BillsFan4

Come on defense. Lets get them off the field!

Agree. This o line needs to run block better IMO.

People complain aboutMcDermott’s game management... Indy has already burned 2 timeouts in the first 1/4.

Everyone needs to remember that Daboll has probably only been able to install a small number of plays for Anderson. Anderson said himself that any play he isn’t yet comfortable with, he won’t run.

Bills D playing well so far. Man I hope Anderson can at least just be a game manager for us and give us a chance to win with this defense.

Well, for Anderson’s first drive in 2 years, I’ll take it...

Damn, they blew that run play up immediately.

Nice pass to Holmes.

I don’t know what happened in that specific practice - if housley stopped it and laid into them or if he actually thought they practiced well. I believe Okposo that they didn’t practice well. But, in general, I take what Housley says to the media with a grain of salt. I don’t really expect him to say “yeah we practiced terribly”. I remember seeing a lot of People who got mad about that last year. He would say they did some things well after a bad loss. He would be generally positive with the media, etc. and it pissed people off. But the players appreciated him not throwing them under the bus to the media. But he is MUCH different behind closed doors. He doesn’t hesitate to lay into the players. He can be heard yelling right through the concrete walls of the locker room after a bad game. As far as what Okposo said, it was one practice. I am not going to read too much into comments on one practice. I’ve heard the players say multiple times that they had great, crisp, up-tempo practices too. Even Okposo said in his quote that they’ve usually been much better in practice this season. Here’s the quote - https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/sabres-colorado-avalanche-recap-highlights/c-300873908 I would be a be a lot quicker to blame Housley if we didn’t have so many of the same problems under Bylsma. I truly worry about some of the core players we have being uncoachable. Like Ristolainen, Reinhart. I used to worry about Eichel too, but I am truly seeing progress from him. I think its telling that our 4th line has been our best in numerous games this year. They actually do what the coaches tell them to do, and it works. Personally, I think the problems with this team run a LOT deeper than coaching. I think It’s a culture that has been established through the tank years. I think there hasn’t been any accountability from the players for years (up until this season). I think young guys were handed roles without having to earn them. They fired Bylsma when the players decided they didn’t want to listen to him. They haven’t had the depth to be able to sit some of these guys to make a point, or to make them actually compete to earn their roster spots. And The list goes on...

Agree. It’s very clear that the Sabres are lacking talent, and the talent we do have isn’t playing up to par. Our best players aren’t playing like our best players... And when their effort/battle/compete level is also lacking in any given period it’s a recipe for disaster. I know everyone likes to blame housley, but the thing is we had most of these same problems under Bylsma and I heard all the same stuff about how it was Bylsma’s fault. When does the blame get put on the players for refusing to accept the coaching? And for lack of executing on stuff the coach goes over constantly? I know for a fact Housley drills this stuff in practice all the time. He’s a lot tougher on them than people realize. He is constantly working on the stuff they do wrong in games, and (from what I hear) they will execute it well in practice, then come game time you will see them play the right way for brief periods of time and revert right back to doing whatever they feel like. All I head with Bylsma is how we HAD to get rid of him to fix our problems. They couldn’t make tape to tape passes. They weren’t battling hard enough. They weren’t prepared to start games. They were playing too safe. He wasn’t preparing them well enough. He had lost the room. His system didn’t work. I heard how how they needed a coach who would let them play a fast north south game and open up the offense. The safe defensive game was killing them. Let the players make mistakes..... Now it’s “they need to play safer and make less mistakes”. I am not saying housley is the answer. I don’t know yet. But you don’t hire a rookie head coach and franchise legend, then run him out of town a year later. The Sabres aren’t going to have any alumni left st this rate... lol. (j/k) I will say that I have been consistently impressed with Housley’s knowledge for the game. It is second to none. He knows exactly what they did wrong after every game. We don’t hear any of that “I need to review the tape” stuff we heard from Bylsma. He can tell you exactly what they need to do better the minute the game is over (which tells me he is also telling the players that stuff during the game). And again, I know he drills that stuff hard in practice. He will stop the whole practice if guys aren’t executing or doing what they’re told. But he can’t do that in games. It’s on the players...

Its friendlier than it looks because Oakland will assume some dead cap. Like when Dareus went to Jacksonville, his cap hit wasn’t $16M like in Buffalo. It was $10M for Jax. Just about $48M of Carr’s $125M was paid out already. That would leave just over $77M over 4 years. I am not sure on this, but I think that would make his cap hit $19.33M at most. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/oakland-raiders/derek-carr-14445/ Does anyone know know for sure how you figure out what his cap hit would be if traded? I took $125M. Subtracted the $47,675,000 already paid, then divided the remaining money ($77,325,000) by 4 (yrs).

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/oakland-raiders/derek-carr-14445/ His cap hit is only around $21-$22M in 2019 and beyond. I believe it would be even less to the team acquiring him because of the money the raiders already paid (like Dareus in Jacksonville). Plua, the dead cap hit isn’t bad at all if you do eventually move on from him ($7.5M in 2019, $5M in 2020, $2.5M in 2021). If I were running the Bills, I’d be all over this. And I would keep Josh Allen, too. #1) it gives Allen the time he needs to develop. He was always more of a long term project anyway, IMO. #2) it creates competition at the most important position in football. McDermott is all about competition for spots. If Allen ever does legitimately earn the spot,you can trade Carr and his cap hit will be even more appealing at that time. Or if Carr shows he is the legit franchise QB we’ve been searching for since Kelly, then you can trade Allen. Fitting his cap cap hit in this season would be a problem, but I’m sure they can find a way to make it work. I sont see see this happening, but I wish it would...

WTF was the point in trading Khalil Mack if they aren’t going to keep Derek Carr? I thought the Raiders felt that they could pay both Carr + Mack and still build a solid team. This is not very good asset management by Gruden if they really do trade Carr...

Glad they signed him to the practice squad. We’ve already put this much time into his development, and we had an opening on the PS so why not? I don’t know if he will ever turn into anything, but it seems at least worth the shot (for now...).

Well.... I like that buffalo hasn’t just collapsed (so far) after going down by 2.

He looked like he had a serious Vegas hangover... he was half dead during that game. I remember At. Louis fans saying he had a reputation as a bit of a party boy, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that were indeed the case. I know Berglund missed practice after the LV game. Housley said he was banged up. So it could also be in part due to injury.

Daboll. There’s more of an unknown factor with him, having seen Hackett’s offense for 2yrs and Daboll’s for less than 1/2 a year. I just remember how predictable Hackett’s offense was here. It got to the point where the TV announcers were predicting the next play (it made it easier to predict since they brought Lee Smith in a TE on most run plays, and IIRC Chandler on most passing plays). Run, run, pass on 3rd down. Repeat endlessly... lol. But it’s honestly hard to truly judge eitherwith the talent they’ve both had to work with at QB... Daboll has been severely limited in what plays he can call this season. Allen isn’t seeing his open receivers a lot of times, either. I’ve watched enough all-22 film breakdowns now, where Daboll calls the right play to beat the defense, guys get open and Allen just isn’t seeing them or even looking in their direction. I’d like to see what Daboll can do with a more experienced Allen. Hopefully in the mean time Derek Anderson will afford him the opportunity to better execute his offense (once he shakes off the rust, anyway...). Hackett was limited in a similar way in his time here. I think both are better OCs than what they showed in their time in buffalo. But I’d go with Daboll off of what I know right now.

I like this move. Congrats Cam! Now make something of this big opportunity! I wonder if if they will try to add Foster to the practice squad? Wish him all the best, wherever he ends up.

The way I understand it is that he was allowed to own an NBA team in Portland because there is no NFL team there. If there was, he’d have been forced to divest interest in one or the other. Yes, they could because both teams were in the same city/market. I believe the rule only applied to owning 2 teams in cities/states that have NFL teams, which is why Jacobs would’ve had to divest interest (because of the Patriots). https://theathletic.com/596437/2018/10/17/nfl-owners-meetings-seattle-seahawks-future-paul-allen-death/ (sub required)

I has that problem the other day on this site (it happens from time to time for me) but today it’s loading fast.

Yeah, I heard it reported yesterday (can’t remember where) that once he was the 3rd string QB he had no interest in sticking around anymore.

Tasker said that Derek Anderson did not want to go through a training camp at 35yrs old, and he wanted to spend time with his family. And it was reported that Josh McCown’s preference was to stay with the Jets and wanted to be promised the starting role (which the Jets did do initially).

According to reports today, they had actually been trying to sign Anderson for quite some time - going all the way back to when free agency opened in the spring. I guess Anderson just wasn’t ready to sign anywhere at the time.

There are rumors out there that he may be turning down workouts is because his arm is done.

Actually, Tasker said that they tried to sign Anderson and ended up with McCarron (after Anderson turned them down). So yes, they did try to sign him before the draft. They tried to sign Josh McCown too (peter king was actually the one to first report it), but he chose the Jets.