Drunken Pygmy Goat

I'm in town visiting for a wedding and was there. My brother told me on Saturday that WNY has a ton of Denver fans and there would be a lot at the game. Many are bandwagoners from recent years, but he said a lot are from the Elway years, back when they were losing all those Super Bowls. If I had to guess, I'd say there was between 15,000-20,000 Broncos fans in attendance.

The Bills can still find their QB in the draft, even if they don't finish with a top 5 draft pick. The defense is probably too good to lose more than 9 or 10 games, so the Bills will probably end up drafting right around 10 (as usual), but they have plenty of draft capital to play with. I don't wish injury on anyone, but the Bills would benefit from a team losing their proven QB (or just losing, period) and finishing with a poor record. The Jets and Browns are obviously going to draft before Buffalo, possibly San Francisco as well. Three teams that all need QBs. The top 3 QBs will all probably be gone well before 10. The Bills will need to trade up. Or maybe their guy is gone, and they don't draft a QB early in 2018, and trade out of both 1st round picks. They would have an unreal amount of capital in 2019.

Flying up for the week on Saturday. I thought I would be escaping the Florida heat. Figures, it will be just about the same temp in WNY. Oh well...it will be my first home game, so I'm jacked up regardless. It will be nice in the mornings and evenings, though.

But not every coach adheres to that, at least not fully. Some coaches are much more lenient than others. I have no clue what exactly McDermott is "looking" for, but you can probably guess what character issues he's looking to avoid. The effort (character) vs talent thing certainly matters, though, especially to our coach. The level of talent in the NFL is pretty close, from an overall roster standpoint. I do believe effort trumps talent, not in just football. Just my opinion, and whether or not that is actually true is debatable, but if it is, to what extent is debatable as well. You can fill your roster with good guys without completely eliminating top talent from the roster. It may not be as easy, but it can be done, and it's not like it's a bad thing to do, especially after the circus that just left town. Essentially, effort/talent across the roster doesn't mean jack if you don't have a franchise QB.

If Kromer was brought back by McDermott, and he punched a teenager, I highly doubt the Bills would have kept him on the staff. Not a player, I know, but the message would be clear. I know he was suspended for 6 games or whatever, but that was under Rex's circus tent. If a player does this, you know he would not be around much longer.

The circumstances around Powell and Henderson have been documented and discussed publicly. They're professional athletes. You don't need to know them personally to see red flags. In many cases, the public doesn't know the truth or all the details. But Powell and Henderson didn't beat their girlfriends or anything like that. The Bills aren't going to just outright cut every player the second they screw up. It depends on the circumstances. And as others have mentioned, suspended players don't count towards the 53 man roster. But Washington had a scary run-in with the law (that couldn't have turned out any better), but the Bills didn't just move on from him because he made (another) poor choice. Still, a player's status with the team will factor in to the coach's decision making. Say Washington did something more egregious, and was suspended for two games. Unless it's something ridiculously stupid or negative, he's probably a bit "safer" than, say, Gerald Hodges, if he were to commit the same offense. Washington is younger, and is probably viewed as a replacement on the line for Kyle Williams in the very near future (although I believe that player should Jerel Worthy). McDermott and the Bills FO care about character. It is a big factor in their evaluations, but not the main factor. But if you can shape your roster with good, high character type players over the course of a couple years, you essentially change the culture. Effort trumps talent every time, and with the high amount of draft capital that the Bills have now, they can afford to move on from a couple "low character" players in the off-season, while still landing a top QB, if they feel it's necessary.

I though this was going to be another "cut/trade Dareus" post. Maybe we're putting a bit too much emphasis on the whole "character" thing. It's obviously something that McDermott cares about when it comes to building a team, but they aren't going to simply get rid of every single person that has any kind of off field issue. The Cowboys and Bills may be on different ends of the character spectrum, and even though guys like Powell and Henderson aren't top talent players, they aren't exactly guys that have had multiple issues, and they provide solid depth. Henderson has had some "issues", but mostly health related. It will take a more serious violation for the Bills to simply move on from a player.

They look every bit the part of a top 10 defense by year's end, maybe top 5. Need to be better on 3rd down, though. And need less 3 and outs from the offense.

Makes sense. Schmidt didn't kick too well yesterday.

They did have a TO left, although better clock management under 2 minutes would have yielded more time on the clock, and perhaps still had a TO left. But Zay is a rookie, and the play call itself may have been with the intention of a sideline route to stop the clock. A vet WR notices the hole in the coverage, and doesn't flatten out the route as much, anticipating his QB sees the same thing, and "throws him open". The problem with this one play is that there are so many people that want so desperately to see Taylor holding a clipboard, that they'll use whatever they can to give their opinion support. I like Taylor, and want him to succeed, but I won't claim that he's something that he's not. If he's not the guy going forward, so be it. But personally, I thought he put the ball in the right place, watching live, and watching several replays. Maybe I'm wrong. Thing is, even if Zay runs the route differently, catches a GW TD, that wouldn't have erased the rest of a poor overall performance by Taylor, yet there would be people here claiming that Taylor is our savior, while completely dismissing the rest if the game. It was very similar to the Bills @ Titans game a couple years ago. Defense was stout, offense was anemic for 3 quarters. Taylor converted a 3rd and 23 with his legs, hit a deep pass to Hogan, and shortly after that, a TD pass. That kind of clutch play started to show yesterday near the end, but just couldn't haul in the deep pass. Ugly game on offense. "Crusher the Crusader" Don't bother with him...

It was an obvious penalty, but no flag. And the PI was egregious. I hate when poor officiating has such huge ramifications on wins and losses, but just like the Zay drop, these are just individual plays. They did not cause the Bills to lose, they just "helped". The Bills terrible offense, and poor 3rd down defense for 2 quarters is what caused the loss. Better results from either of those facets of the game, and we wouldn't have to worry about a missed call, or a bad call, or a dropped pass. Those plays become magnified in hindsight, only because the team was reliant on those individual plays at that point in order to win.

I haven't read through this whole thread, only the first several pages, but even though that one play was crucial, it certainly shouldn't be our focal point. But one thing I didn't mention earlier was the idea that perhaps Zay was heading towards the sideline in order to stop the clock after the reception. Who, why, and how on that one play could be speculated to death, but there will never be a clear cut answer, unless the coaches give us one. The real issue is what put the Bills in that position in the first place. Taylor played rather poorly up until the last several minutes of the game, no question about it. But the offense as a whole was pathetic. The first half was one of the worst 30 minutes of offense that I can remember watching. The play calling was horrendous, our run game was non existent for much of the game, especially in the first half. The passing attack was a non factor. The Bills were still trying to get past page one of their scripted stuff in the second quarter...and even though nothing was working, they were too stubborn to change their approach. On defense, the Panthers had converted their first 3 3rd downs, and were 4/5 on 3rd down after that (I stopped keeping track at that point). The holes in our zone D were huge, and they knew exactly how to attack this defense. Run D was sharp all game, and the Panthers knew it would be going in. But the D kept the Bills in it, and could have had 3 INTs, two of which probably should have been INTs. They were also aided by untimely Panthers penalties that took them out of FG range, keeping the score closer. The pass rush really came alive in the 2nd half. But in the end, the Bills were in pretty good position, all things considered. They had TOs, but did not use them correctly. I was screaming for a TO, but the Bills instead let the clock bleed, only to call TO as the play clock neared zero, wasting about 30 crucial seconds of clock. Bottom line, this loss doesn't fall squarely on the players' shoulders. Play calling was terrible, and game management in certain situations was even worse. The Bills had no business winning yesterday, and they were lucky to be in a position for Zay to win it in the end. Whether it was on Zay or Taylor is not what we should be focused on.

Nope

That's pretty much what I saw. I said it was a "great" throw, but I suppose a great throw would have been better than that, and caught. I just thought that it would have been an easy TD had Zay flattened out his route. The throw was to the right spot IMO, based on the coverage. Ball hits Zay in stride if the route isn't as hard to the sideline. But he's young, and was probably running the route exactly the way it was drawn up, rather than improvised based on the soft spot in the coverage.

No, no, no...we must place blame!

Your general point is probably true, but I saw that play different...maybe I'm a fool. That doesn't mean I want so desperately for TT to be the answer. That was just one play. It would have been a very tough catch, regardless of who was more to blame, but it hit both hands.

The throw was great...it was the route that was off. Taylor threw it in the perfect spot, but Zay didn't angle his route to the open end zone. He ran it to the sideline. Still hit him in the hands.

Taylor wasn't very good overall, but this loss falls directly on the coaches. Even still, the Bills were a dropped TD away from winning a game they had no business winning. It was a lot like the Titans game a couple years ago...except without the clutch catch near the end.

Ok, I probably did tear up a bit when Everett walked. I hadn't even considered that moment.

His history? He's missed 11 games in his career, and has played a full 16 multiple times. "His history" should tell you that he's been pretty reliable throughout his career, especially for a guy at his position. He's already expected to start on Sunday. Seems like you're just trying to stir things up. Beat me to it. 8 of his 11 games missed came over two seasons.

Never. As brutal as it has been to be a Bills fan, there are far greater issues in the world to cry about, rather than over a game. My hope is that someday they will make me cry, when I see the Bills hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

When you're the first team since 1939 to finish your first 2 games without a TD, there's plenty of blame to go around, but the OC is right at the top. Hasn't happened in almost 80 years...that's all-time bad, especially with today's passing friendly league.

21-37 220 yards passing, 41 rushing 1 TD, 1 INT SACKED 2X Bills 21-17

Yes, because those games are televised locally. You have to watch on your local CBS/Fox affiliate. I'm in the Jags viewing area. If I want to watch them for whatever reason, I have to turn on channel 6.

I'm late, but this was a great little breakdown and observation. Well done! Couple of things I'd like to mention: - Not only did Taylor show signs of improvement in some areas as a passer (even if only one game), he has also shown positives in the mental aspect of the position. Two great examples were the throw away on 2nd down, and the slide near the end of the game. The throw away brought about a long 3rd down, but Taylor converted by scrambling for the sticks, which led to the Holmes TD on the following play. A throw away isn't a "positive" play, but it's not a "negative" play either, and you live to see another play. On the slide, Taylor had the awareness to make sure he picked up the 1st down before beginning his slide (that's where the ball is spotted), and not run out of bounds and stop the clock. The Bills ran off about another 90 seconds after that play, all but sealing the deal that late in a two score game. Also, his leadership has been noticed and mentioned by players. Taylor has between his ears what some QBs with cannon arms desperately lack (Cutler). Another thing; I said months ago that this offense would better suit Taylor, and while none of us truly knew exactly what type of offense we would see, we had a good idea. But many people disagreed and said the opposite. But if Sunday was any indication of what we can expect going forward, we should all feel comfortable with Taylor in this scheme. I still don't think we'll see big numbers from the WRs, but McCoy and the TEs may see a significant increase in their production in the passing game, balancing out the "lacking" WR numbers in a way. If that's what keeps the chains moving, who cares? But the fact that the Bills we're in shotgun so much tells me that the coaches are smart enough to not completely change the offense. There were many concepts that worked well over the last 2 years with Taylor, and just scrapping them in order to force the players to cater to scheme would be foolish. This allows the offense to have a more diverse arsenal, and gives the OC flexibility calling plays. We'll still see a bunch of the Kubiak influenced offense at times, but the offense will probably use a strategy similar to modern defenses. Defenses are 4-3/3-4 in base scheme, but are in nickel more often than base. People tend to put too much emphasis on 4-3/3-4 than they should, based on that fact. It's usually nickel around 60%, base around 40%. Our offense will probably be similar to that idea, in that they'll not be in a traditional formation as often as people may have assumed would be the case. That's all I wanted to add. Do you do these for the defense as well?