gained 10-15 yards to make going for it convertible.

Whatever his completion % is on the year ~ 56%

Josh Allen is inaccurate so I’m not sure it really matters. He’s just not accurate enough & is slow reading the defense.

Imagine a 6’4” 225 WR with 4.4 speed & a 40” vertical.

I disagree but if we collapse in 2020 I’m all for it.

McD is now 3 years 0-6 vs the Pats.

How many years will it take McD to beat New England year 4, year 5 or year 6?

Let’s assume NE gets the ball kicks a FG. We basically give ourselves another 3 minutes of game clock even if the events unfolded the same way. Plus our D would have been fresher in the 4th Qtr. I agree McD should have gone for it.

Time of Possession New England 38:52 Buffalo 21:08. Does anyone believe we win if it’s another sustained drive. 3rd Qtr 2:21 left 4th & 1 at our 36, up 17-13, McD elects to punt the ball NE goes on to drive 11 plays 77 yards over 6:40 and converts a FG cutting out lead to 17-16. This is a dangerous call but on a night where the Defense was giving up drives & major time giving NE the ball on our 36 would have kept valuable clock on our side.