Thurman Kelly

A grain of sand at the beach.

I don't think the problem with the Bills defense is personnel. They failed against a backup offensive line yesterday! They have depth problems at DB, but so does every team. In the biggest games, it comes down to schemes, defensive play calling, and disciplined tackling technique. The failure of the Bills is on the coaching staff. Our defensive players are good enough to succeed with the right coaching.

I agree that even a great coach might take several seasons before winning a Super Bowl (or might never win). But great coaches evolve and learn from their mistakes. How have McDermott and his staff evolved? Using the defence as an illustration, we are still failing in the same way in big games - soft zones and poor pass pressure (combined with weak penetration up the middle on rushing downs). I see no evolution. To get change, the Bills are going to have to make changes. The Bills game planning and play calling is perfect for consistently beating weak opponents, and thereby getting to the playoffs, but is doomed to fail against elite teams. And their strategy is 100% predictable to those opponents. The Bengals recognized the ceiling of that coach. It's time to recognize the ceiling of our coaching staff, and that ceiling is below a SB.

Anyone who is predicting that this inconsistent team will 4 games in a row, at a point when they absolutely need to do so, is pretty optimistic, but not very realistic. The Bills are one injury away from missing the playoffs.

It's a fact. We are light and slow in the middle of the DL and at LB, the tackling techniques of our run stoppers are sub-par for the NFL (tackle too high, fail to use sideline as a defender), and we don't scheme to make up for these weaknesses. Any good team has been able to run effectively against us, and I don't see how that will change. We rely upon our offense getting the Bills up two scores or more so that teams with decent running games abandon the run because of the clock. That's our only real run defence.

Tomlin lacks basic math skills. Went for 2 when it made no sense. Didn't go for 2 when he needed to. Punts at the 50 on 4th and 1 down two TD's (because of his incorrect 2 point decisions) in the 4th quarter. No wonder we wanted to play Pittsburgh again so badly! We were lucky yesterday. I guess our luck ran out today. Oh well, we're going to have to prove we're as good as we say by beating a Ravens teams that finally righted their ship.

If you've never heard of a "black national anthem" before this week (like I haven't), that's a pretty good indication that there is no such thing.

I don't care about Washington's football team, and I certainly don't care about their name, but if the NFL doesn't decide to be a football league instead of a lobbying organization pretty soon , they are going to lose a lot of fans and I'm going to be one of them. I've been a Bills season ticket holder a long time, but between planning to play without fans in the stands, kneeling, performing a so called "black national anthem", renaming teams, and declaring their support for political causes, I'm just about ready to find something else to do. I don't watch football to hear anyone's political opinions or grievances. I doubt that those who are complaining the loudest watch football at all. I can watch CNN or Fox News if I want to follow the latest in politics. There are still alternative things to do with my time other than watch sports - that don't require me to endure political infomercials.

I have a pair of tickets. Every game I bring a different client, friend, or family member. I travel a fair distance for each game and therefore I always tailgate to make a day of it. If I can't use both of my tickets, I'd rather get a refund on the entire season and wait until things get back to normal.

1. Quarterback. 2. Backup quarterback. 3. 3rd string quarterback. 4. Edge rusher 5. Run stuffing middle linebacker 6. Punter 7. Kicker 8. Coach 9. Offensive co-ordinator 10. Cheerleaders

Comparing my post to a question asked by a 1 year old is not a credit to your logic. Let's move past the semantics. We both agree he has improved. We disagree about how much more improvement is likely, yet you seem to recognize many of the same problems in his play that I do. You think he's responding well to coaching. As a way of advancing the discussion, let's talk about one particular aspect of his play - the fumbles. Most fumbles by quarterbacks result from one of 3 causes: 1) Blind side hits/strip sacks that the QB could not possibly sense were coming, 2) poor pocket awareness where the QB moves himself into a position to be stripped before he's ready to throw, or 3) poor ball security on scrambles out of the pocket. The first category is something that QBs can't do a lot about, except possibly hold the ball with 2 hands until he's ready to throw. I'm not concerned that Allen is any worse than the average quarterback as far as his vulnerabilty to this kind of fumble is concerned. However, in relation to the other 2 categories, his performance is well below average, and the results show this. How do you coach a QB to have good spatial perception and timing to maintain pocket protection if he doesn't have these abilities naturally? How do you coach someone to scramble with the ball tucked and protected with both hands if you've told him to do it, but he never remembers to do it under pressure? If you know the answers to these questions, you should be a QB coach in the NFL, because I think you might have an answer that no one else in coaching has. Running without securing the ball is a decision. A bad one. It's not unlike being an employer. Every successful employer can recognize that not every one of his employees are capable of making good decisions, or even following clear instructions, under pressure. As an employer, you try to make sure people like this don't occupy critical roles in your company. The job of QB is the most critical position in football. He touches the ball on the vast majority of offensive downs. He makes more decisions than any other offensive player, and those decisions mean more to the outcome of the offensive plays. Why are you comfortable that Allen can make these decisions at an elite level? I don't see the evidence you do.

I'd say my post was well worded, since you understood what I said perfectly. Your post is poorly reasoned. His maximum upside is not the theoretical maximum upside of a first round draft pick. Anyone would debate that. His upside is capped by his particular skill set, including his ability to make good decisions under pressure. He was "dang close to being the first pick" because the Bills spent a high pick on him. That doesn't mean they were right to do so. The Raiders spent a number one pick on JaMarcus Russell. He proved his ability was far less than the Raiders hoped. I doubt the coaches will be able to correct the poor decision making that Allen has demonstrated during his entire college and pro career. Don't you think the coaches have stressed protecting the football to him? I do. Yet, he still scrambles without tucking the ball or even putting two hands on it. How do you fix that? He can be coached to be better than he is, and experience alone may make him better than he is, but I don't see the potential for him to be elite. His problems are in his head. I'm not sure how you fix that. Can the Bills win a Super Bowl with a quarterback who isn't elite? Seems unlikely, because I don't see how the defence could be much better than it already is. We're both predicting the future, which is a hard thing to do. Let's check back next season to see whose prediction was more accurate.

He got 20% better. He's now only 30% short of how good he needs to be for the Bills to be a Super Bowl contender. I think his maximum upside is about 10% better than he was this year.

All players and coaches make mistakes. The difference between winning and losing is which players or coaches make those mistakes, how many mistakes they make compared to their counterpart, and when do they make them. The most important and untimely mistakes made by the Bills were: 1) Frazier's soft defence call on 3rd and 18, and his failure to take a time out to get his defence properly lined up (time outs in overtime aren't useful for anything else), and 2) Allen losing his composure in the second half, leading to a fumble, numerous poor throws, an insane lateral decision, and a host of other poor decisions. If Frazier hadn't made his mistake, we might have overcome Allen's jitters, but on the whole, Allen was grossly outplayed by his counterpart, and that's the main reason we lost. I'm not sure you can coach composure and good judgement into a player. Those are qualities you build up over a lifetime. As disappointed as I was, in my opinion we were only going to last until the next round in any event - because of Allen.

Here's the rule from the NFL rulebook (emphasis added): (d) A rushing defender is prohibited from forcibly hitting in the knee area or below a passer who has one or both feet on the ground, even if the initial contact is above the knee. It is not a foul if the defender is blocked (or fouled) into the passer and has no opportunity to avoid him. Notes: (1) A defender cannot initiate a roll or lunge and forcibly hit the passer in the knee area or below, even if he is being contacted by another player. (2) It is not a foul if the defender swipes or grabs a passer in the knee area or below in an attempt to tackle him, provided he does not make forcible contact with the helmet, shoulder, chest, or forearm. It comes down to whether being cut by a back is being "blocked (or fouled) into the passer". Clearly, Milano wasn't fouled. In my view, the natural and probable consequence of cutting a rusher is for that rusher to travel forward over top of you. In my mind, therefore, you block a rusher into the passer if you decide to cut him in circumstances where he cannot avoid contact with the QB (below the knew) after being cut.