HappyDays

One of the beat reporters said Elam was the starting CB in pregame warmups.

Shakir IMO. Ramsey shut Coleman down in week 2. I know Coleman has developed since then but I would stay away from that matchup personally. Shakir against Kader Kohou's backup is a plus matchup.

Not too concerned about Benford. Elam has played well against Miami. Cooper being out really sucks because all the WRs get pushed back up to a target share they're not really built for. We should run the ball down their throats today and hope that Coleman keeps building on what he did the last two weeks. Miami is going to clog the middle of the field and dare us to beat them outside.

I'm not gonna analyze player for player but sure there are a lot of RBs in the league that could be reasonably classified as 2nd tier. There's also a question of how much drop off you get from 2nd tier to 3rd tier RBs in terms of real production. I'm not advocating to give Cook a 2nd contract. Just saying I rate him as a significantly better all around RB than Hall and I really like his skill set for our offense in particular.

Yeah I just don't agree with that at all. Hall misses too many rushing lanes and he has mediocre lateral movement. Give him a wide open lane with space and he can possibly score a 70 yard TD, but that doesn't happen frequently enough to make up for his weaknesses IMO. He had that one run against us that should have been a TD but he just kept running along the sideline which gave Rapp an easy angle to make the tackle, and the Jets ended up getting no points on that drive. On that same play I can almost guarantee Cook makes one cut to the middle and gets in the endzone.

I get myself in trouble when I say things like that because I don't think through exactly how many players I would define as "elite." McCaffrey, Barkley, Henry, Kamara, and Robinson for sure. Then you have a 2nd tier that's probably like Taylor, Mixon, Dobbins, Jones? I'm doing this off the top of my head. Cook I think I would put in the lower end of that 2nd tier. I don't know how you would classify RBs like Achane and Gibbs where it's very boom or bust. Putting that list together now, saying he's close to elite is probably a stretch too far. I'll say this - for this offense with this QB I value Cook's traits more than I would value say Joe Mixon even though Mixon is probably the better all around RB in a vacuum. We get the benefit of defenses giving us a lot of open space within 5 yards of the LoS because of Allen under center so I value the burst and cutting and pass catching ability that Cook gives us over a more traditional back like Mixon.

Yeah I don't know where all this hype comes from for Breece Hall. Seems like it's only a Bills fan thing, maybe because he was talked about as a 1st round option for us and he happened to have a couple good games against us. Jets fans on social media complain about his vision, there are too many times when a hole is there and he misses it. Cook has been outstanding in that respect especially this year where I'm not sure I've seen him miss a single rushing lane. Only thing that leaves you wanting with Cook is his contact balance but you can't have it all (and Hall isn't really any better in that area). Cook's burst plus his quick feet plus his vision makes him pretty close to an elite RB IMO. He's having his most complete year so far too.

Nah Cook is much better. Hall is a pure straight liner with mediocre vision.

A proper TNF classic

Kenyon Green might be the worst IOL starter in the league. Why did Houston stop running after the penalty? Bobby Slowik is the latest in a long line of offensive coaches that gets away from what his team does well just for the sake of it.

Rodgers has been terrible since they traded for Davante Adams. They should trade him away to save their season

He is having a bit of a sophomore slump. I've not been impressed with his ability to handle pressure in this game. A lot of young QBs struggle with that including our own back in the day so nothing against him.

Houston should run Mixon 50 times in this game. Every time Stroud drops back to pass something bad happens.

Jets run defense stinks

Houston forgot about their OL in the offseason. The same problem that got them blown out in the divisional round is still a problem.

Bills 34 Dolphins 17 I don't have anything interesting to say about this one. We own the Dolphins, period.

I'm sure. Allen is elite at leading his WRs away from hospital hits. Underrated trait of his.

Another benefit I thought of the Jets winning - I want as many teams as possible vying for the 7th seed. Right now it feels like Pittsburgh (or Baltimore?) and Denver have very good odds to be the 5th and 6th seed. The last team I want in as the 7th seed is the Bengals. Jets, Chargers, or Colts are the dream scenario.

I think my favorite play is the one 37 seconds in when two DBs get their hands on him (including Devon Witherspoon, no slouch) and he just pushes through the contact like a turnstile to get wide open downfield. That's the kind of play I envisioned when I advocated for him to be our pick. For good measure here he is getting around press coverage stacking Woolen and forcing a DPI to prevent a TD: Down for down this was the most physically dominating performance I've seen from a Bills WR since I don't know when.

Cook definitely not. Use him up for the next season and a half and let some other team make that mistake, and get a decent comp pick back. Shakir I'm 50/50 on right now. I know slot WR is easier to fill but I'm usually in favor of paying players that create plays that go above and beyond the scheme. He's really a perfect mix of chain mover and playmaker which is not going to be easy to replace. And it's not like Knox where we'd be paying him for one outlier year of production. It's going on two seasons now where he is catching an absurd percentage of targets and finishing top 15 in yards per target. Hopefully we draft a WR decently high next year so that if we need to move on from Shakir we have someone waiting in the wings. If he ends up getting $20M per year like people are predicting I'm not in favor of that at all.

Yeah I could see us ending the season 14-3 and still ending up the #2 seed behind the 16-1 Chiefs. I guess you hope they lose one of their remaining divisional games, maybe in Denver, and then hopefully the Texans or Steelers find a way to beat them. It's hard to see them ending the season any worse than 14-3 and even that record is assuming we beat them.

Root for the Texans to lose as many games as possible before Nico Collins is back. Man I wish the Colts had made the QB switch one week sooner. Texans have a sneaky difficult schedule to end the season - they still have Lions, Cowboys, Chiefs, and Ravens. I think 1-3 in those games is likely. If they also lose tonight that puts them at 6 losses on the year and I would feel very confident we end ahead of them in the standings in that scenario. But hey if the Jets lose that will still be a good result because we'll basically lock up the division with a win on Sunday. No bad outcomes tonight.

Arm length was only used as a talking point regarding his ability to play outside. And that has turned out to be a legit talking point - 69.8% of his snaps this year have come from the slot. I don't have access to stats on his exact target share from the slot versus outside, but from the eye test I'm mostly only seeing him get outside targets on screens, everything else is coming from the slot. Not that there's anything wrong with him having a defined slot role. His efficiency from that position has been otherworldly and his YAC skills are as good as it gets. That's been my favorite aspect of this new pass catching group as a whole. YAC is arguably more important than ever now because of the way defenses are schemed. It's very hard to win over the top these days, so getting chunk plays with the ball in your skill players' hands is the best way to move down the field in a hurry. Joe Marino does a weekly recap of Josh Allen analytics as part of his Substack. According to his data 57.4% of Allen's passing yards come from YAC. That ranks 4th in the NFL. Coleman and Shakir rank 2nd and 5th respectively in YAC per reception. Kincaid ranks 12th. This is a massive upgrade from previous seasons where I know we consistently ranked near the bottom of the NFL. So we may not have a defined vertical WR right now but I think we're more than making up for it with the efficiency of the group.

There's really no questions about any of these players. Elam is worse than Benford and Douglas and it's not close. Edwards I can't speak too as much because I haven't seen him play this year but I won't ever question McDermott on DBs. Deion Jones? He is a free agent, not even offered a PS spot anywhere. Why did you even bring him up? And Bishop is a rookie who blew a coverage so bad we gave up an uncontested 60 yard TD. I'll be critical of McDermott when warranted but none of these players have proven they belong on the field.