Rochesterfan

Nope several presented with symptoms after the exposure and the positive results. Nucci got the link - thanks.

They are not doing it because they can’t field a team. They are closing it down to prevent further spread within the team. We already know they had 1 guy test positive and get held out last Saturday. Everyone else was negative, but prior to any players coming up positive - it was spread to other coaches and some other non-players. All of those guys tested initially negative, but since then another player has come up positive 3 days later. The point is - without the stoppage - that person could have infected others in the locker room and then while testing negative other spread it before the positives show up. You stop the spread by separating everyone through the incubation period and catch everyone that is potentially positive. Then you clean everything and keep the positives away for at least 10-14 days. They must ensure that the spread is stopped and even daily testing does not always catch that because the time you can spread and the time you become positive have some overlap and this was bad enough that not only are these additional positives - some are symptomatic positives. The NFL was looking at a one day delay if no one else had tested positive. The additional positive means others could also test positive later - so you close it down until Saturday and give time for more people to have multiple tests. They are doing exactly what they should and these guys should all be kept out. If it happens again (and it most likely will) the NFL will deal with it on a case by case basis - trying to play every game - while making sure as needed games get moved or postponed. It should not be one size fits all, but should help guide teams as we move forward.

He tries so hard to lead Nate along and Nate just seems to miss the point. They play ok together - just neither has the commanding presence needed. They know what they are talking about - just together they don’t flow the best.

Now he has more time to get ready to race. or if someone still wants him - free to a good home (please keep vacuum attachments hidden). Not sure where you land after this? Maybe back in Denver with their QB issues.

I doubt ESPN would allow that on Monday opposite their games. Maybe the Tuesday could be shown, but I doubt they want competition on Monday.

We did it before during the snow storm - no complaints- we had to accept it and move forward.

Exactly.

Not really - there is precedence to move a Sunday game to Monday as needed.

I think it is a great idea and could help - just don’t want to overburden the Mods. I would really like to see some rules around new thread starts as was discussed previously. There are a few people that have almost no post counts that come in and start 2-3 or even 4 threads - post the initial and then fade away for 24 hours. They typically seem to be posters using a different log in and then fade away and hit it again. These are tough, but maybe the points can help, but it gets frustrating with some of these posts just trolling people and there is enough activity and people doing the “IN” posts that all just clutter the site. I appreciate your guys time and think the Mods do a great job. It is not easy.

If they can get back in by Thursday or Friday - I could see them pushing the game back to Monday night - like the Bills game a few years ago. If it is Saturday- I could see them manipulate the schedule to match up bye weeks later. Lots of options still early in the season.

We don’t know if that so called 1 irresponsible person was a player. They questioned whether it may have been from the return flight - could someone from the flight crew been non symptomatic and touched something or passed through the circulating air. Could someone at the hotel begin the spread. You do everything to make it as fair as possible - blame should not be assigned until you determine the reasons it happened.

Do you think that changes this year or not? The Bills had Brown and Beasley and if teams doubled Brown and kept middle day with pressure - Allen had little he could do. I think like when Baltimore Blitzed KC - Allen this year has a few tricks to punish teams.

This is why they are closed until Saturday at minimum - takes several days to become positive - so they need to isolate and ensure no one else comes up. Then they can put these guys on the 3 week IR and bring people up. The issue is they won’t know until Friday or Saturday if others are impacted and they won’t let them play with only 1 travel day and some zoom meetings. This has no impact on the rest of the NFL - they just need to figure out the schedule. Good versus Bad - depends on total number of Titans impacted and who misses the game, but does suck because Pittsburgh being so physical would’ve helped the Bills a bunch. I read something that stated that teams have a significantly worse record the weeks after playing the Ravens and Steelers due to the physicality of the game. Teams need more recovery which could have been huge.

This is what I expect to see happen - where possible they will make adjustments to the schedule. Move a few games around and if needed add a bye week at the end. The goal is to contain and prevent spread. The key is when the contact occurred and are the Vikings impacted beyond today. The Titans are closed through Saturday and maybe longer if more positives show up. The NFL hoped to avoid, but knew this was a likely issue. I expect they have several plans depending on the extent of the breakout and will make adjustments. They didn’t mess with the schedule immediately- but I would not be surprised to see some minor tweaks getting announced and maybe even adding some time where only a few teams play on a weekend and getting some extra TV money to help with next years cap.

To be fair though - they have specifically chosen they players for their offense. It is not that he doesn’t have weapons - the Ravens looked at Jackson’s strengths and brought people to enhance those strengths. Rather than go for speed and WR talent - they recognized that Jackson was good at motion and hitting big targets between the hashes - so they focused on TEs that could block and give him the targets he needs. I look back to last year Buffalo versus Baltimore and I see a Baltimore team that could do next to nothing on offense, but the Bills offense was so out of sync - they could not capitalize and get the lead to put that pressure on the Ravens. If the Bills used that same Defense with this years offense - it would have looked more like what the Chiefs did to the Ravens.

Agree - he would most likely only rack up 3 quarters of a game, but it would be at least 2 or 3 teams going 100% and it helps players get used to the speed and physicality. It would also allow the front 7 time to meld together and understand strengths and weaknesses. Right now they are not playing as a unit, but more like a group of individuals. They also have several new guys in the D-line rotation and very little time they have physically played together to get a feeling for each other. What I see - especially in the Rams game - is the DT is getting blocked 1 on 1 and allowing the guard to get a body on Edmunds. His greatest weakness is fighting off blocks and maintaining the gap and he struggled big time with that against LA. The Jets did very little running - so they barely worked on it and he was out against the Dolphins. I think that lack of prep really hurt in this game. The Bills in general have really not had to stop a running attack since last year and I think it showed. It shows around the league where defensive teams are just not fluid early in the year.

The reason the Horsecollar is so dangerous is typically with a guy running you are grabbing and then throwing your body across the back of their legs. I believe the NFL felt in the pocket - the chance of a guy falling across the back of the legs is less and that typically it will happen rarely and the QB will be just planted down. I think they feel it is much less dangerous in that small area with out the QB running. Obviously when a man like Donald gets ahold of you and twists and flings - it is dangerous, but then the Refs should call the roughing call for the tackle - not the horsecollar. He should have gotten flagged for hitting Allen in the face and for the way he threw him down. I understand it seems strange to carve it out, but my guess is the QBs have other protections - so inherently they felt it was less of an issue. We can agree or not, but it is the rules - where he grabbed him (after hitting him in the face) was not the issue. The throw down and hitting Allen in the face and tugging on the face mask - all should have been penalized as I am sure Allen politely pointed out to the Ref.

I will defer completely until I can see the All-22, but I believe the Rams made a change to Donald that threw the Bills off. Early in the game he was attacking from DT or occasionally DE and moving straight ahead. The Bills guards (mostly) stopped the initial surge and then they got help - Morse or Kroft or Tackle or even RB to slow him down. Plus they ran quick hitters into the gap he would create - getting some running lanes. Late in the game - when Donald took over - they lined him up at DE on Williams with the DE inside. They then ran stunt after stunt - with Donald looping to the inside on Winters. This gave Donald leverage on Winters and allowed him to just throw Winters out of the way and made it difficult to set up double teams. I think Winters really struggled with the speed and power (as almost anyone would) and the Bills couldn’t seem to counter the loop. Not sure I totally blame Winters, but it was the guy attacking him a bunch.

This is technically the reason they allow the collar tackles in the pocket. Unlike out in the field where the defensive guys have the ability to tackle anyplace - including getting pieces of the helmet. In the pocket they try to limit the zone of hitting. You have to be below the helmet and above the knees and thigh area. Typically a tackle like Donald’s get called for roughing because as they grab up high they contact the head area (as we see here). How they did not call roughing with the way he grabbed and threw him down - I will never understand - plus live you could see initial contact was in the helmet and then on replay. Huge missed call.

This is exactly it. The catches he has made, the way he has used his size, but also his “speed”. He is everything the Bills were hoping to get out of Duke, but just didn’t. Do you think Davis makes a couple of those end zone catches that just eluded Duke last year? I do. I am amazed at everything we are getting out of him at this point and hope he keeps pushing and growing.

On the other hand - if the Ref doesn’t make the call and allows blatant contact and the defender to impede and prevent the route - is he not handing a win to the other team? Tasker talked a lot about this on One Bills Live - the NFL (unlike Hockey) has always asked their Refs to call it the same whether there is 3 seconds gone in the 1st quarter or 3 seconds left in the game. Many coaches though know that the Refs have a natural tendency not to want to make that call - so they teach their guys to be extra aggressive in those situations and force the Refs to make that call. (see Baltimore and even the Seahawks/Bills game 4 years ago where the DBs were all over the Bills WRs and shoving them out of bounds) Based upon position - if the DB does not impede the progress of Davis there - that had a great chance to be a TD as he beat him to the inside and had an angle to the spot. Davis kept fighting to get there and the DB kept moving and blocking.

Look around the league - with no preseason- tackling everywhere is terrible. I watched GB take some terrible angles and be overall slow to spots and it is like that across the league. My guess is you will see defenses start to get better over the next couple of weeks as they work their way back and some scoring will go down. It is not just Buffalo - defenses just are not good right now and the big differences isn’t the passing - it is the tackling everywhere is really bad. To me since it seems to be league wide and the difference is no preseason and less contact - that most likely has a big impact on those types of things.

The DB was making contact 7-10 yards downfield, he held him at one point, and was still in contact with the ball in the air. They could have called him for holding, illegal contact, and pass interference- all on the same play. It was quite blatant, but they do not always make those calls. What they called had very little difference as a hold or illegal contact would have been 5 yards to about the 7.5 yard and the PI was at outside the 3. All of them were 1 down calls, but as was stated on the broadcast - they got the call right.

Two main reasons the lack of preseason impacts Defense more: 1) Physicality- Defenses need the contact and the full blocking to work on things like run fits and most importantly tackling. The lack of preseason games and even contact in practice means teams are not getting into good tackling position and are all a little slow in reacting - allowing big plays, more missed tackles than ever, and poor angles both on runs and in run fits/screens. 2) Preseason - the offenses were usually bland, but it gave film on certain players and play types teams wanted to run. You got maybe 5-6 quarters of film on the offensive players and it helps teams gauge how to attack as the defenses ramp up for the season. This year with no film on teams until game 1, no real contact in training camp (minus one partial scrimmage), and not a lot of contact during the week - I would think it will take about 4 weeks to make up for missed time and for teams to have film and new tendencies figured out. It is a crazy year, but everything that went into making it safe has made it wild. A final factor that has barely been discussed, but I think is having an impact is the Refs and how they are calling games. As the NFL (for safety) is not having the Refs travel as a group, but putting together Ref pairings based upon their home location - the refs are not as familiar with each other are are calling far fewer penalties. Not a bad thing, but the biggest change has been offensive holding calls being way down.

That entire drive defines the season. Pederson totally misplayed the entire drive - trying to play for a long field goal. I do not understand what he was thinking with that drive. 1st and 10 on the Cincinnati 44 with 1:26 and the clock running. Shotgun run for 1 yard - made no sense - that needed to be a throw to get them into reasonable range. 2nd and 9 on the 43 with 0:45 and the clock running - QB run for 2 yards (now it is a 58 yard attempt and you have the clock running and are in no mans land). They rushed to the line and then threw a short incompletion with 19 seconds left and no timeouts. The throw wasn’t enough for a first down and there were no timeouts- so the best outcome from that would be having to rush your kicker out with a moving clock at :15 seconds to try and kick a 55 yard FG. If you were going to throw - the pass attempt needed to be on first or second down so you had a spike. The throw on 3rd down was a terrible call. If Pederson thought he was in FG range - after the run on second down - just let the clock tick down to 5 seconds - spike the ball and make the FG attempt. If Pederson thought they needed more yards then you have to pass on first or second down. If they had let the clock run down after second down - the 58 yard kick would end the game. Then even the penalty moving it to a 63 yard attempt still ends the game (likely as a tie, but on your terms). Having to punt with 0:19 seconds left is a terrible look. He really had no choice because of how poorly they ran the last drive, but he really looks lost since he lost his coordinators. They are a totally different team and it shows.