Rochesterfan

@Hapless Bills Fan - I think if you are looking for pick plays - look at the 2 OPI calls. In those cases - 1 against KC and 1 against Buffalo - the WR makes contact with the defender and does not appear to be running routes. They do not “block” exactly, but they make physical contact preventing the DB from getting outside/inside. Kelce is in the way - but makes no contact with Tre and Tre works his way around. If Tre goes straight and goes right through Kelce - then the refs have to decide did Kelce block him or was it incidental. The problem is if you hit him and get stopped and they call it incidental- you might be way out of position - allowing a bigger play. It happens all the time by many teams - rarely is it called. Hill and Kelce - have a nice feel for it because Hill needs so little space to get open - that a half step to get around frees Hill up. The Bills did a great job of mixing covers and slowing that play down. The other option was if Tre and Johnson switched coverage on those - with Tre picking up Kelce and Johnson using his leverage on Hill. My bigger issue was on the first defensive holding call where Kelce ran right over the DB and did not get called for a penalty, but they. Allen the DB that got knocked down for holding.

As far as I can tell - unless someone has it queued up - it was: 1st and 10 at the Bills 28. Hill ran the Ball and was pushed out of bounds at the Bills 13. The holding was occurring between the 12 and 10 yard lines as the WR was holding the DB right in front of Hill. They moved the Ball back 10 yards from the point where Hill went out in this case because it was not as far as the hold. The 10 yard penalty put the ball on the 23 and you replay the down. 1st and 5 from the 23. I think that is the sequence and I think it was done exactly correct. The only 2 questions with it is where exactly does the WR holding start - you could argue maybe at the 15 or 14, but they ruled it was starting past the 13 - no a huge deal. There was also a potential hold I believe near the LOS preventing a DL player from getting out wide that was not called. The placement and the down and distance seemed fine as far as my understanding goes based upon what was called.

It is just the way it works. It gets treated exactly the same way as every holding call. If it occurred at the LOS - it is 10 yards from the spot - so 1st and 20. If the hold occurs 5 yards down field - it goes back 10 yards to 1st and 15. So in this case it was 5 yards past the first down marker. You go back 10 yards and now it is short of the first down by 5 yards. So it is 1st and 5. It may seem like an advantage because it was first down, but imagine if it had 3rd down or 4th down. In that case rather than a first down - it would return to 3rd (or 4th) and 5 because with the penalty it is short of the first down. The Bills could of declined the penalty and given them the 1st down and made it 1st and 10, but 10 yards farther forward.

I think the difference with KC is multi fold. 1) Many teams - Buffalo, Baltimore, and LA Chargers in specific have gotten young and talented QBs of their own - and that mixed with those teams improving - have reduced/eliminated any significant advantage KC had for a couple of years. 2.) KC has done a very poor job at acquiring talent on the offensive side of the ball. Hill and Kelce are both elite, but they are desperate for a couple more play makers in the passing game and that is evident by the signing of Gordon. Hardman - although not a bust - has not become anything on the offensive side and without additional targets - Teams are doubling Hill deep and trying to manhandle Kelce. 3.) KC’s defense has to many weak spots. They have a boatload of talent and showed they can still make coverages work, but in trying to flood the middle depth zones 10-25 yards downfield - they allowed themselves to get beat deep and also get beat short. The Bills lost their Bread and Butter plays, but still had more than enough other places to make plays. All of these things have become evident, but they are still a really good team - they are just in a bad place with a very tough division and then tough out of division games. I still think they have maybe a few more loses on this schedule - so it is really going to be an uphill battle from here. I don’t think they can afford many (or any) let down games and make the playoffs. They have lost to 3 teams above them and that puts them in a very tough spot for tie breakers. It might come down to does Baltimore or Cleveland win the North as a determining factor in seeding and making the playoffs.

I know most people don’t want to hear that, but I think he plays the run with an eye on leverage and trying to stop a small to medium run from becoming a long run. He doesn’t really get blocked downfield like some players - many times he engages with a blocker and uses his hands to keep them off his body and then uses his eyes to retreat and try to maintain leverage and allow pursuit to get there. He will fall back 5-6+ yards while maintaining leverage to come off and either make a tackle as they go buy or allow the pursuit to get there. Some LBs attack the OL blocker and play off and sometimes they get nice stops, but sometimes the OL blocker wins and then that LB has lost leverage and you get the big play- we see those go for 40 yards and a TD - like Singletary or even 20+ yards like Allen. Edmunds almost always slow plays it - backing off and trying to maintain his position as he retreats. It looks bad, but I think from the team perspective of making plays - they accept that retreat to keep the bigger play from happening. Those are the plays typically identified as Haters plays, but I think that is just how he is playing those plays. Force the other team to keep having to make plays. There are also other plays that you see if you watch the Cover 1 film room - where Edmunds is covering in the flat, but his presence caused Hill to alligator arms a pass with Poyer in coverage on Hill. Poyer gets credit, but it was Edmunds recognizing and squaring up on Hill that caused him to take his eyes off and let the pass fall incomplete. Cover 1 also showed examples of just how good his spacing was and how even on a pass designed to beat the exact coverage the Bills were running - his ability to get deep and push Hill a step or two deeper disrupted the timing just enough to force an incompletion. I understand there are aspects to his game that are downright frustrating, but the entire gameplan against the Chiefs falls apart without a MLB like Edmunds that can cover all over the field.

Why - we have played Tennessee the last 2 years and we’ve stopped the run. We also have stopped other run heavy teams like Baltimore at a good clip. The issue is when we gameplan to stop the pass and a team runs against the weak front. Then we struggle - see KC last year. If we gameplan to stop Henry like previous years - I would expect they will slow him down again.

I actually think both @GunnerBill and @GoBills808 are correct even though they see things differently. The author seems like he is saying it was not a greatly officiated game - there were a couple of blatant bad call against the Bills (Tre’ and Morse) and a couple of non calls. He also makes the point that it was not nearly as poorly officiated as people think. The majority of calls that were made were legitimate- even if some were ticky-tacky. He did seem to agree the “harm” of the fouls greatly favored helping KC, but it had little bearing on the outcome. I tend to agree with that assessment- with that particular crew that calls a lot of ticky-tack - the Bills were the far more aggressive team - both on offense and especially on defense and therefore were going to get more calls against them. The Chiefs found that out in the Super Bowl - where this crew did not let them get away with anything. Where I disagree with the author was when and where some of the calls were made and ignored. There were several throws to Diggs that he got hit, bumped, grabbed - just before the ball got there. They seemed to call those very close against Buffalo - especially early, but let those go against KC’s DBs. Those non-calls created additional uncounted “Harm” against the Bills and if he is really doing a dive into the officiating - they are critical to the outcome. The Bills defense was flagged many times more than KC’s defense with the Bills defense playing as aggressive all over the field - it should have equated to more offensive holding calls. There were a few I saw that were more egregious than the one on Dawkins and way more legitimate than the one on Morse. Overall - I think the officials were pretty bad, but I don’t think it is a conspiracy- I think they called a lot early to try and establish their parameters and those went against Buffalo. They are an over flag happy group and tend to flag the bigger aggressors.

This was previously explained - the holding was by the WR downfield - at 15 yards. It was a spot foul - so it goes back 10 yards from the spot and replay the down. That put it 5 yards short of the line to gain. It happens several times a year - it is just uncommon because they rarely get a holding block more than 10 yards downfield which is what you need to get a <10 yards for first down. It is no different than if it had happens by a WR holding at 3 yards downfield and it becomes 1st and 17. It actually shows a great effort by the KC WR to keep blocking even way downfield.

Said it during the game - the laces were to the left on the 2nd miss and it missed left and Mason looked straight down at Cory glaring at him. The kicker gets blamed, but sometimes the hold causes issues and Cory has had that problem more than a few times. Last year at least 3 of the misses Bass had - he kicked the laces - they were facing him not laces out - so it was an obvious issue. It is one of the things Haack is significantly better at than Cory and will potentially win or lose more games than punting for the Bills.

It really depends upon what you are using them for. It has been repeatedly shown QBR is for the most part can be useless. There are numerous cases (at least one in this thread) where a guy with obvious worse statistics has just about as good of a QBR. Therefore - no that doesn’t work. Passer rating has its own faults - such as a guy that throws a ball away under pressure is penalized versus a QB that takes a sack because you get an incompletion if you throw it away. It also doesn’t factor in things like drops and in Josh’s case this year weather. Yes - overall I would say Josh has not been quite as good as last year, but he has played 2 games in nasty/rainy conditions leading to at least 1 turn over. He also has played in a game with some whipping wind circling around. So really out of 5 games - he has had maybe 2 games where the weather was even good. Even with all of that - Josh has been the better QB on the field in all 5 games and has greatly outperformed the guys on the other team and that is the most important thing. Wins are a team stat and Josh is a team player - so I think he is more concerned with that 1 stat than QBR or Rating or anything.

It has been stated in other defensive threads and discussions - QB pressures and pressure rate are a DL/OL monitor - meaning that is dependent more upon how the 2 lines play and is usually consistent. Sacks and Sack rate are a QB monitor much as you say in your post and are much less dependent on the OL or DL. Josh has been seeing a lot of pressure in some games, but his athleticism and pocket awareness allows him to help keep sacks low. The OL has also done some nice work at times (as pointed out by Baldy) with a nice wide and deep pocket - giving Josh options. I would expect his sack rate to stay low because he is a hard man to bring down and even when teams have him - he is good at getting rid of the ball a lot. It is a nice weapon to have.

But didn’t they use it later in the game with Kumerow and Sanders and pass from it?

Really need the confused emoji for this post - not sure they did much to confuse the Bills. They had 315 yards passing, over 120 yards rushing, no sacks - Josh had 3 passing TDs and a rushing TD. The Chiefs also got away with several questionable calls where the DBs got to the receivers early and the officials let it go. They had no turnovers. I am pretty sure the only time KC really stopped the Bills are when the officials made some questionable holding calls on the o-line and then when they started to stack the line as the Bills went more conservative with the weather and the score.

Maybe, but I think they want revenge in that game. I don’t see a let down because that is another loss from last year they want to eliminate.

We all know that certain players are just inherently likable- Josh Allen is great and this team just seems to have fun with each other, but overall there are special moments - things we don’t always see, but somehow the majority of the time - this team is doing the right thing in the best way possible. Take this moment with Diggs and a young KC fan - it just seems right that in enemy territory- you ignore that and give a young kid a special moment that the family will remember. He didn’t need to do it and did it without thought of what he was going to get. I LOVE THIS TEAM! Everyone will have their own reasons, but seeing things like this and Josh with kids - just drives home the likability of this team.

How about I enjoy the win and save the worrying for another day.

We muted and just watched . Didn’t miss a thing without him. What an absolutely terrible crew calling a marquee game. I wish the NFL would step in and get them off the air, but it is NBCs embarrassment.

Wish I could give you 5 thumbs up - so here 👍👍👍👍👍. I know Mahomes is great and all, but I can’t stand the guy and love both Allen and White. Give me the trade 100 out of 100 times.

I think we see why BoJo is no longer a Bill. Couple bad punts and Crosby looked like he was glaring at him on that missed FG. Looked like the laces were off to left and the Ball went left. Plus a missed XP. I think they are getting the full BoJo experience. Glad he is gone - just for the increased Bass consistency.

Actually - Losing Lawson allowed Franklin to develop and get paid - I don’t think Lawson is any better and they both only play the same side. Becton was terrible in pre-season - out of shape and a turnstile. I think losing both made 0 difference for this team.

Totally disagree - I think keeping it in OP benefits the Bills the least. The absolute worst thing for the Bills stadium is pre-game tailgating. People eat their own food and drink their own drinks - giving no money to the team and having them spend less in the stadium. People park in private lots taking money from the parking funds. The best thing would be to build something downtown and have many local breweries and pubs partnering up and having better and more food and drink choices associated with the stadium both inside and out. Some people have said the Bills fans are smart - others said cheap - the truth is they have had the tailgating and private lots since the stadium opened and that cuts a significant portion of revenue that other teams generate. I expect that even if the stadium is finally built in OP - there will be changes created that limit people parking in private lots by including parking in ticket packages. I would also expect them to change hours to limit tailgating and drinking in the lots before and after - to drive more internal sales. I think the entire game day experience changes with a new stadium - no matter where it is built.

Two things - 1) I am not sure the owners really want OP over downtown - I believe based upon the proposed costs that they felt Downtown was going to be more expensive than they were willing to deal with. 2.) NYS and the county are going to foot the majority of the bill either way. If the state can use infrastructure funds to help with the cost of infrastructure around the stadium - then it becomes an input of federal, state, and local money - mixing with private funds from the NFL and the Pegula’s. We will see, but I think they would be ecstatic if the county and state came through to fund a downtown stadium.

It will never pay for itself, but you get a lot more potentially out of it downtown than in OP. OP bring you zero income outside of the game. Downtown brings significantly more places and people to spend money on what is already present.

I liked this better as you only tweet on the Russell Wilson thread originally. It better suits a finger injury.

It happens several times a year - usually in training camp. A team will announce they are cutting a player and then someone decides we want that guy and are not getting him another way and offer up a late round pick and they make a trade. They may have been talking, but not getting a commitment and this gives a deadline and commitment to force the deal. The transaction does not occur until 4pm - so they can put him on the cut list and pull him off several times right up until the official times. Sometimes they have pulled guys after announcing a cut and put them back on the active roster while they work on deals - it might be days or even a week. The media guys report out the upcoming transaction- ie. The looming cut as that is what is the news and then the GM gives a final push to either sign/trade for the guy or wait and see. It also still gives the team a last ditch chance to control the situation.