HappyDays

Austin fooled him He releases the ball when he thinks Austin is going to the post

Austin baited him, made it look like he was going post and then went to the sideline as soon as the pass was released

Pats are one of the few teams with worse pass catchers than us

Rasul Douglas for president

Extend Rasul after the game

Wow!! I guess our defense will just help us get all our points

Our weapons are so bad. They don't separate, they don't draw DPI, they don't catch the ball.

If Diggs comes back for that ball it's DPI. Why do our receivers never do this?

Not sure we have the weapons to compete in the playoffs unfortunately. And right now that includes Diggs

We have a very poor group of weapons

Passing offense is in for a long day. We can't separate against man coverage.

Statistics say go for 2 there because you don't even know for sure if you'll get the ball in OT. If you do you have to execute an entire drive. A lot can go wrong. One play for 7 yards for the win gives you the best shot even though it's not ideal. It's not as clear cut as it would be from the 2 but I understand his decision.

Just ridiculous how the NFL finds new and exciting ways to screw up big moments in big games. And it always seems to hurt the same teams.

I think he has had trouble separating from physical coverage lately. He's getting knocked over off the line at times.

Peppers being out is a big loss.

I'll believe it when I see it on camera.

Why did you happen to select that group of QBs? Also below Josh are Jackson, Mahomes, and Hurts. I assume you can see the pattern here? Here's the top 10 in that stat: Tua Mac Jones Siemian Lawrence Burrow Zappe Ridder Carr Browning Mayfield My takeaway is that it's a totally meaningless stat that tells you nothing about the quality of the QB or of the OL.

I don't blindly trust PFF grades, that is fair. I'm just saying even by their own grading system calling us the 4th ranked OL is somewhat of a mirage. The 4th ranked DL would be elite. The 4th ranked group of pass catchers would be elite. Because OL talent across the league is so bad this year, unless you have a top 2 OL it's not really making a difference in the game. I don't think our OL has been a true advantage this year. But it has been good enough which is all you can ask for in the modern NFL. On Torrence, I think a narrative has formed that he has performed better than he really has, likely because fans are comparing it to the truly awful play that we got last year. He has had major issues getting beaten inside for most of the season. He's pretty consistently been the weak link. But similar to what I said above, most OLs have a weak link or two so relative to the rest of the league it's not a huge deal. Hiding a guard is easy anyways, as long as they aren't so awful they wreck game plans like Saffold did. I'm not saying Torrence was a bad pick by the way. You have to be patient with rookie o-linemen these days and he's certainly shown a strong foundation for development. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a top 10 guard by his 3rd season.

Lol you're being really weird about this. Great QBs have to take risks. It was a complaint about Rodgers, he wouldn't throw a lot of INTs but then he would get to the playoffs and would play too conservative and the Packers would lose. Great for his stat sheet, not so great for beating elite teams. It's a tricky needle to thread. You don't want to be Jameis Winston but you don't want to be Tyrod Taylor either. As I've said a few times I think Allen has crossed the line between aggressive and reckless a tad too often this year, especially against bad opponents where an ugly win would get it done. I would still rather have 40 TDs with 15 INTs than say 30 TDs with 8 INTs though. Turnover differential is a fun stat but points on the board are actually what win games.

I think the Panthers can beat the Jags with CJ Beathard at QB. If the Jags lose we just need one of the Bengals or Steelers to lose for us to clinch a playoff spot (assuming we beat the Pats).

Not really. Good rookie year for sure but he's been our weak link IMO. Here are the individual PFF grades for each member of the OL: Dawkins 73.7 McGovern 58.9 Morse 64.5 Torrence 56.6 Brown 69.2 Very good on the edges, but slightly below average on the interior. I think two things are helping our ranking here: 1) Continuity. I can't remember the last time the Bills had so many consecutive games with the same starting 5. IIRC McGovern missed the first game, but otherwise the starting 5 has never changed. That is massively important. I doubt more than a couple other teams have this advantage. 2) Relative lack of good OL play across the league. The individual rankings above don't scream "top 5 OL" but most teams have just average OLs right now. I doubt there is a ton of separation between say the 5th best OL and the 20th best OL, at least not enough to make a real difference. There are a couple extremes at both ends and then a lot of average in the middle.

I think the defense and OL have both been good enough. Not elite, but playoff caliber. There was a stretch in the middle there where the defense was literally the worst in the league but they've gotten back to a top 12 level. I do think the weapons mostly suck. I don't think they are really playoff caliber, Allen is just carrying them to produce well above their talent level would suggest. Diggs has not been that good this year. Davis has disappeared in like half of his games. Shakir is a JAG. Harty and Sherfield are less than JAGs. You know I loved Kincaid in the draft but he has really struggled to separare from physical coverage as of late. Too often I see him laying on the turf after his initial release. He is hearing footsteps and failing to catch the ball too frequently. As a result he has been removed from the offensive game plan over the past few games. Cook has flashed superstar abilities at times, but the offense has not consistently been able to run through him and he makes too many mistakes to be totally trustworthy. The other RBs are JAGS. So yeah it is a below average group of weapons being carried by a QB playing better than any other QB in the league. I still don't trust McDermott in playoff scenarios or close games against good opponents, but he has a chance to right that ship this year.

I don't know about you Gunner, but I've personally been thinking that OL play across the league has gotten to be pretty similar. I would describe most OLs as average. There's a couple great ones - Eagles and Lions - and a few awful ones - Giants, Panthers, a couple others - but most are at about the same level I would say. So while I would agree the Bills OL has improved from the ranks of awful to the ranks of good enough, I would not say it has been a true advantage for our team this year.

No, that's you making up the worst possible version of my argument because you sometimes like to play semantics games instead of engaging in the discussion.

It has definitely improved. Replacing Saffold was a default improvement. Dawkins has turned in his best season. Brown has been a little better. Torrence hasn't really been as good as people say, he has struggled quite a bit at times, but steady enough that he hasn't single handedly lost us games the way Saffold would. But the main reason Allen's sack % is so low is that he can make plays like this: He's also gotten a lot better this year at taking his check down or throwing the ball away when all else fails. Our pressure rate this year is 19.0%. Yet Allen's sack rate is 3.8%. I believe I read somewhere that he has the best pressure to sack rate out of all QBs. And I will qualify this by saying I know Allen sometimes invites pressure by holding the ball and hunting for big plays. Still he and Mahomes are pretty clearly the best at avoiding sacks that almost any other QB would take.