Shaw66

Thanks for these write ups. They're interesting. Not sure I agree with you on some of these, like stepping up into the pocket to hit Clay. That pocket was collapsing, and you're assuming that he'd already seen Clay and knew he'd be open beyond the safeties. If he didn't see him at the exact right time, he wouldn't have had time to step up. And on the last play, McDermott sort of admitted by implication that Jones screwed up - either ran the route incorrectly or failed to adjust to the ball. The implication was that Taylor threw it properly.

McDermott was asked about how he dealt with Jones after the game, who apparently was crying in the locker room. He told him, and apparently other players did, that the game wasn't decided on the last play and he'll make plenty of plays in his career. So far as I've seen, nobody was trying to make him feel better by saying Taylor should have thrown it better. So it sounds like Taylor put the ball where it was supposed to be and Jones didn't run the route correctly, then failed to adjust to the throw when it was in the air. In The Rockpile Review I put it on Taylor, but it sounds like it was Jones.

I agree. If you can't run, you should pass. Can't hurt. But the point I was responding to is that this is the third offensive coordinator who seems to be keeping the ball out of Tyrod's hands, unless he's running with it. So the question is why would THREE OCs in a row do that? Why wouldn't at least one of them done what seems so obvious, which is if you can't run, pass. What I'm saying is that there aren't many explanations for that, other than they've decided that Tyrod passing is so hopeless that you're still better off running McCoy into a brick wall and hoping something will break. I think, by the way, that Happy Days is probably right about what happened in the last game. I'd guess, as he did, that so long as the Bills were within one score, they were going to stick to their game plan. Run the ball, run the ball, pass as a change of pace, but when you pass it, throw to your running backs. The last possession was the only time they opened up the passing game, and even that was pretty conservative. But even that brings me back to the same conclusion. We're now into the third season when Tyrod has performed pretty well on called on to pass more. Up until now, even though he's passed pretty well when he throws over 30 times in a game, coaches don't let him throw more. Why? Well maybe all three OCs are over-committed to the run. Roman was, and Happy's link to the reports about Dennison suggest that he may be over-committed, too. Lynn also was pretty run-oriented. So maybe it's just three conservative OCs in a row. But it's also possible that all three decided they can't trust Tyrod in the pocket. I don't know the answer, but we all agree that it's well past time to let Tyrod air it out and see what he can do. This isn't a bad week to do it. Von Miller is going to eat Mills alive, so why not take advantage of aggressiveness by calling a lot of passes and letting Tyrod scramble. If those great DBs are going to play man to man, fine, Tyrod can have a 100-yard rushing day off his scrambles. If they're going to play zone, fine, let's see if Tyrod can pick it apart while outside the pocket. One thing seems likely - if the Bills are going to insist on running, the Broncos are going to load up, stop the run and dare the Bills to pass. Why not come out throwing and, for once, let the pass set up the run? I'm not sure pass-first is in Dennison's DNA.

I understand and it seems logical, so the question is why do coaches stubbornly keep running? Why not at least give Taylor a shot at carrying the team with his arm? The only reason would seem to be that theyre quite confident he cant do it.

I understand and it seems logical, so the question is why do coaches stubbornly keep running? Why not at least give Taylor a shot at carrying the team with his arm? The only reason would seem to be that theyre quite confident he cant do it.

What you say makes a sense except we are now into the third season of coaches not putting the ball in Taylor's hands when when running game falters. Yes you can cite a game here or there but most teams are prepared to abandon the run when necessary; Bills aren't. Maybe it will be different in the coming weeks. If Taylor doesnt start throwing it more I don't see how you can conclude anything else.

Good point. Hard to argue with this. If Taylor looked like Aaron Rodgers in practice, they'd have him throwing more.

I don't understand the offense. Seems to me there has to be some way to get the ball more consistently to the wideouts. Doesn't even have to be deep. Just get it to them. They did on the final drive. There can be only two reasons why it isn't happening: (1) The plays aren't in the offense or aren't being called or (2) Tyrod isn't throwing to them. I don't know what the problem is, but the Bills are going nowhere if it doesn't get fixed.

Nonsense. So much nonsense. Does anyone actually believe that MCDermott is doing his very best to win games? Does anyone actually believe that McDermott is starting the guy he thinks is the second best QB on the team? Come on. They're looking for the best talent, they're playing the best talent, they're playing the offense they think will work best for the long-term. The Bills have lost one game. They're quarterback is 17th in passer rating in the league. And you're convinced that an untested rookie who was drafted in the fifth round and had a mediocre preseason is clearly a better QB. Why not try benching McCoy and starting someone else? How about benching McCoy and Jones? How about benching Wood and putting in some sub? Ridiculous.

McDermott said everyone starts with a clean slate. He doesn't care about the history. I'm with him. If I were a head coach, I'd do everything I could to get a player of Dareus's caliber to stick with my program. And I don't see how you can call Dareus a non-factor on a day when the Bills more or less completely stopped a good running game and collapsed the pocket around Newton all day long. Just because you don't see Dareus doesn't mean he wasn't a factor.

I want what you want, but the fact that we didn't get it yesterday doesn't mean that Tyrod was the problem.

That might be true.

What a bunch of whiners you guys are. Did you watch the game? Did you know the Bills' power running attack? This is a running team, and they couldn't run at all. The only person who made plays on offense was Tyrod. The offensive line stunk. Absolutely stunk. That might be coaching, that might be talent. One thing is certain - blocking is NOT Tyrod's job. Tyrod completed a high percentage. He threw no INTs. He did largely what he was asked to do, and all you guys can do is whine about him.

I've noticed Matthews. Don't be so quick to pull the trigger on him or Dareus. Talent counts, and I'm happy to give McD time to rein them in.

If the Bills are going to go 2-2 to open the season. I don't see any way to win in Atlanta.

Thanks for this. I only saw the play once, at a sports bar, and I've wondered a lot about it. It IS like the Clay play last week - none us really knows what was expected of the players on that play. I think Taylor has good accuracy, especially deep, so part of me wants to think that he put that ball where he wanted to and it was all on Jones. It looked to me like Jones didn't adjust to the ball as well as he should have - he had time to track it and he had space to operate in. In other words, he made it a more difficult catch than it needed to be. One reason I feel good about the team is that I think with six or eight more weeks experience, and certainly next year, Taylor and Jones and Matthews will be fully on the same page on plays like that. Jones is learning the league and the position, Taylor is learning the offense and the receivers. Why do I think they'll improve? Because the level of discipline these guys are demonstrating makes me think that over time they'll get it all down pat. I don't pretend to know the answer, and yours is certainly a good possible explanation. I agree. I don't know, and I'd love to hear the coaches talk about it. That's not stuff they share with us.

Thanks for the post, Happy. All good points. I liked going for it on fourth down, too. That play call looks brilliant when it works, awful when it doesn't. I think good teams have gotten smart to to that play. Zay's in the big leagues now, and we only can wait to see if he raises his game to the necessary level. I've been quite confident that the offensive problems under Rex were largely because of play design and play calling. I feel the same way after two games this season. There MUST be ways to get Matthews and Jones and Holmes more than once or twice a game. Unless, of course, as some will say, they ARE open and SHOULD be thrown to, but Tyrod isn't finding them. I don't know the answer to that. I think six weeks from now we'll know, because Tyrod will be finding them or Peterman will be playing.

The Rockpile Review – by Shaw66 Welcome to the NFL The Bills opened their season last week with a win over the New York Jets. This week they played a real NFL team, the Carolina Panthers, the result was different. This week the Bills began to learn how far they must progress to be competitive in the league. There isn’t much to say. When your defense gives up less than 5 yards per pass and less than 3 yards per rush, you win, right? Not when your offense is worse. Either the Bills just don’t have an offense, or they have one that needs a lot of work. It’s frustrating, really; all last season the Bills needed the defense to show up to make the playoffs. The defense didn’t. Now the Bills are getting the defense and the offense is in the tank. It’s almost always tough transitioning to a new coach and a new GM. The Bills are no exception. They installed a new offensive scheme and a new defensive scheme. They moved on from several players with the potential to be big contributors – Watkins, Gilmore, Darby, Gillislee, Woods and replaced them with some veterans and some rookies. In a situation like this, there are going to be growing pains. And it doesn’t help when games two, three and four on the schedule are against recent Super Bowl teams, two on the road. If the offense could do nothing against Carolina, how will it match up with the Broncos? How about on the road in Atlanta? I like this team. I may not like it in December, but I like it now. I can live with the growing pains, because this team gives me a good feeling. For example: Penalties. Two weeks in a row, very few penalties. The players are playing with discipline. Tackling. Every coach talks about having a defense that runs to the ball, but talk is cheap. The Bills defenders actually DO run to the ball, and it’s great to watch. These guys tackle, they tackle in the open field, and they gang tackle. They play with discipline Composure. These Bills know that not every play will go well, and when a play fails, they get up, go back to the huddle and get ready for the next play. LeSean McCoy had every reason to be frustrated Sunday, because he had no place to run. The frustration never showed. Discipline. Confidence. All game, even on offense, the team had the look and feel of a team that was in control, that was confident the next play would work. After an entire day of failure, when the offense needed a touchdown to salvage the game, they played like a team that knew how to get it done. Didn’t close it out, but didn’t go four and out with two sacks. They seriously threatened to win the game. Discipline. The Bills look and feel like a team that can win. Of course, that’s not enough. They must actually win, win more than they lose, win games on the road, win games against good teams, win all the games they should and a few that they shouldn’t. Until that happens, it’s nice that the Bills are likeable but it isn’t enough. Sunday, the Bills defense was great. No touchdowns, no big chunk plays. Six sacks for 50 yards with relatively limited blitzing. If the offense had done its job, the time of possession would have been even and the Panthers would have been held under 200 yards offense. This defense looks a lot like Jauron’s defense in the sense that it takes a conservative approach: no big plays, challenge the opponent to go the length of the field on long drives, challenge the opponent to convert plenty of third downs. McDermott has better players than Jauron had, especially up front, so his defense can give the opponent fits. A lot of guys made defensive plays against the Panthers. Someday before the end of the season, I should watch Kyle Williams on every play, because he is a rare football player. He makes plays every week. He does it with strength, he does it with quickness, he does it with determination. He did it again Sunday. Jordan Poyer makes plays. Tre’Davious White is around the ball a lot. He isn’t making a lot of plays, not yet, but he doesn’t look like a rookie, either. As he learns the scheme and the game, I expect we will start to see some big plays from him. Humber is growing on me. Solid. Shaq is starting to make some noise. The offense, of course, is an entirely different story. The defense has success on most plays; the offense doesn’t. Ten first downs isn’t enough. Three yards per rush attempt isn’t enough. Three yards per pass attempt isn’t enough. The quarterback leading the team in rushing. Those stats scream two words: Offensive line. I don’t know who played well on the line, if anyone. I don’t know what’s wrong. I do know that for an offense to be that, either the offensive line has to be bad or the skill position players have to be totally inept. The receivers aren’t inept, the running backs aren’t, and Taylor isn’t either. The line has to be better. Good luck getting better against the Broncos.. Tyrod Taylor? It’s hard to know. He looks like he’s in control. He looks like he’s decisive, reading defenses and getting the ball out. And he was under a lot of pressure. But for the second week in a row, he’s looked more like a game manager than a franchise quarterback. Simply put, he didn’t make enough throws to win the game. He didn’t throw enough to wide outs – was that Tyrod or was that the play calling? He missed opportunities throughout the game, but the most important pass, the last offensive play of the game for the Bills, was the one that really mattered. The defense played so well for the entire game that somehow, almost miraculously, the Bills still had a chance to win with two minutes left in the game. Taylor managed that final drive well enough, and on fourth down with seconds left, Dennison had a play that would get Zay Jones open near the goal line, perhaps into the end zone. It was the kind of play that winning teams always seem to have in their back pockets, the play they call when the game’s on the line. The Bills had it, Jones was open, and Taylor didn’t make the throw. The throw wasn’t horrible; it was catchable, but it would have been a truly great catch. Did Jones misplay it? Maybe. Even if he did, he got his hands on the ball and could have caught it. But great teams rely on their quarterbacks, not their rookie wideouts, to win games. Taylor got exactly the look he wanted, and he didn’t make the throw. I’m not giving up on Taylor. If Holmes had simply made his cut without pushing off, Taylor’s perfect throw to the sideline would have been a completion, and the Bills would have had four shots at the end zone from the 22. Taylor has skills, he’s learning the offense, he’s working with new receivers. Let’s see how he looks six weeks from now. The offense will improve as the season progresses; the question is how much. A lot will depend on the offensive line, and a lot will depend on Taylor. I like this team. 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.

Too bad you missed it. It was a good game to watch. Bills actually won without relying on screwups by the other team or by having a lucky break. Glad you dodged that bullet.

You just can't read. 48" jump. I didn't say that. I gave you the math. The ball was 8 feet off the ground and is supposed to be 3 feet off the ground. Very simple to get to 5 feet from there. I've gone to NO extremes to excuse Clay. I've said repeatedly he should catch the ball. Somehow your brain translates that into excusing Clay. You don't know me. One thing about me is I care very little about tight ends. The QB is literally 10 times more important to the team than the tight end. Therefore I care 10 times more about whether Taylor executed properly than about whether Clay executed properly. My comments in this thread are about Tyrod, not about Clay. I will bet you $500 that the coaches have talked to and worked with Taylor about the flaws in his execution of this play. (They've talked to Clay, too, for sure, but there isn't much to say to him other than get yourself ready and catch it.) With Taylor there are multiple little skills involved in that play that he should and can improve. That's what I've been talking about all along. I'm not trying to blame anyone or excuse anyone, and I've never said anything about that. You just have an active imagination.

Exactly. The interesting thing is the coaches reached this conclusion after about 90 seconds of film review. That's why they're pros and we are amateurs.

Nice post, transplant. Several things about this I agree with. I don't think Jones was primary. May have been Clay, but Taylor looked right first, I think to verify that the other guys were covered up. That fraction of a second is what it's all about, Unlike your job and mine, Taylor's job requires that he be one of the 10 or 15 best people in the world. Being 50th isn't good enough. That fraction of a second is the difference between being in the top 15 and the top 50 or 100. It's a lot of little things that add up to making Rodgers and Brady who they are. To Taylor's credit, he's demonstrated the kind of work ethic those other guys have; Taylor works every day to get better. And, yes, I think he is progressing. I also think he's now in an offense that's better planned and better coached, so it's easier to have success on a lot of plays. That, in turn, makes the few difficult plays, like this one, more important. McCown can complete the same passes as Taylor on the easy plays. If Taylor wants to be something more than McCown, he needs to master those fractions of seconds. And yes, this play does show how complicated and how hard it is. Taylor figured out the right throw. Did he figure it out as quickly as he needs to? Don't know. Assume he did. Then he needed to figure out how to get the ball to Clay, which we can see in the video involved recognizing how the pocket was moving and stepping out to have a clear throwing lane. He didn't do that, which forced him to throw high. That's a lot of thinking that has to be done almost instinctively, and Taylor didn't quite do it. However, he did it well enough to get the ball to a place where Clay could have caught it. Clay's a good but not elite tight end. He doesn't have the body control of a wide out, and getting his hands up and behind him, if only a little, makes that a hard catch for him. That too is the difference between playing in the league and being an elite player. There are a half dozen tight ends who mike that catch regularly. Clay isn't yet, probably never will be, elite like that.

It was one of the most important plays in the game. It was the kind of play that separates the good teams from the mediocre teams. The Bills failed to execute. It's worth talking about. If you can't understand why it's worth talking or you're not interested, don't join in.

Five feet comes from this: Clay jumped. The ball hit his hands above his head, not in front of his face. If a 6'3" guy jumps and puts his hands over his head to contact the ball, his hands are 8 feet off the ground even if he only goes 6 or 8 inches airborne.. The throw to that receiver is supposed to be down, at his waist. His waist is about 3 feet off the ground. 8 feet (where the ball was) - 3 feet (where the ball should have been) = 5 feet. That's how I got to 5 feet. As I've said in this discussion, the continuing review of this play has caused me to realize that because the passing lane was blocked, Taylor COULDN'T have thrown it low - he had to throw over Glenn and his man. That tells me that Taylor's inaccuracy on that play was not the result of a mechanical failure - he threw it the only way he could. The problem, then, wasn't inaccuracy - it was his failure to maneuver in the pocket to open the throwing lane. He had time to do that after he'd identified Clay as the right target on the play. Now, as I've also said, I'm a Taylor fan and I continue to think that he can be the long-term solution at QB. I find this play interesting because that skill, stepping up and/or sliding in the pocket to access the best throwing lanes, is something that we see the top QBs do. Brees, particularly, is a master at it, because given his size, his downfield vision is more limited than some of the larger QBs. Taylor has the same limitation and needs the same skill. There's another important aspect of that play that has been mentioned in this thread - risk taking. Taylor's stats to this point in his career are very good, in a significant part, by his low interception numbers. He's created those numbers by not taking chances. That's not good enough - the best QBs are risk takers; they learn when to take chances. If you never take them, you never learn how to take them. This play was one of those plays. I have no way of knowing, but I would guess that last season Taylor would not have thrown that ball - he didn't have the look at Clay that he wanted, he didn't have much more time, and he didn't have any other good options (like you, I don't think Jones was an option at all). Last season he would have thrown it away or run. Sunday Taylor risked three points by deciding to throw, and in fact he lost the three points. But I commend him for taking the risk, because he has to learn. I'd guess he knew it was a tough throw, he threw it about as well as he could given the passing lane problem, and he gave Clay a decent chance to catch the ball. I really think that what Taylor and the coaches talked about Monday or Tuesday was how to improve his ability to move around in the pocket - how to recognize opportunities and how to fight the instinct to back up. On this play, a half step forward instead of a half step back would have made it an easy throw. You're welcome. You're welcome.

I think all the Tolbert hate is foolish. First, he's on the team because McD wanted a great veteran presence. Tolbert brings that. Second, did you know that Tolbert is currently 21at in the league in rushing yards per attempt. That means that he's gaining more yards per attempt than 10 or 15 STARTERS in the league, and you're complaining about him. (By the way, McCoy is fourth and Taylor is sixth, so the Bills have three of the top 21 rushers in yards per attempt. Maybe it's time to focus on something that matters.