HappyDays

He wears blue and orange. That makes it easy to dislike him in my book.

I think Mayfield is actually the perfect example of what I mean. He was not a bad QB in Cleveland, they just decided to move on because they have the worst owner in the NFL. And I think Mayfield himself would admit he wasn't really giving it his all early in his career. Not that he was especially lazy like say Jamarcus Russell was, but you didn't hear the stories of almost psychotic commitment to getting better like you heard with Allen or Mahomes or Brady. Did spending a year on the Panthers scout team turn his career around? Did Matt Rhule change the way he approached the position? Of course not. What happened is he put his head down and re-dedicated himself to his craft, then when opportunity knocked on a potential game winning drive for the Rams he was ready and seized his moment. Next thing you know Liam Cohen is getting the credit for "fixing" Baker Mayfield and gets a head coaching opportunity because they think he can "fix" Trevor Lawrence. Well, early returns on that aren't looking so great. The QB is going to have to fix himself. Nobody can do it for him. This conversation reminded me of a hilarious post I saw earlier:

My unpopular opinion is that QBs make themselves. The coaching doesn't matter nearly as much to that outcome as people think. I'm not saying coaching doesn't affect how well the offense as a whole functions, just that great QBs will be great no matter what coach they get tethered to and ditto for bad QBs. Daboll was dubbed a QB whisperer because Allen became elite under his watch. Turns out he's closer to the guy that had 30th ranked offenses for the vast majority of his pre-Allen career. Nobody should have expected Ben Johnson to show up and "fix" Caleb Williams. I'm sure some Bears fans are disappointed but that's only because they had an unrealistic expectation. I continue to believe they will move on from Caleb Williams next year unless he shows massive improvement over the course of the season. Johnson isn't going to risk his first head coaching shot on an underperforming QB that he isn't tied to. He'll get his handpicked QB next year and then we'll begin to really see if he can live up to the hype.

For that to take place KC would have most likely needed to beat Baltimore in Baltimore which would not be a bad outcome for us at all.

Depends on how they look over the rest of the year. I'm always going to be concerned that their offense dominates us because they do it on an annual basis, so until I see us slow them down when it counts it's hard to feel overly confident. Right now I'd say 60% confidence level.

Andy Reid has been scheming guys open, Mahomes just isn't hitting on schedule throws at the clip he's capable of. I've seen him overthrow a bunch of wide open WRs downfield in the first two games. If any improvement is coming, his play is where it it will come from. The run game I think they are just sunk. It's all JAG RBs and the IOL has taken a step back. On defense Spags has definitely been floundering a bit. It kind of reminds me of McDermott when he was our acting DC in 2023, where we just kept blitzing over and over again because we had no other answers and opposing offenses were killing us for it. Spags knows his base front 4 can't get pressure and his back end can't hold up. So he is resorting to the same tactic and equally getting killed for it. The offense can get significantly better, at least the passing offense. The defense however I'm not really sure that it can.

No they will make the playoffs. Their coaching staff is too good and Mahomes will bounce back especially when he has his #1 WR back. I just don't buy this narrative that starting 0-2 doesn't matter because something something the Patriots. They have some pretty fundamental issues on both sides of the ball. The whole right side of the OL is a mess. They can't run the ball. They have no difference making skill players. Their secondary is McDuffie and a bunch of JAGs. Their front 4 is middling. It is not just a case of sloppy play from a bored team where you can see an obvious path for improvement. Those fundamental issues are going to be there all year. If the Chiefs make it to the Super Bowl out of the AFC, that is a massive massive failure on the part of Buffalo and Baltimore. Both teams, especially us, have had their opportunities to block the dynasty but have failed to make the plays to close out those games. KC has also out-coached both teams in those games. This year I am very confident that both rosters and both QBs are better than their counterparts in KC. It seems likely that KC will end up in a divisional dogfight until the end of the season which means they won't be able to rest anybody and may enter the playoffs as a wildcard. I'm not counting them out but I'm also not going to pretend they have some magical aura around them that means these issues don't matter.

TE is a position where guys come out of nowhere. Kittle for example was a 5th rounder. Very difficult position to project to the pros and Hawes just seems like a natural. I think catching that seam against Baltimore was huge for his confidence. Now he knows he can make tough catches through contact against the most physical secondary in the NFL which means he can do it against anyone. He isn't quick enough to become a consistent separator but if he can develop a feel for working open in zone and an ability to make tough catches in traffic, that along with his elite blocking could make him a potential impact TE2.

FWIW PFF had him as our top offensive player in both games. Gave him a 93.7 grade against the Ravens and an 85.3 against the Jets. By their metrics those are both considered elite grades. Played at Yale and Georgia Tech, but from day one is immediately dominating NFL players. The guy was created in a lab to do this one very niche job.

He's still seeing pineapples every time he closes his eyes

Even though it's probably technically better for the Bills if the Raiders win this one, I'm rooting for the Chargers to establish a 3 game lead over the Chiefs. Getting them to be a wildcard team would be huge.

I was thinking they should have just taken a knee, wasn't worth the risk of something going wrong and Houston returning the ball for 2 points.

Awesome game from Baker. Houston's defense is relentless and he just kept putting the team on his back in every big moment.

Like I said, great call not to use the TO to run the clock all the way down. Never doubted it.

Why the hell did they not use a TO?? That is just crazy.

Ah the rookie heard footsteps

Scoring that quickly is a gift to TB. 2 minutes and 4 downs and 3 TOs. Your offense has done nothing in this half. Find a way to win.

Man Stroud has really been off

Baker's offense needs him to make a play and he does. That's where Stroud is lagging behind the top 10 right now.

Stroud is just not quite good enough to overcome their personnel issues. A tad off on 3rd down, way overthrown to no man's land on 4th down. If he wants to be talked about as a tier 2 QB let alone tier 1 he needs to make those plays.

Doubt it is a serious injury. He was on the sidelines with his helmet on through the 2nd half. If it was really serious he would have been in the locker room. That being said we'll almost certainly keep him out on a short week, as we should. We really just need to go undefeated against our clearly inferior opponents and win any 1 of KC/Philly/TB. If we do that we'll probably have the #1 seed locked up in week 18. Rest all the starters for two weeks and for the first time ever enter the playoffs with a totally healthy defense and only 2 wins to get to the Super Bowl. If we end up in a seeding dogfight down the stretch and end up losing a defensive player or two in the wildcard we'll have no one to blame but ourselves. Stay focused and don't drop any stupid games.

What I'm learning watching this game is Houston's D is strong on the edges but you can gash them up the middle.

Bills 30 Dolphins 17 Thursday night games can be weird and I'm sure the Miami players want to show the world they aren't the worst team in the NFL. But their roster deficiencies are just too much to overcome and the locker room dynamics are past the point of no return. Mike McDaniel has totally lost control of his team. If we get up 2 scores in this one I think Miami will pack it in and we can sit out a good chunk of the 4th quarter for the second game in a row.

Funny enough I've been asking myself over the past few years what it would be like to have an elite pass rusher. Von showed us a glimpse before his injury, but other than that we have been lacking this major component of the championship formula that other contenders have had. Well, Bosa's performance in this game showed me what it's like. Beyond his on paper production which itself was eye popping, his constant disruption whether it got home or not was getting in Fields' head and made him completely ineffective. There were flashes of it in week 1 and now we've gotten the full vision. It's been a long time since I could say a Bills player other than Allen took over a game and made it effectively impossible for the opponent to stay in it. Bosa and Oliver look like they could be a major problem this year if they can just stay healthy together. I'm desperately hoping we lock up the #1 seed early so we can let them rest and have them full steam ahead entering the playoffs. Those guys wreaking havoc around the QB could be the missing element we need to finally get over the hump.

Mahomes isn't Brady and Reid isn't Belichick so that's where that comparison ends.