HappyDays

I would absolutely do this. Trade Moss or even Singletary plus a reasonable draft pick. Daboll and Schoen are building for the future. Barkley isn't part of that future and they need to accumulate draft picks to move on from Daniel Jones. So I think it could make sense for both sides. But if it was going to happen, I think it already would have.

If we're picking between a somewhat out of game shape Rhodes and Ja'Marcus Ingram I'm still taking Rhodes. Ingram is not someone we can count on for a whole game, he was just our emergency option last week. Maybe Jackson is further along than I think and all of this will be moot anyways. Even in that scenario I would still elevate Rhodes for this game just to have the option available.

We worked him out today so presumably they're comfortable with the shape he's in. Pros like him are always ready for that call. I think he'll be ready to go this weekend, I mean he'll have to be. We have no other options on the roster.

It's him or Ingram, right? Unless Jackson has already fully recovered. Between a reserve UDFA that they basically just pulled from a local college and a veteran that's new to the team but has played a lot of games in zone coverage I imagine they'll take the veteran. Frazier is familiar with Rhodes, I think he's more than just a body.

I'm guessing Elam and Rhodes will be the starters this week. Sucks that it's come to this but he knows the scheme well enough and the Ravens don't exactly have an all star receiving corps. Hopefully we get good news on Tre and Dane Jackson after this week and we can get the band back together in time for the Chiefs.

Against Tennessee last year he chose to go for it on 4th and short instead of kicking a game tying FG. I agree with that decision of course. I don't know where you came up with this idea. He tries to make the best decision in the moment, he isn't particularly aggressive or conservative which IMO is the best coaching style. It doesn't mean his decisions will always work out but he very rarely makes totally head scratching decisions.

It's an interesting debate but at the very least you can't say McDermott failed by going for a FG there. It was a valid decision. He isn't inherently overly conservative, he went for it on 4th and goal earlier in the game. He decided at that moment in the game that getting easy points was the right decision. I agree with him, you don't, and that's fine. Just don't act like his decision was objectively wrong or a sign of his coaching acumen.

Admittedly I am more conservative than most on this board when it comes to decisions like that. I've seen a ton of coaches lose games because they were too aggressive early on. In a shootout of course you play aggressive. In a game where points are at a premium you take the easy points. If Bass had simply made that chip shot field goal we probably would have won. It would have put us in position to just need another field goal to assure a win. The truth is decisions like that are always in hindsight. If you make the FG but ultimately lose by 3 points it was the wrong decision. If you go for it and fail to convert and then lose by 2 points that was the wrong decision. Since no one knows how the game is going to end I believe in taking easy points while you can. 4th and inches on the 40, sure, go for it. 4th and 4 with a gimme FG, take the points. Unfortunately the ball was either tipped or came off his foot weird. So in hindsight it was the wrong decision. In the moment I didn't feel that the flow of the game dictated an aggressive decision. It's not like our short yardage offense has been unstoppable and the players on offense were already exhausted and cramping at that point in the game.

Remember when the only thing we had to complain about was 300 passing yard games? Now Allen can throw a 400 yard game and there is still something to complain about. We've come so far.

I can't even imagine what our defense would have looked like on Sunday without Elam. I believe he was matched up against Tyreek Hill for much of the game, and he gave up 2 receptions for a total of 10 yards. That kind of shutdown CB is much harder to find than a solid center. That's why you draft premium positions in the 1st round. That being said if the Bills want to go OL heavy on day 2 and 3 of the draft next year I won't complain. They need to get some more young talent in the pipeline.

He hesitated for half a second in the middle of his mechanics and then kept going without resetting his feet. Like he double clutched the pass. I don't think exhaustion explains the poor mechanics, but the heat combined with his distrust in the pass protection may have affected his concentration in the moment. We've seen him reset his mechanics before. In that moment he didn't.

In retrospect, sure, because we missed the FG. But in the moment it should have extended our lead and I wouldn't have trusted our OL to hold up long enough for a 4th and 4 anyways.

That's fair. I guess my point is that if teams choose to blitz us we lose our ability to create big plays. We'll happily dink and dunk our way down the field but I don't see that as a long term recipe for success. We need to find a way to punish teams for blitzing us other than just dumping it off for a quick 1st down.

The issue is that we aren't a particularly good red zone offense because we can't run block. Being one dimensional in the red zone makes it a lot more difficult to score. So if teams can force us to drive all the way down field playing mistake free football and then score in the red zone that is the recipe for success against us.

To be clear I'm not saying I want the Bills to change their entire offensive philosophy or become a run-first team. I'm saying they need to find ways to create offensive production without Allen doing everything. Either through the run game or through easy YAC. Offenses that run entirely through the QB don't make it through January. And we can't wait until January to figure out that aspect of our offense. It's something we have to intentionally work at over the course of the season. Even accounting for the injuries on Sunday, Miami just laid out the book on how to beat our offense - blitz us, allow Allen to get his easy quick pass or scramble for a few yards, do this all the way to the red zone and force us into a compressed field. Typically to beat the blitz you would either run the ball or get a YAC receiver involved. We don't have the ability to do either right now so Dorsey has to figure something out. Supposedly this is why we brought James Cook in. I don't know if he's the solution but we have to figure it out.

I'd like to add on 7-7 at halftime against the Rams. What we did to them in the 2nd half was a clinic in excellent coaching. Like you point out close games aren't only defined by the final score.

I'd like to think McDermott doesn't have a week-to-week mindset like this. His mindset needs to be preparing the team for a championship run. Last year Allen played perfect playoff football and it still wasn't enough. You can't win a Super Bowl with 1 person doing 11 people's jobs. So they need to try some things now while the season is still young. Maybe they'll take some lumps and it will look ugly for a bit. But if it prepares them for January football it's worth it.

I think any statistic that uses data from the previous season is really stupid. Every season is a new season. We were 0-6 in close games last year and are 0-1 this year. You can't combine the two and act like it means something. People are reaching to find some overarching coaching or player issue that led us to lose a close game in Miami. It's actually really simple - we were down a bunch of players, we lost more during the game, everyone was exhausted by the end. Trying to pick any meaningful data out of a game like that is a waste of time. We had two coaching failures - the play calling on the 2nd drive (not debatable) and the 3rd and 22 (kind of debatable, I think most defenses would have played it the same way). McDaniel had coaching failures too. On our 1st TD he foolishly blitzed Allen in the red zone which left Singletary wide open. He didn't go max protect on the final run play on 3rd down at their own goal line and it directly led to a safety. But we don't talk about that because the Dolphins won the game. I think it's interesting to discuss the multitude of reasons that the Bills managed to lose a game where they statistically dominated their opponent, but one game does not define the coaching staff or the whole season. It's week 3 for cripes sake. By most analytical measures we are still the best team in football. Josh Allen slipping against the Titans 12 months ago has nothing to do with this conversation.

Back in my day when you got a serious head injury you pretended it was a back injury and came out in the 2nd half.

I respect what you're going for here, but we can't "see what it looks like" in a critical game against a top AFC team. I'm hoping they will just focus in on just a few run plays that they can run with some level of success. I don't need to see a versatile or high-volume run game, just efficient and frequent enough to give Allen a break once in a while.

So I do think you were a little harsh in your post but if people can't handle some negativity after a loss they shouldn't come here after a loss... I've always found the discussion here to be the best way to decompress and get over a bad loss. Like many losses in the last couple years we just needed one core player to make one more play. Where I feel you were especially harsh is with Allen's play, although admittedly I am and always have been a Bills QB homer. Allen made several exceptional plays in this game and most other core starters didn't even make one. In a game with around 70 called pass plays in the extreme heat with starters coming in and out of the lineup it is unrealistic to expect the QB to be perfect. The timing of his 4th down miss was obviously very unfortunate and it rises above a simple missed throw because of when it happened. But in context with the rest of his game he was the least of the offense's problems, and in fact he is the only reason we were able to move the ball at all. I believe Allen is one of the most clutch QBs in the game. If falling apart at the end of close games was a recurring them I'd be more concerned.

I was just thinking about how this game was really NOT lost by the backups, it was lost by the starters. 1) Missed Allen TD throw to McKenzie 2) Dropped Davis TD 3) Dropped Milano pick six 4) Spencer Brown abused by Melvin Ingram 5) Singletary and Dawkins both whiffing on a block on the fumble on the 2nd drive 6) Singletary to my eyes missed a couple cutback lanes in the run game 7) Von Miller was invisible pretty much the whole game The backups, especially the safeties, made some mistakes but that was to be expected. We needed our starters to step up and make plays to bridge that talent gap and they couldn't get it done.

It's crazy how much post game reactions on both sides are influenced by the final result. If Milano just returns the easiest pick six of his life the narrative today is Allen can do more with less and Tua will never be able to keep up with him. Instead the close score is prolonged, heat exhaustion and a ton of TOP slowly leads to more sloppiness on offense, and the Dolphins use it to their advantage to get back into the game. The whole game turned on that one play.