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.

We still need above average QB play and a reliable right OT. We also need a better punter, but that's not so important. Apart from these things, I think we have everything else we need.

Any time that a play breaks down into a scramble the receiver's routes are either finished, or they modify them to respond to the scramble. It's common, under those conditions, for receivers to stop/start or change route. They are thinking on the fly. It's hard to predict. That's exactly why it's a bad idea to throw into the middle of coverage off of a scramble. Too many variables. That's why those throws result in so many picks.

C - A big improvement from last week's F. Threw the ball away more. Only threw one interception (which, IMHO, was entirely on him, not the receiver). Was largely ineffective. Didn't complete much downfield. Still took a big hit on a run instead of getting down. If this really was the best game of his career so far, he's got a long way to go. If Buffalo didn't have the elite defense that it does, most Bills fans would already be talking about drafting a QB next year. That great defense has bought Allen more time to try to show he can reach the next level. Unless he can least average a B grade over the rest of the season, it's time to look for someone else.

Yesterday, Josh Allen looked like a rookie. He's still our best chance to win at the QB position, and I don't think he's proven that he will never be any better. He has yet to play at an elite level for more than half of any game he's started. However, he's already good enough to beat many sub-par teams around the league (which might not be saying much). I haven't seen any reporting on how much damage the hit to head did. We all remember what happened to Trent Edwards after his concussion. Let's see what happens for the rest of the season, but the Bills management should already be thinking of their next move if Allen doesn't pan out. He was always a calculated gamble, at best.

The best advice for any beginner is to bring an experienced player with you when you go to buy your guitar. You simply will not be able to tell what is wrong or sub-optimal with a guitar you are trying. You will also not even know if the guitars are in tune (which is going to greatly affect your impression of the quality of guitar's sound), or tuned to standard pitch (guitar stores often tune down cheap guitars to make them seem easier to play), or are easier or more difficult to play than the average guitar. You probably will not be able to distinguish between the features of different guitars except on the most superficial level (bigger/smaller, louder/quieter, cutaway/no cutaway, etc.). Get a friend to come along with you and let them know what your budget is. Store salesmen will be somewhat helpful, but in the end they are more concerned with making sales than ensuring you've made the very best choice for you, and since you are likely buying an inexpensive guitar, they will not want to invest too much time in helping you make a choice.

Sorry for the typo. I was getting Peterman and Allen confused during that first half!

I think of snaps like Formula 1 pit stops. In Formula 1, the driver waits for his tires to be changed. He wants to leave as soon as they are. The mechanics try to get the tires to where they have to be as fast as possible. However, if the driver is released before they are properly secured in place, or the driver leaves without being released, the mistake is on the crew member releasing the car, or on the driver, not on the mechanic. The ball was snapped to where it needed to be. Perhaps it was not snapped fast enough. However, Peterman left the exchange too quickly and without the ball. He simply cannot do that. In those circumstances, the fumble was on him. It's not too different from throwing to receivers. The QB has to throw to where the receiver will be, WHEN he will actually be there, and not when he thought he would be there based on practice or the play design. He has to adjust to the actual game state.

I disagree, but I'll be a bit more respectful than you. NFL receivers typically have a large catch radius, but on the perimeter of that radius receivers stand an equal chance of either catching the ball or just deflecting it. No point is made by stating that the pass hit Beasley's hands. The fact is that the pass was behind him. It was inaccurate, even though it was a short pass. It was thrown into the middle of the field where there is less forgiveness for inaccuracy. The best QBs don't make this mistake very often. They make their short passes to the center of the catch radius, or at least outside of the catch radius of coverage. That's why their INT totals are low (at least relative to their TD passes). I watched the replays of the snap as well. I saw a snap lifted to the right position. It wasn't fumbled on the way up by the center (which you also seem to have noticed). You seem to miss my point somewhat. I didn't say he's a lost cause, or that his entire game was Petermanesque, just that the first half was. He did some things well during that half (just as Peterman did against the Chargers), was a little unlucky (as Peterman also was), but made far too many errors for one half of football. If that performance had been against the Patriots and not the Jets, and had the Bills been trailing by 30 at the half, he might have found himself on the bench. Fortunately for him, the defense gave him a second chance, and fortunately he took advantage of that opportunity and played well in the second half (and eliminated his 1st half errors). I think he's still the best chance we have to win, both now and in the immediate future, but let's not pretend he didn't have an awful first half last week.

Like almost everyone here, I was glad the Bills were able to pull out this win, and Allen deserves a lot of credit for composing himself at the half (it certainly helped that the defense played great and the Jets made very little out of all those turnovers by half) and for playing an excellent 4th quarter. Also, I don't expect a 2nd year QB who didn't start every game of his rookie season to be perfect. I'm just looking to see enough improvement in seeing receivers open downfield, avoiding foreseeable interceptions, improved accuracy (particularly in short passing), and better decision making (particularly when it comes to throwing the ball away when nothing is there). Notwithstanding that outlook, a reasonable description of his performance in the first half is "Petermanesque". The Beasley interception was largely his fault. He threw it behind him, if only slightly, but it was off target enough that at that range and velocity a bounce of some kind was foreseeable. The pick 6 is entirely on him. The first fumble was a little sloppy and little unlucky (he felt the sack coming, but didn't secure the ball to his body, or get rid of it), but the fumbled snap was on him (he left the exchange too early - I don't buy the explanation that the exchange failed because the centre was pushed back by the defense). He wasn't to blame for the safety (unless you think he should have pushed into Gore's back when it looked like he was stacked up at the line - frankly, I don't want the starting QB to risk injury by getting involved in line play). Let's remember that Peterman, similarly, also wasn't entirely to blame for his 5 first half interceptions, but his performance is now legend. The difference is that Peterman was benched after his nightmare half, the Bills were out of the game by the time he left, and so Peterman never got the chance to "redeem" himself with a better 2nd half performance. I think that Allen is much more talented than Peterman and has a much higher upside, but his performance in the first half was one of the worst ever by a Bills starting QB.

Look, I'm concluding that they hired her to advance diversity because that's exactly what they are telling us by how they framed the story. As to her qualifications and abilities, I'll let the results of her work tell me whether she was a good football hire, or just a good marketing hire.