Inigo Montoya

I've got a new statistic too: Most snarky takes on Josh Allen over the last 3 years that have proved completely wrong: 1. Pro-Football Focus - 1,246 2. Football Almanac - 879 3. Dan Le Batard and the cast of Highly Questionable - 812

I think the game plan for Sunday night will be a throw back to the last couple of years with designed runs for Josh and a game plan that gives him the green light to tuck the ball and take off if the safeties turn their backs on him. Use pre-snap motion to manipulate the defense and open up lanes for Josh to run. Jet sweep to the right and have Josh sneak out to the left. Run away from the side of the field TJ Watt is lining up on and see if their backup LBs can contain Josh. He doesn't need to run for 20 yards. He can break the Steeler's back with repeated 6-8 yard runs. If they start to spy Josh that's when Daboll should dial up a down the field shot. I expect Josh to rush for 75+ yards Sunday. Josh's legs will be the X-factor this week if the weather is as bad as predicted.

What has driven the NFL towards mobile quarterbacks is the advent of players like JJ Watt, Aaron Donald, the Bosa Boys, Khalil Mack, Myles Garrett and others who have made it very expensive for a franchise to put a statue behind their offensive line. Just like in nature, the QB position has adapted to it's changing environment and those QBs who can roll out and escape the pocket and make a penetrating defense pay have found a niche and are exploiting it. Twenty years ago defensive ends and tackles just weren't the athletes that they are today and that new level of athleticism has forced offenses to adapt. To date the most effective adaptation has been the introduction of the mobile QB. (The fact that the defense isn't allowed to decapitate QBs today also helps a little bit too...)

There are no Football Gods sitting on a cloud above Bills Stadium demanding tribute in the form of running plays. If runs aren't working, and you can move the sticks and score throwing the ball, then don't run the ball. It's called playing to your strengths and it's what good offenses do. Case in point, the Chiefs have five games this season where they didn't even break 100 yards rushing as a team. Two of those games they only ran for 36 yards and 50 yards, and they won both of them. I don't remember people going crazy about the lack of a Chief's running game after those contests. They are a passing offense. Most games this year they are 2:1 passing to running. The only week where they featured the run was against the Bills in Week 6. Would it be great if we could run the ball like the Titans? Absolutely. Can we run the ball enough to get bye if the weather or game script demands it? Probably. When Daboll made it a point to run the ball against the the Chargers we had more running plays than pass plays and averaged 5.7 yards a carry. I think we can all live with that. I also think the current composition of our O-Line is better than it was back in Week 12 versus the Chargers. If an opponent wants to stack the box to stop our running game and feels comfortable leaving Beasley and Diggs in single coverage, be my guest. Even in 30 mph winds and rain I like the odds of Allen making them pay dearly a couple of times. At the end of the day, we win by playing to our strengths and against their weaknesses. Right now our strength is Allen's arm and our receiving corps. We need to stick with the passing game as long as we can in every game until the opposition stops it.

Logan Thomas was lined up on the end with TJ Watt and chipped him all game long last week when the Redskins beat the Steelers. We need to mirror that. We can't have another Joey Bosa fiasco this week. If the O-line can give Josh a chance to go through his reads and throw the ball the Bills will win this game. I really think it's that simple.

The Buffalo Bills vs the Cleveland Browns for the AFC Championship? That is Old Testament crazy right there... Could there be any more fitting end to this ridiculous year?

Between the Pats, Red Sox, Bruins, and Celtics, the sports fans of Boston don't deserve another winning season in any sport for the next 50 years.

The Steelers are about to go on the road and play their third game in 11 days against us. That's tough on any team. The Steelers are not healthy while the only notable Bills' injury is John Brown. Unless weather precludes the forward pass in this game, I think the Bills take care of business and win by two scores. Let's pray for good weather for a night game, at home, in December. That's not a big ask is it???

Stefanski has turned Baker into a game manager. Don't turn the ball over. Turn around, hand the ball off to Chubb and Hunt 40+ times a game and win. And winning they are. Contrast that with the Bills and Josh Allen. The coaching staff here puts the ball in Allen's hands almost every week and says "Go out there and win this game for us kid." It's a big difference. Can Baker have a game like he did last week now and then? Of course. He'll have one or two games a season like that. Josh on the other hand needs to have a game like that every week for the Bills to win. And winning they are.

Josh isn't going to win the MVP even if he balls out the last few weeks of the season and Mahomes and Rodgers stumble. The NFL hasn't decided to market Allen yet like they have Mahomes and Rodgers. You saw Manning and Brady become the face of the NFL for years. That wasn't an accident. Sure they were winning, but more that that, the marketing arm of the NFL decided to promote those two QBs across every market in the country. The NFL has also done that with Pat Mahomes, Russell WIlson, and Aaron Rodgers at different times over the last decade. That kind of national marketing by the NFL is what puts someone over the top for this sort of stuff. It will be interesting to see if Allen joins those ranks next year. He seems to have a lot of things going for him. Choir boy looks and attitude. Nice background / upbringing story. He's starting to win a lot of games. He has a couple "wow plays" almost every week. There is also the feel good "long suffering Buffalo Bills franchise on the rise" story. There's a lot to work with there if you are a NFL marketing team. Josh Allen may be about to take that next step and become one of the faces of the NFL next season. That's worth at least five points of MVP voting.

My son is 22 and grew up watching the Bills lose year after year in every excruciating way possible. Just about every game this season he has turned to me at some point and marveled at how good the Bills look. It's like he can't believe his own eyes. It's a whole new world for him. It is a good time to be a Bills' fan. Finally.

The Steelers are pretty banged up. They will be playing their third game in 11 days when they play us Sunday night. They lost Dupree last week and Spillane this week so the middle of their defense might be a bit soft and it should also slow down their pass rush. I think the Bills win by two scores.

It's not just the cold, it's the 25 mph winds swirling around the stadium from a different direction every five minutes that makes throwing the ball difficult. Lambeau and Arrowhead don't have Lake Erie 10 miles away. Bad weather games favor the defense and mitigate a strong offense. For years with the Bills identity being defense it played to our strength. Now that we have an elite offense these late season cold weather games will work against us. I don't want to play Tennessee in Buffalo when its 20 degrees outside with 20+ mph winds a month from now.

I agree 100%. The Buffalo connection is the big thing here. He has a daughter who is a heck of a multi-sport athlete in high school at Nardin. That's where my mother went to high school back in the day. As a dad Daboll may be loathe to uproot her during highschool. Daboll is only 45 years old and has plenty of time to be a HC if he wants to. If he can help the Bills win a SB in the next few years he will have his pick of jobs at that point. Being from Buffalo he understands what a championship would mean to this town. Who wouldn't want to be a part of that? I wouldn't be surprised to see the Pegulas get proactive and put more money in his pocket before the end of this season. They seem to understand the value of continuity in a franchise.

Dion Dawkins catches a TD on a tackle eligible pass from McKenzie on a fake jet sweep.

The heart and soul of Buffalo has always been our football team. For two decades we have been downtrodden as the Bills struggled to do anything positive. We watched the lowly Aints become a contender and win a Super Bowl. Even the Tampa Bay Bucs won a Super Bowl. We were humiliated by that team from Boston over and over again and the Bills became a punchline. Just like our city. A professional football team shouldn't be so important to the psyche of a city, but the bottom line is..... to Buffalo it is. Josh Allen has given all of us hope that we might finally win a championship again. He means hope and a chance at redemption. It means we won't have to hear about losing four straight or wide right again. Just one championship would mean so much to this small city and its loyal fans. The fact that Josh Allen seems like such a genuinely good guy makes it all the more easy to jump on the bandwagon. My father passed away last year. He was a life long Bills fan and raised his three boys to be the same. He never got to see his beloved Bills win it all. We laid him to rest in his favorite Buffalo Bills sweatshirt. I kept his Buffalo Bills belt buckle, and on the night when Josh Allen finally wins a Super Bowl for this city, I will be wearing it. When Josh Allen brings home the Lombardi Trophy to Buffalo he will exorcise fifty years worth of demons from this city. That is what Josh Allen means to this city and its fans, a chance at redemption. That's a lot to put on the back of a 24 year old and we all know it. It's also the reason that as long as he is our guy, and he is representing this city, and fighting hard for us, that we will always have his back.

The 49ers are hobbled with injuries on both sides of the ball. Josh shows up to play under the bright lights. If not for the Zona Hail Mary, Josh and the Bills would be coming into town riding a five game win streak. The Bills' defense is going to be run blitzing and daring Mullins to make them pay with his arm. Mullins can't push the ball down the field. Listened to one of the San Fran beat reporters this week saying that the San Fran offense is essentially an "18 yard bubble" with Mullens under center because he doesn't have the arm strength anymore to effectively throw the ball down the field further than that. That will allow Poyer and Hyde to cheat up on the line to help in run support. I think the Bills win by two scores.

The bottom line is that whatever Gase's intention was, what is not debatable is that Gase has just gone in front of the media and said that Sam Darnold is a failed QB. Even if you agree with Gase that Darnold is a failed QB, the last person who should be putting that out there to the media is the QB's head coach two-thirds of the way through the season. It would be like my wife going on tv and saying she feels personally responsible for the fact that her husband is fat. When I hear that statement, I'm not seeing her taking responsibility for making me cheeseburgers every night for dinner, what I see is my wife going on tv and telling the world that I'm fat. What do you think the first question Darnold is going to get the next time he is in front of the media? They will ask Darnold why he thinks he failed. Is Gase the reason he failed? Was the lack of supporting cast the reason he failed? Is having multiple coordinators and offensive systems the reason he failed? Are Darnold's own shortcomings the reason he failed? Whatever answer Darnold gives is really meaningless because the underlying premise of all the questions is that Darnold is a failed QB. Why Darnold failed will be the subject of the week for the New York sports media. Won't this be a great week for Darnold.... No matter what Gase's intentions were with this statement, it has further damaged Sam Darnold and is just another example of why Gase just doesn't have the basic leadership / people skills to lead any organization.

Listening to a podcast that included an interview with a beat reporter from San Fran last night who said the San Fran offense with Mullins at QB is essentially an 18 yard bubble. He just doesn't have the arm strength to push the ball down the field any further than that. My guess is we will probably stick with our nickel package which we use almost 75% of the time, but I would expect our safeties to be creeping up to the line at the snap to help contain on the edges where Mostert does most of his damage.

I think Ken Dorsey should definitely be in the running if Daboll leaves but don't see that he has had any play calling experience (I looked at his Wikipedia page). He has been a QB coach twice, here and with Cam Newton in Carolina. There are probably going to be 6-8 head coaching changes this year and that means a lot of experienced candidates with OC and HC experience out there looking for a paycheck soon. There might be someone who would be a good OC for us who was just stuck in a bad situation.

Fair point Yatta. I agree the Chargers will be a good coaching gig.

I thought it might be interesting to look at a few areas that give an indication of where the Bills are as a franchise right now in comparison to the rest of the AFCE. The AFCE is a division in transition with all four teams undergoing significant change. Gone are the days of the Pats automatically winning the division and the rest of the teams scrambling for one Wild Card spot. How long the Bills can stay on top is affected by how each of these five areas play out over the next several seasons. 1. AFCE Quarterbacks; Right now the Bills have the only franchise QB in the division. When is that last time a Bills' fan could say that? We don't just have a franchise QB, I think it's fair to say that we have one of the best QB's in the NFL. The Phins are likely going to roll with Tua, the Jets will likely draft Lawrence, and the Pats are wandering in the wilderness right now. I don't think Cam will be back. I also don't expect Belichick to draft a QB high, I expect he will go shopping for a vet QB to plug into the team. Time will tell about Tua and Lawrence and we'll have to wait to see what Bill pulls out of his hat, but there is no arguing that the BIlls currently hold a huge advantage at the most important position in the game. 2. AFCE Cap Space; Beane has been great in managing the salary cap and has been making contracts based upon the anticipated salary cap next year at pre-COVID levels. That plan has been blown up and it is projected the cap will be $30+ million less next year than expected. Beane is going to have to let some key pieces of this roster walk. The current Spotrac projections for 2021 have the Bills sitting at $5mm of available cap space, Jets $82mm, Pats $69mm, Phins $36mm. The Bills have gone from having one of the best cap situations in the League to far and away the worst numbers in our division. The Phins, Jets, and Pats should be able to be a bit more active in free agency and have the potential to improve their roster while we will be scrambling to maintain what we have. 3. AFCE Draft Capital; The Bills will have a 1st round draft pick this year, probably in the high 20's (I'm hoping for pick #32). The Pats should be drafting in the mid-teens. The Jets and Phins have stocked up on draft capital. The Jets have two 1st rounders (likely the first overall pick) and the first pick in the 2nd round, #33. The Phins have two 1st round picks and two 2nd round picks. During the first 33 picks in next year's draft, our AFCE opponents have six selections. That means on roughly one out of every five picks at the top of the draft we will have an ACFE foe on the clock. The Jets and Phins should be able to narrow the talent gap with the Bills this off season through the draft. 4. AFCE Rosters; Right now, from top to bottom, I think Beane has assembled the most talented roster in the division. As noted above, with cap space and draft capital the Jets and Phins should be able to close that gap some this off season. The Bills have the most talented offense and special teams units in the division. I don't think it's close. The Bills' defense is starting to get hot and regain its 2019 form, but as of right now, I think that the Dolphins' defense has the edge over the Bills, and the Pats' defense is frustratingly close. The Pats' defense should instantly get better next year just by getting their COVID opt-outs back. Hopefully Star's return will bolster the Bills defense and we are able to keep Milano. I'm worried more about the future of the BIlls' defense than I am about the Bills' offense or special teams. 5. AFCE Coaching; Belichick is the best coach in the AFCE. Sure he cheats, yeah he's a jerk, but the guy finds a way to win. He almost never makes a game management mistake and always puts his team in a position to win. They just beat the Cards. They had no business beating the Cards. Flores looks like a promising coach, time will tell with him. Adam Gase got hit in the head with a lawn dart when he was a kid and will be out of the NFL one second after the last play of the season. With Lawrence, draft capital, cap space, and a big market, I think the Jets' HC job will be the best job out there next year and they should be able to land a solid candidate. McDermott is the second best coach in the division and I think he is still getting better. The Bills are in good shape with McDermott extended through 2025. Losing Daboll this off season would hurt, hopefully that doesn't happen. My take away... The Bills are clearly at the top of the heap in the AFCE. How long they can maintain that position is hard to say. The Bills have several key advantages, a real franchise QB, solid coaching, and a talented roster top to bottom. The question is can the Bills keep that roster together as the rest of the AFCE rushes to catch up with more resources. We are in a small window right now with Josh Allen on his rookie contract, the Jets just beginning a rebuild, and the Pats without a QB. I think the next couple seasons will be a throwback to when I was a kid and it was the Bills vs Dolphins every year for the division title. I trust Beane and McDermott to continue to work together to put a solid squad on the field, but COVID19 has clouded what should be a very bright future. I think the Bills win the AFCE this season and next season as the rest of the division improves but not enough to knock the Bills off the top spot. After that I think it's really up in the air. The AFCE should be a very competitive division for the foreseeable future. The days of the AFCE being the Pats and the also-rans is over.

It was an ugly game. My son and I watch all the games together and he said something to me today that is spot on, he said watching the Bills play is always stressful and not a lot of fun. Even when they win they have to drag you through the mud first. He's right. I would love for the Bills to blow someone out from start to finish just one time. No stress. No angst. No sense of dread. Just one time....

Hey Mango! Daboll is now, for better or worse, true or not, that most mythological of all offensive coaches, a "quarterback whisperer". He took Josh Allen who couldn't hit the ocean with a football while standing in a rowboat and brought him along to a near 70% completion rate QB. A team that is drafting a new QB who has some rough edges may look at what Daboll has done with Josh and think it's a wise move to bring him in. In fairness, I think Daboll does deserves credit for some of Allens' development over the last three seasons but I'm of the opinion that Allen deserves the majority of the credit himself. He has spent big chunks of the off season paying out of pocket to work with his own QB coach, actually relocating to be close to Palmer during the off season. He has spent hundreds of hours studying defenses so he can be more mentally nimble on the field and has done every single thing he possibly could to get better at his craft. Daboll is not responsible for that competitiveness and that work ethic or that will to succeed. That is all inside of Josh. Let's contrast Josh attitude with this little gem from Baker Mayfield at the end of last season. I don't think Daboll would be having the same amount of success if he was Baker's OC. https://sports.yahoo.com/browns-baker-mayfield-declares-he-wont-work-with-throwing-coach-in-offseason-195337203.html Having said that, I think Daboll has impressed a lot of people in the League with how he has helped Josh come along (deservedly so) and I would be shocked if he doesn't get a HC offer this off season.

BOB wouldn't have won their division once in the last 6 years if he had the Patriots with Brady in it. It's a pointless comparison and an odd way to weasel in a gratuitous shot on McDermott, but you do you.