Rochesterfan

Yeah - Geography is a bitc* in this state. My lab in Rochester was hiring and a recruiter hooked us up with a candidate that lived in the Bronx. We set up a phone interview - assuming the guy was going to move to the area. Nope - he thought he could commute to Rochester daily from the city. Even better his only transportation was a bike - he never got (nor needed) a drivers license. The interview was enlightening as he assumed he could ride his bike to the train and get here in like 30 minutes. 🤦‍♂️

I agree and I think it highly likely that the FO likes him enough to want to get this done and he likes playing for this staff enough to want to make it work. It seems like an easy no brainer to slot him in and save money next year by having signing and roster bonuses to provide some flexibility and keep the core together. The money savings may also allow the Bills to work on retaining another DB - like getting a deal done with Johnson if things continue this year.

I don’t necessarily agree with this. Beane said it before - Allen was the first priority to get done. That took until near the end of training camp with talk of having to put it off until next year. They were never signing Edmunds before that deal got done because they needed to know what the flexibility surrounding Allen’s cap number was going to do. Allen’s signing was always priority #1 and now they have his payments set. The only thing it says is that Allen is the single most important piece for the Bills - it really says nothing about Edmunds. I think they now have to figure out Edmunds for next year. I doubt he plays on the 5th year option. The question is what is fair and how many years. I would expect the Bills work to extend him a couple of years with lots of money upfront and lower salary the next 2 years and then 1 year with a nice salary and little bonus left - where the Bills can look at extending or cutting. He will be paid more than Milano because of the timing - he gets to sign after a couple of LBs cross 19-20 million a season. I think they would love to keep Taron also, but much like Dean Marlowe - I am not sure they can do it. The problem is this is where he will play best - so for close money he should stay - I am just not sure the Bills get close enough.

This was my issue early in the McD time as coach. People complained he was ultra conservative, but they were a bad offense. Fans would point out that the 4th down conversion rate was nearly 50% and aggressive/winning coaches like Pederson were going for it a ton and in unfavorable situations- like their own side of the 50. My argument against going for it - was how bad that team was on third downs and the 4th downs in general. Once they got the QB and showed they could make plays - that is the time to be aggressive. Once you have options - you can push the envelope more and be successful. The same goes for the plays just before the half. If you have a bad offense that struggles- it is better to be conservative and take your lead in than give up something bad, but once you get that QB - man the things you can do. That time just before the half - when defense back off a bit - can also help get a QB in a rhythm - if they are out of sync. I love seeing the aggression now that we have the players to do it.

Well I don’t disagree - the question becomes then are you willing to play with Milano and Klein then as your 2 LBs. Most likely - since Edmunds is routinely considered a top 5-10 LB you are not finding a replacement at that level - especially with knowledge of this defense and the ability to call plays and cover. So I guess the biggest question is are you willing to completely change Milano’s role from the attacking LB to a coverage LB and have a Klein level LB starting opposite? Since Klein (and many other LBs in this league) can’t cover as well as Edmunds - what impact does that have? I think people would be surprised at how much worse this defense becomes with a below average replacement in for Edmunds. We saw last year when Milano and Edmunds were hurt - exactly how well the 2 compliment each other and how Klein could play the attacking role, but could not play the coverage role. I do think you could play someone else in that spot that can get you more “splash plays” - I just think those plays then come out of the things Milano currently does because Milano would switch to the coverage and contain LB.

The difference between this staff and other staffs is we finally have the QB and therefore the faith in the offense. If you remember year 1 with Tyrod - they were always conservative to the point on this board people complained non stop about McD basically being Jauron. Things like taking a knee or running out the clock, punting on 4th down no matter where on the field you are, and running the ball many times on both 1st down and any third and longs. Those were all things this staff did also - playing not to lose, but once they got their QB and started building - What a difference. They can now play percentages because a turn-over on downs and any loss of field position does not change the offense. I think they are even better when they have a longer field because Josh gets into rhythm. This staff has done a great job adapting and choosing points to be aggressive and when to lay back. I will be interested to see if they go a bit more conservative at some point - as they have struggled more this year on 4th downs and if that impacts the philosophy.

WFT is going to be looking and I don’t think the guy we played is a long term answer. I would not be surprised to see McD talk up Mitch to Rivera and that they make a push. Mitch is still young enough to be a long term answer on the right team and that give them a chance to look in the draft over the next few years.

Can you explain how the 73 yard TD is on Edmunds? It looks like the slot CB blitzed - that left him out of the way on a perfect play call. That was most likely his guy on that play. Edmunds is covering and takes an angle to cut him off 15 yards down field. He and Wallace (I believe - it could also be Hyde or Poyer as I can see the number from the broadcast image) force him back to the inside for pursuit, but Star can’t get there. Milano is the pursuit LB and has the angle and needs to make the play and he fails. He can’t quite get there. Edmunds has a blocker stands him up as he falls back and makes sure Gibson has to move back to the middle - He then turns to pursue and gets caught up in the Safety and WR blocking. Milano and Tre White pursue all the way, but neither can get there. It looks like the perfect call against the defense we dialed up. There was no one out there because the Bills appear to have a rotation where the nickel CB blitzed, the other CB played a short outside zone and Edmunds was dropping into a deeper third. It was not his guy - although he could of played it better - He and Wallace had to maintain outside leverage to allow the pursuit to come and they did that. The pursuit never made it and they couldn’t fight through the traffic to get him. Without knowing the entire call - that was on the entire defense and was a result of a perfect play at a perfect time. I really think you are just looking to blame him which is why you do not understand what the coaching staff sees. You have the solution - Edmunds is the problem and now you are making things fit that narrative. The coaching staff is not looking at blame and starting with premise that Edmunds is the problem. Therefore they are looking at how to address the real issues - which is how did we get caught in that play call at that moment.

That is the play - the issue is the WR would normally make that rub because the LB takes a step off the ball as the first step. That would put him right in line with where Diggs was and how typically the defense would play it on 2nd or 3rd down and short. Which my guess is how they have practiced that play. Because it is 4th down - the LB doesn’t take that step back as he can’t afford to with the down and distance. He reads Singletary cutting out - stays flat and Diggs can’t rub him. If Singletary had taken an aggressive step forward and got to the marker - that puts the LB in the line with the WR allowing the rub and ensures on the catch - even if tackled exactly as he was - you have the first down. It was bad execution all around for the team and a really nice play by Washington and sometimes the bad guys makes plays also.

You also see it on Beasleys 3rd catch - it should look familiar as it looks like how KC attacked us in the playoffs. The Bills run a PA to hold the LBs, then Josh breaks through the weak pass rush and looks like he is going to run - the LB drifts toward the middle of the field - opening the window for Beasley to get the catch. The LB was put in no mans land - if he stayed outside by Beasley - Josh has a nice lane to run. Once he slide toward Josh to keep an angle - the passing window is open. Again - I am not saying Edmunds is great - it is just the things people complain about are evident with most LBs throughout the league.

Maybe, but if it is routine - just watch how Cole Beasley attacks that route. His second catch against Washington was a similar play - he ran a quick curl to the hash at the Washington 10. The DB had nice coverage on the outside and behind, but the LB was late reacting and Josh was able to get the throw off and into the window for a quick and easy completion. If that Washington LB is two steps ahead and in that area - Josh has to readjust - he had other targets getting open and the pass rush was not right there - so chance are if the LB played it as good as Edmunds - Josh comes off and gets a completion elsewhere, but against Pittsburgh where they get pressure - now you get a sack or an incompletion because of a nice read by the LB. For the Bills - that nice coverage along with pressure got the QB to move late to a target allowing a pick. I don’t think anyone is saying it was a big play by Edmunds - what people are saying it was another example of him doing his 1/11th and playing properly within the scheme and that forced a bad decision and a great play by Poyer. Of course the Bills would love him to make more big plays, but they also understand the absolute importance of doing your job and that is a big part of what they preach.

My son and I were talking a lot about that play - He is 14 and just getting into the understanding of football. I really think Singletary did a terrible job with that route. My guess is that is how he ran the route in practice in the past and it worked because against a non aggressive defense that coverage drops off half a step and gets caught up. Singletary had to take a more aggressive step coming off the line to get his defender to back up and he had to get to the 1st down stick on the route. The fact it was 4th down meant the D was more aggressive and the poor route doomed the play. The worst part was that is a very tough throw and an even tougher catch and the Bills got that right, but the easy part - the route depth - they failed on. The good thing though - at least it wasn’t the Miami play on their 1 that cost them both points, the ball, and ultimately the game.

That was a terrible job, but I think watching it back several times that the Wind killed it and he just totally misplayed it. He starting sliding over and it looked like he thought it was coming down near the goal line - the way it landed and bounced straight backwards makes me think the wind played havoc and pushed the ball down fast and shorter than expected. It looked like it was passed the up man and then just died in the air. Overall - it looked like a lack of kick off experience by McKenzie coupled with a major lack of familiarity with the wind in the stadium and a very unlucky set of bounces - the first right to a Washington player that then fumbled the ball backwards 10 yards to the kicker. It was a 1 in a million shot that I doubt they could recreate if they tried. Still that is all on McKenzie - he has got to catch that ball.

Here in lies the issue. He makes a lot of plays like this. He did it several times in Miami allowing multiple sacks to occur. He gets no credit from the fan base for this and last year without pressure from the front 4 - the QB just changes focus and hits a different WR. This year there was pressure all around him and when he goes to the next read - the Bills jump the route and make a play. The flip side to this is if you watch the KC game last year - or a few others. The Chiefs would flood that area and Edmunds would do exactly what the Bills defense expects. The QB looks at that receiver and Edmunds moves to cover that player and if the front 4 can get no pressure - a player like Mahomes just moves to the next target and it looks like Edmunds was manipulated. On top of that - if Edmunds maintains the zone integrity and stays balanced between the 2 guys in his zone - he gets accused of “covering grass” and making a tackle after giving up the catch. He cannot win in that role. He is far from a perfect player, but as they continue to adjust this scheme and do more stuff with the safeties and Tre covering TEs in these Man/Zone combo coverages - the defense gets wins across the board. The issue I have is the assumption everyone has that he wants or expects to be paid like Leonard and that he will be overpaid and fans are already knocking him for that. The fact is we do not know where Beane nor Edmunds slot him and what that means for his pay day. Will he sign a contract that is higher than some guys that play the position better? - most likely because it is his turn and that happens at every position - when your contract expires matters as much or more as your play in terms of getting paid. Does he approach the Leonard deal of 20 million per season? I doubt it - at least not here. I could see them looking at 12-15 million with the cap going up and bigger money in the years Josh has less money, but it will not reset the market. There could also come a moment where if the right player falls to the right spot in the draft - the Bills look to move on, but my guess is they are not ecstatic with his play, but are also not looking to move on. We will see, but the major thing I do not get is the anger some fans have over overpaying for a guy that we have not overpaid for yet. People are already complaining about his next contract and the parameters- when we have no idea what that is going to look like. Let it happen and then complain because based upon the team atmosphere an wha Beane has done - we could get him below market value like Milano.

That is all on the kick returner and the wind. McKenzie misread the kick from the beginning and was late moving up as the kick died in the wind. He should not fair catch it. The ball came down at the 14 yard line. It was just high and the wind screwed with the ball. I agree the ball should not hit the ground, but that is not on he coach - that is on the player. It is a lack of experience with McKenzie on kick returns in general and especially in the windy Buffalo stadium. Then the unfortunate bounce straight back toward Washington- again that was just football. The same thing with the blocked kick - that was on the players not blocking the guy. The special teams players said they were coached for that move and ready for it, but in the moment - no one picked up the inside guy with a free run.

That’s fair, but if people are going to complain about the PSLs - there is an option to fix it at a significantly cheaper per person rate and that is to spread it out across everyone in the state. There is no reason the Bills and the Buffalo area do not deserve it because we have funded multiple new Baseball and Hockey stadiums downstate - including significant funding to a stadium built outside the state in NJ. I don’t care either way - I am still going to go to the game, but if people are going to complain about PSL - then stop complaining about the public/private financing. The Pegula’s have been doing a ton to make this as palatable as possible. Their ideal scenario has to be a nice stadium downtown near their other businesses, but they are willing to go smaller to better fit the price point of the market and still people complain like they are being unreasonable. I have no issues if they want 100% private and a massive PSL, but based upon the studies and the surveys season ticket holders have done - it sounds like fans did not want Lots of PSLs - therefore you need more public money. It is costing the 1.4 billion and the public will be paying for it whether it is from taxes and fees or PSLs and ticket prices - either way the people are paying.

I don’t get this take at all. This is 100% what they should be doing. It is why I want 100% public financed stadium. The higher the public portion - the lower the PSLs. This was the most obvious thing in the world. Now if we get a 60/40 public/Private financed stadium - The Pegula’s will be looking to make 600,000 in PSLs and new ticket prices. An average of 10,000 per seat. Expect more costs to be coming your way.

This is a terrible point and you should be better than this. This was the first off season they could resign him and everyone knew Josh was the first guy they had to sign - which got done near the end of training camp. The only facts we have in regards to how they feel about him and a long term deal is the fact they picked up the 5th year option despite the fact the due to 2 ProBowls (whether anyone wants to count them or not - for his contract they absolutely counted) causing his option to be higher than other at the position. Other than picking up the option - none of us know what the Bills and Edmunds agents have discussed for long term deals. We don’t know which other LBs Edmunds agents wanted signed first to set value, we don’t know if the Bills offered him a long term contract and they declined because of how the cap will play out with the new TV deal. None of us knows if they mutually decided to wait until this next off season because of the salary cap or maybe talked about other options. To say that he isn’t the foundation because in the 4 months they have been allowed to sign him - they haven’t yet, is absolutely wrong - especially with his draft classmate having to get signed 1st. If he plays out the rest of the contract and they don’t try to re-sign him - then this becomes a legitimate statement, but until then we can only judge his worth on the fact that the Bills did pick up the very expensive 5th year option and Beane has said after Josh was done they would look at his contract.

Totally agree - said this in another thread - that play was just amazing. The drop and bump on the receiver, the slide to the middle, most importantly the recognition of not only where the rush was, but where Brissett had to escape, and then the speed to come downhill at him and make the open field tackle before Brissett can get going. Superb! The ability he and AJ have with their hand placement and using that to get leverage is just next level. When Rousseau pancakes the tackle right into Brissett by punching up on the arm and driving - it is like a faster version of Reggie White’s old hump move. Can not wait to watch these guys continue to develop. Match their speed and length with the stature and power of Basham and you will keep these guys of platform for years.

That logic would be fine if he took his chances on 4th and 2. With the penalty there were 2 real choices: 1) Accept the penalty and replay at 3rd and 10 or 2) Decline the penalty and go for it at 4th and 2 near mid-field He choose option 3: 3) Decline the penalty and punt from near mid-field - then to add insult to stupidity- they punt into the end zone giving a net 30 yards. The only time option 3 should even be an option is very, very deep in your own end - inside the 5 and the extra yards give you a safer punt. Even then, I would rather see them accept the penalty and take a shot. If the 13 yards had pushed them into FG range and the penalty kept you outside - you could decline and kick a game winning FG, but at the point of the game this occurred - I would still prefer to see a coach trying to win than decline the penalty and kick a FG. It was a total give up move by the coach.

Maybe, but it will slow down everyone along the line because if he passes - the lineman cannot go downfield. My guess is this evolution leads to more penalties on the offense and more kicks that get returned because of a lack of coverage.

How many has he had blocked versus how many has BoJo had blocked? A quick review showed he has had 2 blocked over 5 years and almost 2x the number of kicks as Bojo. BoJo in half the number of kicks and fewer years has also had 2 blocked. He is slower, but he has been that way his career and yet somehow with proper blocking he had only 1 blocked previously. Additionally - I don’t care who was back there - because a guy came straight through virtually untouched - that kick was getting blocked. That block was on the 2 guys that did not pick him up when he busted through. Haack’s speed did him no favors, but that guy was not slowed down a bit. So that cost us 6 points - now please do how many points BoJo cost us with missed XPs and FGs because he could not hold. There were at least 4 kicks with the laces facing the wrong way last year alone. The Kicker gets blamed for a bad hold by BoJo. It almost got Bass cut early last year.

That is what you want, but McD wants the MLB role played by Edmunds to be a deep zone cover guy. He is rarely asked to pick up TEs or WRs or RBs in man to man - therefore he shouldn’t be “on anybody’s back”. He typically drops trying to prevent throws - and as was shown by Baldy’s tweet - on multiple sacks - he was in position to prevent a quick strike and therefore allow the pressure to get home. Additionally McD - and most NFL coaches are significantly less concerned than fans with running attacks. They don’t want an old school Klein LB that can only attack downhill because that leaves you vulnerable to even a mediocre passing attack. There are many things about Edmunds I hope improve, but good teams with top end QBs know how to attack what Buffalo ran and a big part of that was to flood the middle of the field with multiple guys and have the QB look one way and then throw the other. When the Bills could get no pressure - that forced Edmunds to move to attack one receiver and left the other open. It was a scheme issue and it looks like the Bills addressed it with Safety help. The Safety picked up the TE several times against Miami - freeing Edmunds to shade into his zone and taking away curl routes. Last year we attacked several good LBs with similar throws - flood Beasley and Diggs through the middle and if the LB stepped up to Beasley - hit Diggs over the top and if the LB stayed back - hit Beasley. It is a simple 2 person concept that forces a player to make a decision and gives the QB an easy completion in the vacated area. That was very common with Edmunds and was especially seen against KC - and it was not Edmunds doing anything wrong - it was no pressure to force the 1st throw - allowing the QB to slide and read Edmunds. I do agree - he struggles to disengage from blockers and moves backwards on contact - many times on purpose, but without a full understanding of the defense - I am not sure what that is about. Many times his taking a step back allows him to move to keep the guy contained and allow others to flow. He is not - nor will he ever be - a Ray Lewis, Dick Butkus type of MLB that attacks like a Heat Seeking Missile, but he is a strong team leader that seems to fill the exact role they ask of him on a defense that when he has been healthy - has been top 10 and top 5 his first 2 years.

I agree and not just because I think Brissett is just as good as Tua, but with experience. My bigger concern was that the aggressive defense we had seen - created for a left handed Tua was going to get abandoned because we now had a right handed, more experienced QB in the game. I was thrilled to see them stay aggressive - although the very first play - that side arm completion around the blitzer gave me pause that Brissett was going to play out of his mind - in the end the defense stayed the course and blew them out.

I think all he is saying is if it was only being given as a defensive prize - why choose Edmunds and not Poyer or Hyde as both are also defensive captains and both played more of the game. McD chose to give Edmunds - a defensive captain- the ball specifically. Does it mean anything else - who knows. Maybe Edmunds was instrumental in some of the early play calls based on film study or getting players in the right spot. Maybe the plays succeeded because he was in good position on the first 2 sacks preventing quick throws? He made an impact without making the tackle. The only fact that we know is that Edmunds was chosen to get the game ball by the HC and he is one of 3 defensive captains on the roster and the locker room seemed happy he got the ball. @LeGOATskidid not change his statement at all as far as I can tell. He pointed out that Edmunds was given the game ball. Then someone said - well that means nothing as it was given to the defensive captain. @LeGOATskithen replied with basically if it was being given just 100% for defense - why would McD not chose either of the other 2 captains (Poyer or Hyde) both with longer service and played more in the game - both also had big plays including a sack by Hyde. @LeGOATskiasks a valid question that is 100% consistent and germane to this discussion - the issue is none of us know why Edmunds was chosen or if it meant more. Was there further meaning behind it for the week of practice, game film, something he did in the game, or just because his name comes up first alphabetically amongst the defensive captains.