Shaw66

Thanks for this.

Bass didn't have the leg to get it there. The wind was fierce and unpredictable. No wind, I agree with you. It's tough to pin the return man inside the 20 - he's going to get to the 25, and once in a while he'll break one. Makes much more sense to kick it deep, and I think that's what we're going to see. On touchbacks, they'll have to bring it out to the 35 to balance the risk-reward. Or even the 40. At that point, it's a big penalty, just like kicking out of bounds. Make it a big penalty anyplace but in the landing area, and then teams will be forced to put the ball in play.

68 TDs. The only thing he didn't do was hit Valdez-Scantling on the deep ball.

It isn't a utilization question. The Bills call the play, the the defense deploys, and the Bills run the play the way the defense dictates. The system is designed so that all the receivers run their routes and Allen knows which guy is open. I think the completion to Knox was one of those. Allen just knew that Knox was going to be the open man. If the open man is Kincaid, great. If not, he isn't targeted. The way we can tell it works that way is that other than maybe the long pass to Coleman late in the game, Allen wasn't throwing contested balls. They were because a passing offense like this generates predictable open receivers, so Allen knows where to go on each play. It was quite impressive yesterday. As great a day as Allen had, imagine if he'd also connected with Valdez-Scantling! Allen knew he had THAT open receiver, too. Tough throw in that wind, but Allen nearly dropped it in there. Well-thrown ball to an open receiver.

Thanks very much for this. I haven't studied the return at all, and I didn't recall the previous kickoffs, either.

I generally agree with you that McDermott is conservative. I think he's conservative in a lot of ways. He comes by it honestly - he studies the game, all the time, and his conclusions from all of his study are that the way to succeed in football most often is to be good consistently rather than to be great occasionally. Listening to you, I think you disagree with that philosophy. There's an endless argument to be had about which is the better philosophy. The problem with trying to be great occasionally is that it requires the coach to be smart about when to try. Once as head coach of the Jets, less than a minute to go with a lead and the opponent inside their own ten, Rex Ryan rushed six and gave up a 90+-yard touchdown to lose the game. Rex was really dumb about trying to be great, and it was one of the reasons he was lousy coach. On the other hand, the best practitioners of being aggressive are good at it. I don't think McDermott is a guy who can be good at the aggressive approach. I think it goes against his nature. He may know he should be more aggressive, but he doesn't give me the feeling that he has the sense of the moment that a good gambler does. That isn't who he is. Yes, he gambles occasionally, especially blitzing late in games, but in general he tends to fall back on the philosophy that it's a long game, we'll have other opportunities, best to preserve field position. And it's hard to argue with that view - he has won a lot games doing it. One other thought that I think people miss: I think this notion of "putting teams away" is mistaken. Look at the scores from yesterday - most of the games were decided by less than a touchdown. It happens every week - that's one consequence of parity in the league. We, the fans, have this mental image of a dominant team rolling over opponent after opponent. Once in a while there's a team like that early in the season, but not late in the season. Games in the NFL are close; they're close more often than they are blow outs, and the same teams isn't recording blowouts over and over. You don't see many games with the backup QB mopping up on the field with eight minutes left. Most games remain undecided at the two minute warning. McDermott's philosophy is that it's easier to teach a team to be good play after play than to teach them to succeed at high-risk, high-reward plays when called on to do it a few times a game. His philosophy clearly is (he's said it often) teach everyone his job on every play in every situation, and if every guy does his job, over the long run he'll have more successful plays than the opponent. I'm not trying to convince you he's right. I'm just trying to explain the reality of how the Bills seem to be organized.

I like this point. If I had to guess, what went wrong on that kick was that Bass told Smiley he could reach the end zone on that kick. Just a guess, but it seems to me there's no way you kick down the middle of the field unless you're trying to reach end zone. I think Smiley's mistake was trusting Bass. And you're right about the next kick. I didn't like that it went out of bounds, but it isn't a "big miss" and the Bills could live with it. I think Smiley recognized that Bass couldn't get it to the end zone, so he called for a directional kick. Bass miss-hit it, but there was no doubt that wind caused it to hook some toward the sideline. Clearly, the touchdown hurt, big-time. It was, essentially, the only play the Cardinals made in the second half (other than one long run by Murray). But I also think that the Bills got bit by something that everyone knew was going to bite some teams early this season: there just isn't enough tape yet for coaches to figure out all the details of excellent kick coverage in this new format. Everyone has done their best installing coverages they believe will work, but it is very much a work in progress. You can be sure that every team, not just the Bills, will be studying that touchdown and adjusting their schemes.

This is a fair point, but the "long time" you're talking about is just the time since his injury. He had that classic Von Miller move for the Bills before then. I think it's coming. The way any athlete in the NFL stands out is when he has multiple ways to attack. One-trick ponies don't succeed for long. Miller showed yesterday that he still has the bull rush that his truly amazing for a guy his size. He looks like a smallish linebacker, and yet he just explodes into tackles and drives them back. Teams are going to see that on film, and tackles are going to get planted to nullify that rush. When the tackles start doing that, Miller will show you what you're looking for.

I think you're wrong about this, in multiple respects. First, I'm surprised you're getting into the business of saying that something is sack only in the stat books. That's the same as saying that an interception is only in the stat books when it goes off the hands of the receiver first. EVERY player accumulates some stats that can be argued were more about being in the right place at the right time. Von was in the right place at the right time to touch Murray down because he executed a classic Von Miller bull rush where he got the tackle off balance right off the snap and drove him all the way into the QB's lap. Whether he gets a tackle or not, that is exactly what we want out of a defensive end. (Nobody would be complaining about Epenesa if he could do that.) As others have said, the presence of his blocker was the single play that was most responsible for Murray tripping. Miller, more than anyone else, caused Murray to go down. Yes, others rushing cut off escape routes that Murray might otherwise have used to get away from Miller attacking the pocket so aggressively, but that is true of half the sacks that are recorded throughout the league. QBs don't get sacked if they have escape routes. But beyond that, as I said my lengthy post elsewhere, it was absolutely clear that Miller turned up his play in the second half. The Bills have always been clear that they brought Miller to Buffalo to make the big play in the fourth quarter, and Miller has been equally clear that he understands that that is his job. That's exactly what he gave the Bills in the fourth quarter yesterday. He was getting consistent pressure in a variety of ways, AND he wasn't letting Murray escape. It was exactly what I was hoping to see out of Miller: Pressure on the QB when the game is on the line.

I didn't say they win every game at the beginning of the season. Lost to the Steelers in 2021, and won the next three games 35-0, 43-21, and 40-0. Won the first two games of 2022 31-10 and 41-7. In 2023, after losing to the Jets, they won 38-10, 37-3, 48-20. Those scores indicate a team that is ahead of the curve on teams early in the season.

I think Allen handled the blitz well. When the Bills went five-wide in the red zone, the blitz almost certainly was coming, and Allen knew that he'd have Hollins coming free over the middle. If Allen keeps executing like that, teams will stop blitzing him. Absence of blitzing is the true hallmark of great quarterbacks. Pretty much everyone stopped blitzing Brady later in his career, because Brady always knew where to find the open guy against six or fewer guys covering the receivers.

Missed tackles is an interesting point. And I agree that it probably is a league-wide early problem because of how preseason is conducted now. These are guys who have been going through the motions for a couple of months. Skill players too. The difference is that offensive guys - running backs and run-after-catch guys, are letting all their physical aggressiveness take over - they are hitting as hard as they can, running as fast as they can, everything. It's like their fight or flight decision-making parts of the brain take over. The defenders, on the other, haven't gotten back into the habit of playing with that kind of intensity. So, for a play or two, or even a week or two, they are sloppier, just a tad slower. Not every player, not every play, but there are a lot of plays where a defender just doesn't get the job done the way he should. Think of Shakir's touchdown. It was fabulous, because Shakir was running like a scared rabbit, but in part it happened because the hunters (defenders) simply didn't do their jobs well enough. Defenses will catch up, and I expect the tackling will improve. If it doesn't, well, that will tell us something about some of these players.

Yes, it's pitiful they haven't addressed some of these things. You're correct - literally 10 seconds and someone in the booth could be telling the ref there was no penalty to be assessed against the Bills on that play. 10 seconds that cost the Bills four points.

The Rockpile Review – by Shaw66 One of the earmarks of Sean McDermott teams is that they are extremely well prepared coming out of preseason. His teams tend to play well early, because they are better prepared. Of course, one of the problems with that system is that later in the season and into the playoffs, everyone else is well prepared, too. In that environment, preparedness is necessary, but it isn’t a real difference maker. What to do about the playoffs is a question for another day. The question for today is “how did the Bills look today.” The answer is, “Very good, indeed.” There’s no question that much of the play in the NFL has looked a little bit like a preseason game. Players and teams just didn’t seem prepared to play. Announcers like to say that the players still need to “knock the rust off,” but it isn’t about getting in shape. It’s about learning how to play the plays you’ve been given – offense, defense, and special teams. On Sunday at Highmark Stadium, when the game began the Bills fit the mold; they looked lackluster and a step late on defense. On offense, they gave up a negative play and turnover. The Cardinals took the lead, 17-3, with 2:40 remaining in the first half. That is when McDermott and his Bills declared that preseason was over and reassumed its customary role as best-prepared team early in the season. On offense, it’s simple: Prepare everyone to execute an offense that threatens the entire field. That kind of offense, well executed by ten players, depends on having the quarterback read, react , and execute. When it’s working as it should, the running backs are getting nice gains fairly consistently, and the quarterback has a high completion percentage. And that’s what we saw. Cook had multiple runs where he attacked the seams the line created, putting up several 5-10+ yard bursts on first down. Allen went 18 for 23. Everything hummed, nice routes well executed by receivers, and Allen seemed always to know where to go. The only reason, the only reason, the game was close at the end was because the Bills gave up a kickoff return for a touchdown. If that hadn’t happened, the Bills would have coasted to the final whistle. Eight minutes left, give Arizona the ball, and even if they could manage a touchdown, it likely would have taken six or seven minutes, like their earlier scoring drives, and the Bills would have run out the clock from there. So, why weren’t the Bills better prepared on the kickoff return? Because there simply haven’t been enough kickoffs put on film across the NFL for coaches to figure out the all the details of defensive strategy on kickoffs. In that environment, McDermott can’t be better prepared than anyone, because no one knows yet what’s most effective. The only way to better prepared is to be one of the few coaches who happened to figure out the best ways to defend kickoffs. By Tuesday, McDermott and Smiley will understand the weakness in their system, and it will be corrected. That process will continue throughout the season, for all teams. Was the defense extraordinary? By no means, but just like the offense, once they got into the second half, their preparedness showed. Punt, fumble, field goal on the first three Cardinal possessions in the second half. They got gashed by Murray on his big scramble, but he’s like Lamar – you can have strategies for him, but sometimes he’s just going to get you. Damien Williams was around the ball a lot, Bernard was all over in the first half, Groot was a force. I watched Miller. As I suspected, the rumors of the end of his career were premature. Clearly, Miller paces himself, because he wants to be a force in the fourth quarter, and that’s what we saw Sunday. In the first half, Miller was workmanlike, and no one would think they were looking at a Hall of Famer. But in the second half, Miller turned everything up a notch, and he became a handful for the Cardinals. He had a couple of his classic bull rushes, and he just seemed to be collapsing his end of the line into Murray, without losing control of the edge. It's one game. The season is about piling up wins, and this win is the beginning of the pile. There are plenty of games to come, and soon opponents will be prepared for Joe Brady’s route trees and Josh Allen’s options; it won’t get easier. But for this one game, well, for a little more than a half, the Bills were about as much as any Bills fan could hope. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.

Got it. That's fair. I think where you and I agree is that the team has to sign some of these guys who aren't stars but who will give the team continuity and growing experience. What you're saying is you don't think that Brown is one of the guys it's worth investing in. I get that. I don't know the talent or the cap well enough to make that judgment, and I'm willing to trust McD and Beane to decide which guys are keepers. You don't think Brown should be one of them. I can't argue with that. That's true - not rookies, but definitely a step back when it comes to experience and where they are on the learning curve. If it's not a hole, it's at least a question mark. We know what we have with Brown. And I'm with you - I like Brown and I trust the guys making the decision.

I don't know whether this contract is a good move or not for multiple reasons: price, is he good enough, etc. Beane knows more about it than we do, and we will just have to wait and see. However, I wanted to post something about this idea that letting Brown walk is a good idea, because some other team will sign him and the Bills will get a comp pick. That just doesn't make sense. Let him walk, and the Bills have a hole at right tackle. If the Bills fill the hole with the comp pick, they have a rookie playing right tackle, and like Brown, even if the Bills draft the right guy, it will take two to three years to get him up to speed. Assuming the guy they get succeeds, three or four years from now the Bills will be in the same situation. All that means is the Bills repeatedly will be plugging the hole. That's no team building strategy. Essentially what that system would mean is that you have maybe 15 starting positions where you're constantly training players, cutting them, drafting more, training them, cutting them. Sonner or later, for most of your roster, you have to invest in players. I think Knox is a good example. Was Knox great as his first deal was ending? No. But you simply can't keep releasing players at the end of their first contracts. What are you going to do with Torrence He may be a high=priced free agent in a few years? Gonna release him? Yes, then you have a hole at right guard. Sign him? Some will say yes, because he's a keeper. Okay, but what if you get lucky in the draft and you five Torrence-level offensive linemen. You can't sign them all, or you will destroy your cap situation. Sign some of them and let others walk? Okay, then you have maybe three stud on your offensive line and two rookies. That isn't a formula for repeated success. You simply have to pay the price to keep some of your solid players, guys who meet your needs and guys you can build with. It isn't simple, and it isn't easy, but you can't afford to keep letting your solid contributors walk.

Hey, Hap - I don't spend any time on Spotrac or other services that track teams, contracts, and spending. You talk about this like the Bills spend a lot of money on good, solid mid-range players, which results in their not having enough money to sign game changers. Do you know how the overall profile of Bills' spending compares to other teams. Like, we know the Bills are like every other team with a top 10 QB - they have a lot of money sunk in him. But the Olivers, the Browns, the Dawkinses, the Knoxes, etc. - do other teams not have a lot of guys on their roster like that? At the two extremes, I'd think that teams could have a lot of spending on their top 10 players and spread all the rest of the money more or less equally on the other players, leaving not many guys in the $10-15 million range, OR you have a lot of guys in the middle range and not many on the high end? Do you know if the Bills actually are in that latter category? I don't. (Oh, and by the way, I wouldn't blow the bank on Hopkins, but I'd be with you for some other guys. If Aiyuk had gone on the market, for example.)

Your final point is simply a truism. Beane looks like a dummy for the contract he gave Von. But that's all purely hindsight. Brown will be very good or not so good for the next several seasons, and no one knows. And I think your other points - "one good season, a history of back issues (which at his height is a concern), a shoulder surgery" don't convince, me either. One good season was his last season. He was a raw talent when drafted, and just about all offensive linemen have a lot to learn. So the fact that he's been on a pretty steady up escalator for a few years is a positive, not a negative. His back issues seem to be getting farther into the rear view mirror, which also isn't surprising, as he's continued to work out and have better training than he had in college. And since he's more experienced, he's playing in ways that are less likely to injure him. And the number of tall offensive linemen in the league is growing. All of that tells me that yes, he COULD have a back problem in his future, but the signs are positive. Shoulder surgeries guys recover from. To Happy's concern, without quoting him, it's his admitted constant refrain: This team needs game changers. And I agree. I think the Bills are short one or two game changers. Oliver and Rousseau haven't emerged in that category. There isn't a receiver, in that category, clearly. However, the reality of the cap is that you can't afford too many game changers. You need solid players with experience whom you can rely on when you get to crunch time. Brown clearly looks like he's emerging as one of those. Where I think Hap's point is correct is that McDermott likes guys like Brown too much - versatile, do everything, work ethic, etc. Sometimes I think there are too many of them on the roster, and you have to pay them to keep them, like they've decided to pay Brown. As I've said often, those guys make your team versatile, which helps you accumulate wins in the regular season. But when you get to the playoffs, you're playing teams that have more playmakers than you, and that hurts. Last year in the playoffs against the Chiefs, they had Jones and the Bills didn't have Miller, they had Kelce and the Bills had an ineffective Diggs. Mahomes and Allen were essentially a push. That put the Chiefs up 2-0 in the game changer category, and against really good teams, that's a problem.

I agree that it's a harsh review, but the fundamental point is correct. The problem with Jackson is that to take advantage of his extraordinary talents, the ball needs to be in his hands ten plays a game when all other good teams are getting the ball to their other skill position offensive players. Now, on those ten plays, the offense is doing just fine, because Jackson does amazing stuff. However, those ten plays mean that other ball carriers aren't getting the ball and receivers aren't being targeted. That hurts them in free agency, because no top wideout wants to go to a team whose focus is not throwing to the wideouts. Same for running backs, except guys like Henry who's willing to take a more limited role than he's had in the past. Beyond the personnel problem, however, there's also the problem of how the focus on Lamar limits their offense. Teams (like the Bills) figured out a few years ago that the way to play Lamar in the passing game is to design the pass rush to keep him in the pocket and force him to manage the game like any other good NFL quarterback. Then, it's as you say - he is below average as a QB who can execute a passing attack with good decision making, on time, and accurately. Last night he missed TWO open receivers in the end zone on the final possession, and then he threw too high to Likely and essentially forced the guy out of bounds, if only by a toenail. All of what I've just said also describes Josh Allen, and it's what I've been saying about Josh for a couple of years now. The difference is that Josh is an excellent thrower, so when he makes the right decisions, he doesn't miss. There's no way he would have missed all three of those throws last night. And he's way ahead of Lamar on the decision making and on-time throws. Josh has been making steady progress, and I'm expecting a serious leap this season, because Brady is giving him an offense to run that demands great execution in the passing game, something that Josh is capable of but that he hasn't yet mastered. Brady is no doubt telling him that play after play, there is going to be an open guy and it is predictable where that guy will be. Josh has to relax, recognize what's happening, and deliver the ball. I think Josh is going up over 70% completions this season, which will improve his total yardage and will improve the Bills' ability to sustain drives. Josh is second in the league, only to Lamar, with his running ability. There are other QBs who run, of course, but Josh's combination of speed, recognition, and power make him a more valuable runner than anyone except Lamar. And Josh is a much better thrower, I mean, so much better that it's hard to even describe. If Josh executes the offense this season, he is going to look like a true Hall of Fame QB.

Someone showed me a report that said there are 13 different outlets carrying NFL games this season. The broadcast networks and several others. It will cost you. To see all of them.

Quite interesting. Thanks for posting. Athletic has good stuff.

Not much reason to argue about it, but I think it's much more likely that some go higher and some go lower. Last season, 28 receivers went over 1000 yards. Even accounting for some teams that had two, that means most teams have a receiver over 1000. Only 10 teams had passers over 4000. Only two of those guys did not have a 1000 yard receiver: Mahomes (Kelce missed by a few) and Green Bay, whose best receiver remarkably had only 793. So, I'd say it's certainly possible that the Bills won't have a 1,000-yard guy, but it's unlikely.

Allen's going to throw for over 4000. That's almost impossible to do without someone going over 1000. 900, 800, 700, 600, 500, 400 is 3900 yards. It's more likely that someone will go over 1000 than you'll get such an even distribution. Diggs in an off year did 1183. And the reason he's going to break out is because of how Brady will change the schemes from last season. They're going to create big openings for him, just like the Rams did, first with Kupp and then with Puka.

What's interesting is that although that is how we feel, and that is NOT how McDermott feels, and that is NOT how he expects any of his players to feel. They are keeping things very simple, which is to say that they don't think about how the season will go. All they think about is the Cardinals. The season is about to start, and as far as McDermott is concerned, now is the time when the Bills will begin to pile wins upon wins.

I seriously don't think there's a ceiling when you have Josh Allen and a bunch of quality athletes catching passes. Combine him with Ed Oliver, Von Miller, Greg Rousseau, which could be a truly formidable defensive front line, and it simply isn't difficult to imagine 12 or 13 wins.