Richard Noggin

Fans are notoriously understanding of such plays...

Watch it again, realizing that Hendrickson slows and braces himself on all fours, then somehow accelerates again into the QB's ankle. There was a broadcast replay angle that showed us all Hendrickson's eyes pausing, then rolling left dramatically to locate Allen with the effort of a deliberate maneuver. It happened. I'm not a conspiracy-minded fellow.

Well for sure a better oline would help any QB. That's not up for debate. But I would debate whether current offensive line talent deficiencies has much to do with Allen's downfield eyes. If anything, with better linemen he'd have MORE time to keep looking deep. If his current oline supporting cast is substandard, as most here attest, then shouldn't Allen be reading short-to-deep on pressure downs? Shouldn't he be seeking quick solutions to pressure problems? (I DEFINITELY understand that 9-routes ARE in fact potential solutions to pressure packages including Cover-1 and Cover-0 blitzes. But I also understand that there are higher percentage short and intermediate outlets for such reps.)

The Bengals do NOT seem cocky or arrogant in their locker room celebration video. They seem determined and happy. However... after Trey Hendrickson's obvious and despicable attempt to injure Josh Allen (his momentum has stopped as he lands on all fours, and then WHOOPSY he violently flops onto Allen's ankle) I'm having a harder time being objective about the Bengals. It's dangerous for the NFL NOT to go back and reconsider what that snake did, because he tried it again, possibly, this weekend against the Ravens, taking out one of their OL (I'm not seeing a video clip or call for review from this past week, but it sure seemed like Hendrickson's "momentum" yet again carried through an opposing player unnecessarily).

"Arm arrogance" has been used for years to analyze/criticize Allen's tendencies. This year we've been seeing a more reasonable long term projection for Allen: aggressive, productive at a top-5 NFL level, but also prone to over-aggressiveness and turnovers. He has regressed to the mean, if in fact his mean is pretty awesome.

I don't care for the tribal/partisan divides of haters and supporters, because I have a brain, but it's almost always been true during Josh's career that the offense succeeds most efficiently when he's calm and seeing the entire field. Zen Josh hasn't been talked about this season, and it shows. We're still awesome because Allen is so good and the team is good, but we're not getting that serene, patient, absolute assassin that we got at times the last two seasons. More shades of the boom or bust prospect we expected, but still probably best case for most of us around draft time.

The bolded points seem to be especially salient when the very old, unathletic, contact-averse QB is inserted into a Shanahan-tree, zone-based west coast offense. Except that McDaniel seems to have used Tua this season similarly to how one would use Tom Brady: quick, timing-based throws and RPOs designed to threaten defenses wide and with in-breaking routes but also eventually deep down the sidelines.

His yards/target fell off an effing cliff from game 1 to game 4 (his unfortunate injury): 7>8>3>1.75 His yardage: 28>16>9>7 His 1st downs: 3>0>0>0 Any recollections of Crowder's effectiveness this season, which some fans harbor, come from the first game in which the Bills eventually overcame self-inflicted wounds to defeat a below-average opponent. Crowder nabbed all three of his first down receptions for the year in that game (4 catches total). However, Allen was 3/9 over the next three games when targeting Crowder, for 32 yards. And definitely responsible for 1 INT. That's a passer rating of 5.09 (or 27.72 for all four games). No bueno.

And at the same time, I recall seeing a pass pop off his hands/pads and into the hands of a defender, and generally, the timing of the passing offense through him being off. Allen WAS 6/13 for 60 yards and a sub-50 catch % when targeting Crowder. But...of those 6 completions in the 1st 4 games, FOUR (4) went for 1st downs. So 67% of the catches you saw Crowder make were chain-movers. Which I guess could color one's recollection. But after week one, it was NOT pretty in weeks 2-4 before the WR ultimately got hurt.

That's fair. Fans...er, people, tend to avoid complex explanations that recognize uncertainty and avoid scapegoating. On this play, it's obvious that the pass is thrown very hard and to the outside of the receiver, and that it contacts both outstretched hands but is not caught. Honestly, watching the play again now, Beasley either didn't get wide enough and/or just plain dropped a heater. It hit his hands. It led him in the direction the QB expected him to be going. Difficult catch for a shorter guy to make, but he needs to make it. (Getting out of his break with an actual step towards the sideline, rather than a stationary pivot, would have made it easier.)

It's a fascinating storyline with many layers. Looked like Beasley's route had an extra hitch/delay to the inside, which prevented him from getting as wide as Allen expected? And the ball hit his hands. (Yes, it was definitely a heater, but that was an out-breaking route that didn't get far "out" enough...possibly.)

I disagree on this point. Tre is getting obvious handfuls of jersey since his return. It's kind of the refs when they DON'T flag him. Hopefully, as he gains confidence in his ability to cut and accelerate, he'll stop relying on his hands and get back to trusting his hips, knees, and feet.

I'm sure a bunch of us have at least entertained this idea. Watching Gabe Davis, especially, absolutely BATTLING THE FOOTBALL at the catch point...I mean, what does Chad Hall do with his film in WR meetings? When he does get his hands extended, he's got them either opposite one another like a running back taking a handoff, or he's actually got them pointing towards the incoming pass?! or he's doing that clapping thing...it's baffling for an NFL WR to be so demonstrably flawed in his catching fundamentals week after week. The same guy who ripped the ball away from Minkah Fitzpatrick for a TD seems so lost right now. So maybe Smoke seeing a few more snaps makes sense. One problem with a Diggs, Beasley, and Brown lineup is the lack of pre-snap horizontal threat, and Beasley's lack of post-snap vertical threat. Beasley and Brown don't seem like jet-sweep candidates these days, and Beasley being strictly limited to the slot (we can agree on this point, yes?) would take that alignment away from Diggs (or help the defense defend those looks...as Beas is not a threat on the boundary). McKittrick's speed allows the offense to credibly threaten more of the field in more diverse ways. All the Bills really need is just ONE of the receivers not named Diggs to show up. I like Knox for that, but Davis or McKenzie would also work. Beasley can help keep the offense on schedule, but even he dropped an important 3rd down pass against Cinci (looked like his route took too long stabbing inside to get him where Josh expected him to be). This is rambling. Apologies.

Isn't Hines also signed for another 2 seasons? I'd argue that he'll get ample opportunities to be a big part of the RB rotation, alongside Cook, next year. Two guys with SPEED is better than one.

But but but the historical architecture gets absorbed into a high-end club bar. The poors never really appreciated the neoclassical, Doric columns anways...

This would explain the time slot and the point spread.

Beware the well groomed, not overweight folks wearing expensive black and charcoal gray outerwear, drinking coffee and being generally nonplussed. Those are your closet Miami fans who crossed an international border to just kind of be present at a sporting event.

Do you really still see Tre playing scared after yesterday's game? Seemed like a big step towards regaining his MOJO. It's impossible to overlook how grabby he's been, and how half-speed some of his cuts and changes of direction have looked on replays, but it's difficult to know if that's mental or physical, or both. Hopefully his trust in his knee took a giant leap forward yesterday.

You really had me until the last paragraph. While the 3 examples you've cited favor game scripts that flipped, we can't therefore throw around certainties that the game-in-progress would or would NOT have gone ANY particular way based on the game script of the 1st 1/7th. That's just being ridiculous. *While the Bills usually sort themselves out after the first couple defensive drives, there is no reason why a hungry, talented Bengals team at home with an early lead (and playing cowardly for keeps...Trey Hendrickson) wouldn't at least have the 57% chance of victory that the analytics suggested upon the game's suspension.

But even in the Josh Allen era he (Tua) cannot handle a season, physically. Nevermind back when QBs were sitting ducks and maybe played well into their early-to-mid 30s.

The Miami Dolphins have demonstrably been a s#!% show since long before this report. They already deserve to be a dumpster fire.

Simply NOT how that works. No.

To be fair, earlier you clearly (boldly) sought to highlight the player's more vanilla quotes which are each so obviously prologue or epilogue to rare, pre-game public displays of bravado and/or disrespect to the upcoming opponent. Of course these snippets stand out, and the parts you emboldened are either set up for the backhands or compliments intended to dampen them. But also, it's true that many Bills fans, like most other proud-but-traumatized fanbases, are sensitive and quick to get angry and/or defensive when facing further adversity. Let's dispense with the pearl clutching that Bills fans are reacting the way some are to your posts, shall we?

Terrible form.

This was my approach for much of the drought, to be honest. But rather than the preemptive psychic security blanket of a black out, I adhered to a drinking regimen/game of doing a shot every time the Bills got scored on and every time they turned the ball over. I was living in Florida in my 20s, and this was a sad, warped way to feel connected to the suffering. There was one loss to the Patriots around 2008 that had me literally half-blind in the 2nd half.