Straight Hucklebuck

Herbert missed that deep ball by inches. The Chargers wideouts have improved more than I thought they would in 2024. All of them are grading above NFL mean on PFF.

Okay.

I think McConkey hurt his shoulder early in the game and has been gutting it out since. I think the Bengals are generating a pass rush now, and have done a nice job limiting the Chargers run game. They haven’t been able to salt this game away. Reception Perceptions data on McConkey is crazy how good he is.

Yes on the back of two huge games against the Ravens. Nothing I said there is wrong. He just saw 1-1 coverage to Higgins and went deep. It’s not a shock.

But Mike Schopp had told me for years that there is no such thing.

Burrow is a checkdown artist, whose game has been found out. It’s a checkdown, or if he sees 1 on 1 on the outside he goes deep. The Bengals offensive line is Bottom 1/3rd in the league, Zach Taylor is still calling the plays which irritates Bengals fans. On defense, allowing Jessie Bates to walk has reduced their ability to generate turnovers. They let DJ Reader walk this off-season and Rankins/Hill have been injured half the time. On the pass rush they have Hendrickson and little else. I heard the stat that Sam Hubbard was 242/245 of eligible pass rushers in win rate. They’ve invested a lot of draft picks into the defense in recent years with Ossai, DJ Turner, Cam Taylor-Britt, Myles Murphy, Jordan Battle - they’ve been ok, but none have emerged as impact players. They let Joe Mixon walk, “replaced” him with Zach Moss and we Bills fans know how that went. So now they are 1-running back team with Chase Brown. The edges of their roster have been chipped away with season ending injuries - Dax Hill out for the year (ACL), Erick All (ACL) and they lost Trent Brown early. Also their LT has been out with knee/fibula for weeks now.

Gosh the Bengals WHINE for calls every freaking play.

Happy for all the fans and the city.

And game on MUTE

The “Snapshot”

They have to take a QB in Round 1 in 2025 you’d think. Browns 2-8 Raiders 2-8 Panthers 2-8 Patriots 2-8 Jaguars 2-8 Titans 2-8 Giants 2-8 A lot of competition for QBs. But the Jets are lifeless.

They are calling that at the college and NFL constantly this year.

Let’s hope they sign up for age 41 Aaron Rodgers next season.

The implosion of the New York Jets. And the Steelers just pounding this invincible Ravens rush defense.

WGR can keep looking down on Pittsburgh, but that defense is stifling Baltimore.

I didn’t want Phillips back. Hopefully he just keeps the seat warm for Carter and/or Smoot.

Man you’re going to have to play perfect to beat the Lions. I get it, Mack Jones, a dead-man walking Coach, but they’ve got weapons everywhere.

He ran a simple shallow cross against zone, and it was poor coverage and tackling down the field. That looked like an over route

No but they decided to do something equally as bad by keeping a 4th-Round black hole as their WR #2 for two seasons in Josh Allen’s prime. Thankfully Beane did not buy the “nobody outworks Gabe Davis” narrative in the off-season and got this WR group moving in the right direction.

I think it’s fair to say that lack of investment at WR is one of the main reasons this team has not advanced to the Super Bowl.

Are the Bills great judges of WR talent, especially at the bottom of the roster? They signed Quintez Cepheus, Chase Claypool and Marquez Valdes-Scantling and none of them stuck. Cut MVS and now someone named Jalen Virgil is the 6th-WR.

This is a good thought - and thought provoking. It makes you start thinking about what is the core philosophy of this Bills offense? Greg Cosell has said that the Bills offense has no intermediate or deep pass game. I think that makes sense because the Bills have not invested in WR, and certainly haven't secured a deep threat since 2018 Robert Foster. Joe Marino has consistently mentioned the zone rush scheme improving as the season moves along, and the analytics are pointing to the Bills offensive line continuously improving. What is this scheme? Emphasis YAC by throwing short passes at the line of scrimmage, with blockers in place - Shakir and Samuel's targets come to mind, and isolated shot throws on the outside (thinking Coleman's 49-yarder against the Texans). Just remembering games as they play out, do not think the Bills get much over the middle. I think we've all seen the Kincaid-Knox tandem doesn't ever work together, it's either one or the other. Is there even a "Kincaid route" that he normally runs? Allen is running less. Which leaves a heavier run scheme, 15% 6-lineman on the field, a team that doesn't play with much tempo (almost always running the play clock to 0.0). What is the core philosophy?

Kansas City - getting them off the field on 3rd down - well Sean that will require not playing 17 yards off every WR.

Yeah, good to hear that they don't think Kincaid is long term, or much worse than they originally thought. I think that confirms the internet diagnosis of a strained PCL. No IR for Kincaid yet, so its more of a Grade 1 -2 strain.

Dalton Kincaid is out. Not shocking. Reading between the lines, Dalton is not considered a long term injury. Week to Week. Not surprising, I think that confirms he has a strained PCL.