Rochesterfan

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.

Because Corey was a below average punter at placement and angling of kicks and was absolutely terrible at holding for FGs and XPs. Corey over the last 2 years has cost the Bills more points that Haack will - the issue is the blame was given to the Kickers not the problem point of the holder. Additionally - The blocked kick this year has given Haack 2 blocked kicks in his 5th season - while Corey has had 2 blocked in 4 years. Corey also had his 2 blocked in about 170 kicks versus the 2 blocks on Haack in 314 kicks. So basically we got a better placement punter, that is better at holding, and has had a better career record at punting without blocks by a significant margin - even being slower. Does that help answer your question?

Very hard to tell from the broadcast angles, but I thought you hit the DE rotation right on. For the DTs - I thought it was Star and Oliver on early downs - with Zimmer filling in for both depending upon need. I thought when the Bills went up bigger mid 3rd quarter - Star’s play count dropped (coming off injury with the heat) and Butler started filling in more. I felt like the Bills had Star as a 1TDT and Oliver as the 3TDT early and then Zimmer doing a bit of both depending upon who they wanted rotated out. Later when it was more rushing the passer all the time - you had Butler come in and essentially ran multiple 3TDT with them all just stopping the RB on the way to the passer. I can’t wait to see what the Cover 1 guys see/say. I get the feeling this coaching staff is adjusting and trying to get these guys in their best advantage possible. Early it was corners and DBs - along with Milano - blitzing and DE and LBs dropping into spaces to cover up quick passes - with DBs playing man outside. Later - after Edmunds went out with cramping and Klein filled in - it Klein doing the blitzing and Milano dropping into coverage. You also saw Rousseau drop a couple of times - including the nice play where Brissett squeezed through the rush and looked to try and take off and Rousseau cut to the middle and drove forward to take Brissett down. I was very impressed on that play with the leverage Rousseau used as he dropped to a zone - it was vacated and he kept his eyes on the QB. He drifted toward the middle and then read Brissett and then moved up and made a great open field tackle.

Not a concern in the least - if the team had a plan to use Mitch in victory formation- then they probably had him taking snaps before heading out - therefore I don’t think the risk was any greater. I would also rather at this point have Mitch trying to recover a fumble in victory time rather than Josh.

Hard to say - I am not convinced that JB is not just as good as Tua - although I think Tua has better ball placement - I think JB’s experience helped get him into better plays and make plays when nothing was there. My gut tells me that Tua probably finds some scores late - he did put 17 on NE and I consider them to be an excellent defense. I just think the Bills go even more killer and he would of eventually been knocked out because he just was not able to handle the defense pressure we were throwing up.

Was it a Super Bowl caliber win - who knows. What it was - was a convincing, shut out victory over a team that is expected to compete for not only the playoffs, but the division title. Miami was widely considered to be one of the top AFC teams and based upon last year and the additional talent they secured in the draft and via FA - they were supposed to be the AFC East team that challenged the Bills for the Division. They were the only AFC East team to get a victory last week and beat a team in NE that is expected to also challenge. It is not like Miami beat Houston or the Jets - so yes - it was a darn good win over a team that will be right with Buffalo until the end of the season. We will see where that offense ends up by the end, but to shut them out and stuff them on multiple 4th downs and force multiple Turnovers- yeah the defense deserves an A to A+ - just looking at your original post tells me your not a realist, but it is what it is - you can freely complain and most people can freely disagree and note that your assessment was just not good. Facts are facts and every game does matter and anytime your defense can force multiple turnovers, get multiple sacks (6), hold a team to under 75 yards rushing and 200 yards passing while blowing them out (even in garbage time) - then that defense did some incredible things. When your offense puts up nearly 150 yards rushing and 3 scores and you pass for multiple scores against what is considered to be a top 3-5 defense in the league - the offense also should get some praise. Do they have things to clean up - yep, but that is an excellent defense and they won many games for Miami last year and yet they found ways to move the ball and get into a rhythm. Overall - all 3 phases and the coaching were better than the opponents and they manhandled a very good team - with things that still need to be cleaned up, but an overall very good performance by the team.

Totally agree with the first part. Not sure what to make of the 2nd. What else could Miami have done to be “all in” on Tua? They drafted and picked up several offensive weapons - including Waddle - a perfect fit for Tua. They have drafted a ton of Oline men to try and protect him. They continued to start him last year - even when it was obvious that the team responded better to Fitz. They had a chance to draft another top flight QB this year - as high as #3 and chose not to - showing huge faith in Tua. I would agree that the owner has been a bit weird as it seems last year - he really wanted Tua in the draft and then to play and he has moved on to wanting Watson now, but Flores and the GM both seem to have been all in on Tua - especially this year.

Is Tua a top 32 offensive threat? Brissett isn’t great, but Tua has not shown himself at this point to be better. Anytime you pitch a shutout in the NFL - it is worth an A at minimum. I was also impressed that when they knocked Tua out - the Bills didn’t go back to a plain vanilla defense - they still attacked him and forced him to try and make plays - they gave up very few “easy” throws to either Miami or Pittsburgh.

It looks to me like they are using more safety coverage on the TE this year and using Edmunds more in an underneath drop into areas around the slot - getting into passing areas. I saw a lot more of Poyer and Hyde picking up TEs than last years. It is not a great matchup, but Ithink they are looking at different ways to attack a TE heavy team - like Baltimore and KC.