Straight Hucklebuck

Josh bombing to a 5'6" WR. Where is Gabe Davis? 1.5 Quarters in and he's nowhere to be found. No Kincaid either. Josh just got impatient and chucks.

First play of the game 26 yards, then we give up an 83 yarder. Like all the smart fans knew - get Kirksey ready immediately.

TOOOOO FREAKING SMALL TO PLAY MLB

I think it will become very apparent early in this game that Bernard can not be a starter in the NFL. By Week 3 Kirksey will be starting, if not sooner.

Well, watching the game, the Browns said you now have Orlando Brown at LT, so we'll move Miles Garrett inside and have him go against your Guards-Center on occasion. Za'Darius Smith paid dividends on the first play of the game and hit Burrow from the right side of the pocket against Jonah Williams. And you have to hand it to the Browns corners: Ward, Emerson and Newsome were glued to the Cincinnati receivers yesterday. So Sean McDermott, take notes on how their corners played. Also, another sneaky couple of things I noticed. The Bengals don't seem to have much confidence in the guys behind Joe Mixon like they did with Perine. And, they got nothing out of Irv Smith vs. last year with Hayden Hurst who caught a TD in his first game with the Panthers. Also, the Bengals secondary, DeShaun underthrew 4 passes yesterday, two times Elijah Moore had multiple steps on his man. He connects on just one of those at its 30-3 final score.

It was apparent that Burrow couldn't move. Pressure came and he couldn't make anything happen. Deshaun on the other hand was mobile when the pocket broke down. That was a stark difference. The other thing is Burrow got predictable. He sees 1 on 1 on the outside and he just lofts the ball deep. Credit to the Browns defensive backs who were draped on the Bengals Wide Receivers all-day.

Yes, on paper this is the best Browns team since they came back in 1999. I think Cedric Tillman works, making them 4-deep at WR, I think their offensive line is back to top of the NFL status. I want to see how the Bengals look defensively, as most all their starters are in their prime. The Chargers? I want to see Herbert with an actual NFL offensive scheme, and like the Browns, they go 4-deep at WR.

Bengals vs. Browns And I am interested in Dolphins vs. Chargers.

Now we await the Spotrac breakdown of the contract to see how it is structured in order to allow the Bengals to keep Chase and Higgins.

After the Draft I said that I liked the Lions draft. But I knew then that passing on Jaxon Smith-Ngijba for Jack Campbell then would leave them paper thin at WR even then because of the Jameson Williams suspension and losing Chark in FA. They should have gone all-in on offense, even if they keep Gibbs as their first pick, potentially it could have been Gibbs-Smith-Ngijba-Mike Mayer added to their offense.

The Steelers (Kevin Colbert) from 2000-2021 was the most consistent team I've seen hitting on their first round picks. 2000 - Burress 2001 - Casey Hampton 2002 - Kendall Simmons 2003 - Troy Polamalu 2004 - Ben Roethlisberger 2005 - Heath Miller 2006 - Santonio Holmes 2007 - Lawrence Timmons 2008 - Rashard Mendenhall 2009 - Evander Hood 2010 - Maurkice Pouncey 2011 - Cameron Heyward 2012 - David DeCastro 2013 - Jarvis Jones 2014 - Ryan Shazier 2015 - Bud Dupree 2016 - Artie Burns 2017 - TJ Watt 2018 - Terrell Edmunds 2019 - Devin Bush 2020 - Chase Claypool (2nd) 2021 - Najee Harris So just nailing your first round picks is a good path to show your drafting abilities. The Seahawks from 2011-2014 were the best drafting team in the league when John Schneider got there. Then they wandered the wilderness for years after the Max Unger for Jimmy Graham trade. But they got it back last year and I think this year will be good as well. Part of it is good teams pick lower.

Yeah man, Bill Belichick, who is that? You're right I've never heard of him. I'm saying these guys who retire after a lengthy career, and then are brought back to run another team at outrageous prices. I don't have an exact timeline in front of me, but Belichick went from Cleveland to the Jets and then landed in New England. He wasn't some aged/retired Coach in 2000.

Payton is one of these gurus that has been trusted to run it all, and I don't think it goes well. Mike Holmgren in Cleveland Joe Gibbs back to Washington Mike Shanahan in Washington Marv Levy as GM in Buffalo John Gruden in Vegas Mike Ditka in New Orleans Just these legendary figures that are trusted to run it all and have full power and control. Best I've seen is Parcells with the AFC East and Cowboys.

He took issue with the Bills handling of Tom Donahoe if I remember correctly. Overall, he was a negligible piece of my overall football experience. If he ragged on the Bills pre-2018, they probably deserved it.

Ok.

His top end speed was gone last year.

More like once McDermott puts you on Special Teams, you never get out of doing that. There was a clear disconnect between the comments Beane made in his press conference after acquiring Hines and the expected benefit, verses the reality once he got here. The running excuse was he was getting up to speed on the playbook, but clearly he never factored into their offensive plans.

Hines touched the ball 12 times on offense in his first NFL game with the Colts. He got 11 total touches on offense with the Bills in 9 games as a 4-year veteran. It's a valid concern.

Jason Whitlock is tumbling down the order. Out at ESPN, out at FOX, run out of sports radio and now having to get by on independent work.

Agreed. Two hurdles, 4 TDs in one game, the dime throw to Knox, the conversion from his end zone to Gabe. He’s been ice cold killer against the Chiefs.

Brady came into a defense-run heavy league with an elite Patriots defense that for the first 3 Super Bowls kept opponents at -20 points per game. For awhile the brain trust in New England stayed ahead of the curve in trading players before they declined, finding hungry veterans, waiting for stupid teams to give away their talent for nickels, and drafting. But Brady was disciplined, and possessed the top two things for a QB: decision making and accuracy. He could read a defense, and pivoted to a structured diet. He found a personal trainer and stayed with him year over year until the end of his career. His lack of arm strength is a misnomer, he improved his arm within the league. Brady was internally motivated to prove everyone wrong. Allen is coordinated, he can jump, run, better than a QB of similar size, say a Herbert. Beane talked about how in college his completion percentage looked worse than it was because he only threw 20-22 times per game, so 2-3 completions swung the percentage. Starting in 2019, he got better line play and calmed his game down, making more throws to the middle of the field. He seemed to work with Jordan Palmer and improve throwing mechanics. The Bills FO has done a good job of pairing Allen with veteran Head Coach and Offensive Coordinator, there is a lot of stability. When it comes to laziness, Josh is not Brady or Manning in preparation, but I do think he does more than Roethlisberger who pundits in Pittsburgh said doing a yoga class was his idea of conditioning, or Jay Cutler who said he didn’t need to be in good shape because he’s a QB. Brady was competitive, smart, accurate, had great pocket awareness, and just took 7 yards underneath. As time went on, he saw every defense created and learned how to defeat it. Allen has frame and coordination, and because of the arm is a playmaker. But he plays in an era where the Chiefs got the Michael Jordan of the era, and there is a slew of young QBs in the pack who have all had the same passing camps since they were 12 years old. The Bills have a good Head Coach and a good GM, but the margins are extremely thin now, and this is why I’ve said the Bills need every trick in the book to win one. Because the Bills have struggled to build a dominant offensive line, or get another elite WR, that talent gap to Mahomes has not been closed enough. The Bills need more. Eventually the Chiefs will lose Kelce to age and they’re not going to win every Super Bowl, but Josh’s fitness is one lever that I don’t think has been maximized.

And if you can't listen to Allen describe his lack of working out, especially when it comes from his own mouth, then you have no objectivity either.

The one from the beginning of last year with Gabe? Yeah I've seen it. He's standing there, arms crossed, with larger arms?

It's not insane to conclude that Josh isn't as dedicated to his fitness when sequences on Kyle Brandt's basement go like this, and I'm paraphrasing here: Kyle Brandt: What's up man, are you working out? Josh Allen: Yeah (smiles) ... all the time Kyle Brandt: Really? Josh Allen: All the time Or later in the interview where he says that he has leaned on natural talent more in his past. Or when he talks about how Joe Burrow is "all-ball" when working with Palmer and Josh is cracking jokes. Then you see pictures of him and he's carrying a belly. Josh Allen HIMSELF came back to Buffalo and said he can do more and lead this team better. So it's not anti-Bills, it's not anti-Josh, it's not you really want the Bills to fail. It's this team hasn't won a Super Bowl. We're 0-4 in 60+ years of existence. And of course, in Buffalo luck, we get good just when the AFC is exploding with QB talent. And because the cap is strained, Beane has kept the 2020-2021-2022 team together as much as he possibly could (to his credit), one of the few levers this team has to get better before age catches up with them (Diggs, Von, Milano, Hyde, Poyer, White) is for Allen to take his game to another level. Since he's in Year 6 now and Sal C is running around saying he doesn't need a veteran QB anymore, he is the veteran, then his physical fitness is one avenue to possibly extract more performance. Nobody is saying they hate him or the Bills. That's classic embellishment.

Bills fans and Bills media need to get this fact through their heads: Allen and the Bills are not Mahomes. There is a gap. If Mahomes never gets better he’s proven that level wins Championships plural. For Allen, he has played at a Top 4 level for the past 3 years. It’s 35-37 TDs throwing, 6-8 rushing TDs. It’s outstanding! But the Bills are not the Chiefs, so all some fans are asking - is there another level that Josh can get to? He’s not getting younger and this staff doesn’t want him to run more, so the obvious door that is open to me is his physical fitness. If Danielle Radcliffe can get ripped, all I’m noticing is that Allen doesn’t hit the weight room by comparison. He has said this. The Kyle Brandt interviews where he talks about getting by on talent. He came back to Buffalo this year saying he “can do more” and “he’s more focused on football than ever” we all know what that was. I don’t hate the man or anything like that, of course he’s great for this team and city. But I don’t think it’s illogical to listen to the interviews that he does, listen to these podcasts with Jordan Palmer, listen to the Simms interview, see this photos and conclude, the guy doesn’t work out as much as he could. And for a team desperately trying to keep 2020-2022 together, Allen’s fitness is one potential path to unlock a higher level. And the Bills need that. Nobody is saying he can’t have a beer or he needs to stay in his house with the shades down all day. But get photographed with a lower body fat content and actual definition in your legs? Maybe get photographed with a weight in your hand like Herbert who realized quickly that he needed to lift to improve in the NFL?