Richard Noggin

Just great posting in this thread so far. Kudos to Shaw for setting the table as he so often does. It ain't juicy clickbait, but this is the kind of discourse I log on to read. As one of the many BBMB refugees from years back, I've been enjoying Shaw's posts for some years. (Maybe he two-timed it all those years and TBD folks got to enjoy it, too? I dunno.)

Whadda ya say, Bills nation?! Reroute some of that Tre White money towards another noble cause?

This is the best thing I'll read about NFL officiating this season. Sincerely. Competing things can be true at the same time: like two BLATANTLY missed calls on one play, BUT when that happens in the context of a pleasantly and consistently UNDER-officious (nod to Marv) game, then we should take the good with the bad as the game is mostly decided by the ACTUAL results on the field with fewer interruptions. Bills home games, in particular this season, have been excruciatingly over-officiated and blundered by the respective crews. I've never booed the refs so hard so often in all my life as a fanatic. I just want the refs to stay out of it if the teams let them. That should be their goal. Too often it looks like they're TRYING to be involved.

I haven't read through the thread beyond your post, but the answer must be the way defenses can cheat against the pass without getting gouged by the run and short passing game. The Bills have been unable to consistently exploit what defenses are intentionally giving them. A defense CAN take away the deep passing game by design. A good offense has to adjust and force the D out of those looks. The Bills aren't doing that against good teams.

Not a "bro" in this entire post... Stark evidence of what these losses do to us.

Again, you're too damned reasonable to represent the chicken littles I'm annoyingly annoyed with!

I hated the title of this thread, but I found it difficult to disagree with the OP's criticism of this team's fundamental flaws. They aren't executing the basics. And I guess that falls on the coach. Of course, McD gets more time to sort it out. I think coaching changes would need to start on the offensive side of the ball, if anything.

I paid to see that and sit in freezing rain while coach ignores Josh's vigorous pleas to go for it on 4th down and instead sends out the FG unit for an ill-fated and ill-conceived attempt. Yeah, the org did not reward its fans today. I booed McDermott hard for the first time. (Brought back terrible memories of booing Marrone for punting in a similar situation years back...just gutless and uninspired.)

The tone of your post, unfortunately, is NOT the norm. I 100% agree that the team is NOT playing well, and that I don't see easy answers moving forward. I booed the hell out of McDermott's decision to kick that FG today, and I'm definitely pissed at how soft the team looks. People can post anything they want, of course. No one gets to tell you how to be a fan. But so many indulge hyperbolic negativity and fatalism, and do so repeatedly, and for what? It's kind of lame.

I have season tickets with my Sicilian mother (who taught me how to care too much about football), and therefore spend every home game at the stadium trying in vain to use humor and perspective to disrupt her old world fatalistic frustrations. In truth, it's exhausting. Then I come here and see the same s#!t: people falling over themselves to be more right about how bad the team truly is and how lost the season is. Is there some prize I'm unaware of for predicting their demise? I don't disagree that right now the Bills are playing bad football. But there are 7 games left and the Bills still control their destiny. What's fun about whining and declaring the end is near?

They looked like loose stool today. But the irony of posters waving white flags in mid-November while simultaneously calling the team soft is, well...it's just what the internet is for.

It is getting more and more difficult to remain emotionally invested in the NFL; which is maybe a good thing? I'm 43 now, so I was in 7th grade when the Bills (SB XXV) first broke my heart (I remember the AFCCG two years prior breaking my family's hearts, but I wasn't yet fully invested). The majority of memories over the next 30 years are punctuated by pain. And I'm thankful for the life lessons this legacy has taught me. This resilience has served me well through multiple recessions, crises, and personal reconstructions. But the current state of officiating, combined with Goodell's ongoing legacy of an absolute rejection of accountability and transparency across many scandals and crises, including the COVID pandemic, has me questioning the fundamental on-field/competitive realities in ways I resisted up until now.

You're really carrying the toughness torch tonight, innit. It's okay for people to come at the sport from different perspectives. We don't all have to think like Mike Vrabel from the comfort of our computers. Football is a rough game, no doubt. And talking about it causes many people, you included, to project their own baggage/experiences onto their analyses. Just be confident in your own toughness and let the weaker members of the Bills flock be. Or better yet, protect them from the ugliness you've so obviously been party to.

I once got hit by and then run over by my own Subaru which I was trying to stop with only my body. And to be honest, afterwards, lying there bloody and bashed, chest heaving, looking up at the clouds and blue sky, I felt VERY alive. Does that count?

It's just not that simple.

And they SHOULD pay that man. Which will require some tightening of the purse for the rest of the position group.

Might I suggest a solution?

I've been struggling with how to phonetically spell out his pronunciation here, but let me try: Beeyooz. The Buffalo Beeyooz. Say it fast. I'm close to it.

That tweeted workout video is from March 2021, no? Yes, he absolutely looks LEAN (way too lean to play the o-line), but I wonder if that's not a) what happens quickly to certain linemen when they stop their insane NFL caloric regimens (they're not all naturally 300+ pounders) and b) intentional (weight loss) to allow for a faster rehab by putting significantly reduced strain on the joint(s) and muscles involved. Rehabbing at 270 has to be less painful, faster, and safer than at 330 (Osemele's listed weight). He could have theoretically spent the next seven or eight months bulking up gradually to get above 300. Just a thought on possible recovery strategy.

The bolded is in large part how I see things...in that I watch opposing offenses run motions and play-actions and bootlegs and half-field reads (not to mention simple slants and swings) to get their QBs in rhythm and to get ahead of the chains on early downs. Yet it just doesn't seem like the Bills have been scheming those kinds of QB-friendly plays on early downs, despite the OL struggles. Daboll needs to script an opening sequence of plays that gets Allen and the entire offense going. Get Diggs involved (the way we did last season when they needed a spark), get the pocket moving, get people in motion, and get the damned ball out of Allen's hands. Let his playmakers carry the load for a change (and I don't mean with WR screens against press-man).

THIS felt like a huge indictment of our o-line players and coaches as it unfolded without catastrophe for the Titans.

So in this example, can we, as fans, ever know what's causing this SNAFU? Is Allen screwing up the pre-snap protection calls? Is Morse to blame (centers often set protections)? Is it the result of "replacement" guards (Ford was the opening day starter, mind you) and a lack of "chemistry"? Or is it poop coaching? What's the effing malfunction here?

LOVE seeing Chicago persevere tonight. No guarantees they hold, but damn they should be proud of their resilience.

Seeing Chicago overcome those nightmare penalties is fun. It's like every team versus the NFL.

Just happened again. Absolutely horrendous, game-changing penalties. It's infuriating even when it's not my team getting jobbed.