Shaw66

I wrote this the other day: The Bills can legitimately claim to be better than 20 teams in the league simply by saying, "We have McDermott and Allen, and you don't." That alone makes the Bills better than 20 teams. So, if they're better than 20 teams, that means they're in the top 12, which means they're in the playoffs. That means they're good. How good depends on a lot of unknowable things that will happen between now and January. The Bills are contenders.

Thanks. Maybe that's the right way to think of Trubisky, and that's why he isn't the right guy to be a backup. A good backup, in my mind, is someone who can run all the same stuff as the starter, but just not as well. He's not good enough for any team to want him as a starter, but he's good enough to execute the game plan if called on. I thought Trubisky was better than what you describe.

Dawg - Just the other day I posted that I think the Trubisky panic is overblown. Then I saw your report, and it made me think twice. Putting aside his injury, whatever that is, I've been wondering what it is that could have happened to him. I mean, the guy has a lot of starts in the NFL and has played passably, overall. He's shown he's not a guy who you're going to want as your starter, but he should be a guy who's a reliable backup. Now, apparently, he looks horrible. Do you think it's possible that Brady's offense requires more recognition and quick decision making than he can handle? It's new to Allen, too, but Allen (1) is more talented, and (2) had a half season under Brady to learn some of what Brady wants. I still think Trubisky is a good guy to have, and I think he just needs some time to learn his job in this offense. Unfortunately, the time that he was allotted to learn it - training camp and preseason, now seems to have ended for him. He can look at film and participate in the QB room, but it sounds like he needs some time actually doing it. Or has the guy simply changed fundamentally and no longer has it?

I didn't see the game and I haven't read all the pros and cons, but I have trouble believing that the Bills have a backup QB problem. First, everyone agrees that if Josh goes down for an extended period, no backup QB is going to save them. The only circumstance where a backup QB is likely to be important is a three-or-four-game stretch. Yes, Nick Foles had a Super Bowl run, and that can happen to pretty much any veteran backup when everything falls just right. For the three or four game stretch, you need someone who understands pro football at the QB level (i.e., a veteran with some starting experience) and someone who can mimic, to some extent, your starter. In Josh's case, have a big arm and has some mobility. That's not Foles, that's not Flacco. Trubisky is ideal in that regard. Yes, I'd replace him with Tannehill if Tannehill were option, but I doubt he is. But your #2 has to be more than that. He has to be a guy who adds to the team by his presence in the QB room, a guy who has a good relationship with the starter and can talk to the starter about what he's seeing. I think Trubisky is good in those roles, and I think that for one reason: The Bills wouldn't have brought him back if he hadn't been good at it in his first stint in Buffalo. Then, everyone, including the Bills, knew he was a short-termer, because he wanted and needed another shot at starting. But while he was in Buffalo, Beane, McDermott, and Allen all got to see him in the number two role and to understand what he adds to the team. If McDermott or Allen didn't like what they saw from him in that season, they never would have brought him back. It's significant that he replaced Kyle Allen. Maybe Josh and Kyle's relationship changed (possibly because of the personnel change Josh made at girlfriend), but whatever the reason, it mush be the case that Josh feels good being around Trubisky. Maybe Kyle Allen was just playing out a three or four year ride in the NFL that he always knew would end, and Mitch can see and accept a ten-year career or more as a journeyman, and maybe Josh can see that that's what he needs. Whatever is going on behind the scenes, I think it's likely the Bills are happy with Trubisky as the #2. They may not be happy with what they saw last night, and we all can be sure Trubisky wasn't happy, either. Everyone will get to work on that. But he's a seven-year veteran with 57 starts and a passer rating of 85, which is a pretty good combination to bring off the bench when Josh dislocates his pinky.

I don't think it matters. If you're ineffective scoring from inside the five in either category, from McDermott's perspective that you want to improve. In particular, if teams know how to stop you throwing from the five, it gets easier for them to stop you running from the five. The objective is to be a threat passing AND running from that distance. However, as I said, from my point of view, it's just a random stat. There are all kinds of these miniscule stats that I don't think are useful in terms of a broader perspective about the team.

Man, that sucks. It's not even September. Talk about "next man up." Someone has to do a decent job filling that hole until Milano can get back, and even then you have to wonder how well Milano will be able to step in, having missed for than a full year as the defense has been evolving. As a practical matter, Milano may not be a factor at all this season. Major disappointment.

I never knew you had such a big career. Congratulations! It's amazing, the dedication of some of these guys. He's been pursuing a pro career for a long time. Good for him.

I've read some of this thread, and there are two basic points people are making: Either this stat is meaningful and the Bills need to do something about it, or it's meaningless and it's silly to focus on it. It reminds me of the stat someone highlighted a week ago or so about the Bills have the best 3rd down conversion rate of any team in the league. It's the same kind of stat, either meaningful or meaningless, except in that case it was highlighting something good rather than something bad. I think that if you're trying to prove the Bills are good or bad, these stats are useless. They are, as people have pointed out, a sliver of total performance. Who cares if the Bills are bad scoring inside the five if they are at or near the top of the league in scoring. Or, who cares if the Bills are great converting third downs; what matters is whether they get a lot of first downs, regardless of whether those first downs come on first, second, third, or fourth down. These stats don't establish whether the Bills are a good or bad team. However, if you're the head coach of the Bills, it's very important to know if the Bills are lousy at getting touchdowns inside the five, because as the head coach you're trying to improve on everything. Clearly, if you're settling for field goals inside the five more than the best teams, if you're scoring fewer touchdowns, that's something you could do better, and something that will make the team better. It doesn't matter if the Bills already are one of the highest scoring teams; if they're leaving four to seven points on the field every once in a while, that's something they should try to figure out and improve. Why? Well, remember the thread that said the Bills hadn't lost by more than six points in two and half seasons? There's your answer. I guarantee you that in at least some of those losses by less than six points, the Bills took a field goal or failed on fourth down inside the five, and that in some of those games those four or seven points were the difference between winning and losing. So, is the stat important? Of course it is, if you're trying to maximize performance. Is it a problem that will keep the Bills out of the playoffs unless it is fixed? Probably not. I'm not going to think about it, but I bet Joe Brady is thinking about it. If he isn't, the Bills have the wrong man.

Yeah. Imagine how devastating this is to him personally. All of his time and energy have been wrapped up in trying to resurrect his career, he goes to a team with a need and that supports him as he makes a serious effort at a comeback, and then he gets a real but dumb little injury that keeps him off the field. What a disappointment. Now, he'll get an injury settlement and eventually try to catch on with another team. However, training camp was his best opportunity to make the climb onto a roster. Stepping in midseason somewhere to plug a whole is much more difficult. Sorry for him. He's a good example of how precious a career is and how staying focused on the right stuff is so important. He started with a splash and let his career go sideways a bit. Suddenly, it's gone. Compare him to a guy like Shakir, who started more slowly but who never takes his eye off his goals and what he has to do to achieve them.

Micah Hyde! You ae the eternal optimist. He's a definite maybe. If anything though, I think he's late-season injury insurance. I wrote something a week ago or more about Hamlin. I think 2023 was an extended training camp for Hamlin. I know that in a strict physiological sense, he was good to go last July, but I have to think that when your body has been through the ultimate of traumatic experiences - total heart stoppage, your body takes a long time to recover. I know from surgeries and general anesthesia that my body was still recovering for months after every incision and other pure physical stress was gone. And I think Hamlin is the perfect example of how long it takes to learn the position. He did more or less nothing his rookie season and didn't exactly light it up his second season. Then the injury. Then a year of extended training camp. This is the first season when I think we will see what his full potential is. He's learned almost all of what he needs to learn (or he'll never learn it) and his body is finally ready to go. I think Hamlin will surprise many people this season, I hope and expect to see more of Bishop later in the season, but not as a starter, and I hope we don't need Hyde.

Yeah, I get all this, and I'm with you with the stubborn hope. But - I think it's one of the toughest positions to play in this defense, tough in the sense that the combinations of assignments are more difficult than any other defensive position, coupled with the fact that McDermott expects players to play with no mental errors. Really hard for a rookie to climb that ladder. Comparable to Bernard as a rookie. Having to watch, instead of practice, for six weeks, and still expecting him to start sometime this season is like asking him to climb the ladder with the first four rungs missing.

Well, my wildest hope was he'd win the starting job in training camp. That wasn't happening even if he didn't get injured. What I really was hoping was for him to get worked in as the season progressed and starting by the end of the season. That's probably not happening, either. More likely, like Bernard, his impact will be in year in 2. Too bad.

I don't think so. I think he will enjoy winning too much, and he'll keep on doing it. Within this offense he will have plenty of opportunities to throw the bombs.

Music to my ears. Take the easy, unspectacular positive yardage, play after play.

This is an interesting discussion you two are having, because it's a microcosm of McDermott decision making. McDermott seems always to go with the steady, consistent play over playmakers who are inconsistent. He tends to value no mental mistakes over physical superiority. Part of that philosophy is driven by McDermott's insistence on team success, not individual success. On defense, a guy like Klein is more or less always going to go where he's supposed to go, which means that his teammates all can do their own jobs, knowing that some guy or some space is covered. It may not be covered very well, because of his physical limitations, but it's covered. And if Klein's more-talented teammates on the field can stretch themselves a little bit, at least sometimes they'll cover for Klein's shortcomings. In other words, Klein is never a hole in the defense that can be attacked, just an opportunity for a relatively easy play for some yards, and occasionally Klein or is teammates will stop that play. The physically more talented but less consistent player creates problems that his teammates on defense can't cover up. Every once in a while, he creates a hole, because he simply doesn't go where he's supposed to go. When that happens, he can't be saved by his teammates, because some offensive player is essentially running free. That more talented guy will make some plays for the team that Klein won't make, but on average (in McDermott's mind) the occasional great play that Klein wouldn't have made can't make up for the damage done by missed assignments. McDermott's entire philosophy is premised on this. A defense playing together, with 11 guys all doing what they're supposed to do, is better than 10 guys doing what they're supposed to do and one guy, no matter how talented, running around and making some big plays. McDermott and Jerry Hughes is a good example. In his early years in Buffalo, Hughes would make some great plays and be out of position and hurt the team sometimes. When McDermott arrived, he told Hughes that he couldn't play like that any more. Hughes became less of a flashy playmaker, but more of an effective team player. He was challenged to make plays within the system, and he did it. One other benefit of McDermott's approach is that when you're playing the guy who is less spectacular physically but who executes regularly, when that guy gets injured, you can replace him with another guy who executes, and the drop off in team play isn't so bad. If your defense is based on having Deion Sanders at corner, shutting down whoever is over there, when Deion gets hurt, the design of your defense is a problem. I think we see the benefit of the McDermott approach in the wide receiver group this season. It certainly looks like that if one receiver goes down, any one, next-man-up will result in no significant drop-off in performance, because it looks like there's a group of about eight or ten receivers who can make plays. Sure, some guys may be more important than others, but not like the past few years when I was always troubled about ho would or could make a play when Diggs was out. I'm not sure McDermott's approach is correct. I think it is, but I'm not sure. The opposite philosophy is captured in the phrase, "You can't coach speed." McDermott's view is, "Absolutely, give me speed, but that speed has to play in the system or I don't want it." Pretty clearly, Dorian Williams challenge is that notwithstanding his physical gifts, he won't play unless he executes his assignments. I agree with what you say here. It's all about the big kick. Before last season, we trusted Bass with it, and before that we trusted Hauschka. Now, the trust isn't there and it will come back only if he makes all his big kicks this season, and makes them relatively cleanly. That is, as you say, playing with fire. Why do you so it is so unnecessary. What opportunity did the Bills have to reduce the risk of that uncertainty?

Exactly. I was in a discussion here a few months about about Purdy, Burrow, and Allen. Purdy and Burrow both are elite decision makers. When the play is on-script, that is, when the play is working as designed, Purdy and Burrow have an extremely high percentage of good decisions, and they both are accurate throwers. Allen is pretty good, but not great. Allen makes up the difference when the play goes off-script, which probably is around 20-30% of the plays. Then, Allen's scrambling ability, his running ability, and his other-worldly arm give him a big edge over the other two. So big an edge that overall, Allen is better than the other two. What's been going on with Allen is that he's been learning to elevate his mental game, so that he can be elite in the decision-making area. I think the change in philosophy on the passing offense will help. I expect that this group, running well-designed patterns, is going to create more quality on-script throwing opportunities, and I think that will help Allen. It's the the philosophy the 49ers run, and it clearly helps Purdy. He drops back, and it's as though his brain is saying, "Where is the guy supposed to be? Over there. Oh, there he is. Throw it." Over and over. I'm hoping we're going to see a lot more of that from Allen this season. His completion percentage should go up, his INTs should go down, and the rest of the league will be scratching their heads wondering what they're going to do to stop the guy

Brock Purdy has completely average NFL quarterbacking skills, except for his accuracy and his ability to spread the ball around in the way that the offense dictates. Josh Allen is a better quarterback than Purdy in every imaginable way, except those two. He's accuracy is good enough, and this is the year when he will be asked to find the open receiver, because the Bills intend to have one open on every play.

Flat out exciting to hear this. If we're going to see a BETTER Josh Allen this season, well it is hard to understand what that will look like. 80% completion percentage?

Yeah, I won't argue with that. I just think his ceilong may have Gino Smith. I agree that even that may have been unobtainable.

I love players like Klein. He gives you 100% of everything that he has and you can count on it. Everything that he has may not be quite enough, but you know you're getting it, every day.

Thanks. It shows how difficult it is to make judgments based on one video. It just reinforces the fact that Coleman is having an outstanding camp.

It demonstrates the power of video. Out impressions of a player are shaped a lot by video, and this video of what probably isn't a touchdown changes the impression we get. However, the totality of the camp reports we are seeing and hearing is that the guy is doing great.

Oh, I just saw this. It's really good. I get your point. I like it. But I still don't buy it. Would Josh have failed in Cleveland? I don't think so. I think you look at Mayfield and Manziel and others who have been there - they all were flawed QBs, and they were seen to be when they moved to other places. Mayfield would have been better in a better situation, but he still would have been a weak-armed guy who is a great competitor. Would it have been harder for Josh in Cleveland? Yes. But Buffalo wasn't all that great. McDermott didn't want to play Josh as a rookie, and couldn't even get through one game game before he needed him. McDermott's whole plan for nurturing him went out the window before October. Absolutely. I agree. The whole point, that I think you and I agree on, is that there would have been pretty much NO circumstances where Allen wouldn't have succeeded. He's too good, physically, mentally, character-wise, any other way you want to look at it, not to have made it. He is, as I said, transcendent. And, miraculously, after 60 years of being a fan of this team, this transcendent QB is a Buffalo Bill. How great is that?

Thanks. Great response. I absolutely agree that coaching is important, and I don't doubt that Josh has been helped along the way by the coaches he's had with the Bills. I just think there's a limit, and I think when you're talking about a transcendent talent, which is what Josh is, coaching can't ruin him. It may limit his success, but it can't ruin him. Josh was going to be a successful QB in the NFL, regardless of which team drafted him, because he simply is too talented and too smart and too well grounded to have been a bust.

If he played like Manuel played, the Bills wouldn't have exercised the 5th year option and they certainly wouldn't have tagged him. He would have been gone after 4 years and somebody with some brains would have hired him and allowed him to be the player that he is.