Inigo Montoya

Can't help but feel that with Josh in the game, with the ball, down six with a couple of minutes left in the game, we march down the field and score a touch down and win. Echoes of the Jets game where the defense keeps us within striking distance and we pull it out at the end. Shame he didn't get the chance.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001058649/article/nfl-power-rankings-week-4-bills-49ers-hit-top-10-eagles-dive Not sure what it means after Week 3, but it's a hell of a lot better than being #16 after Week 3... RANK #6 BILLS (3-0) 6 Previous rank: No. 12 Dawson Knox, have a day. With the Bills down three late in the fourth quarter, Buffalo's rookie tight end hauled in a Josh Allen pass and morphed into an evolutionary Gronk. His 49-yard catch-and-runsent New Era Stadium into a frenzy and set up the Bills' go-ahead touchdown. The seven-play, 78-yard drive was a minor masterpiece by the Bills, providing the latest evidence that Allen has taken the next step as a quarterback in Year 2. Buffalo had coughed up a 14-0 lead in this game, and a loss would have undone much of the progress of the season's first two weeks. But Allen -- with a huge helping hand from his Baby Gronk -- wouldn't allow that to happen. The Bills are 3-0 and welcome the 3-0 Patriots to their house on Sunday. This is the biggest Bills game in a long time. Circle them wagons!

7. Scoring more points than them. There. I fixed it. ?

I think we will be competitive against the Pats this Sunday. We will be the best team they have played so far. I agree with Vegas that we are home underdogs but I think we have a real chance to beat the Pats this weekend. I think there are several things that we can do to give us a better chance of winning. The more of them we can pull off, the greater the chance of sending the Pats packing with a loss. 1. We are going to need a defensive or special teams touchdown this Sunday. I think our offense is going to need some help putting points on the board. I think if we score 28 points this weekend we will have a real shot of winning with our defense standing tall. If we can get a pick six or a return TD that means our offense only needs to score 21 points. I think that is doable. 2. We need to try and limit Edelman somehow. He had his ribs barked up a little bit last week against the Jets but all reports are that he is going to play this week. We need to finish our tackles on him and test out those ribs to see how good they really are. Not cheap shots, but solid tackles. He's a tough dude, but rib injuries suck and it's hard to breath when your ribs are screaming at you. The other thing we need to limit Edelman is Taron Johnson back in the lineup as our slot corner. Siran Neal is a thumper and has been playing well, but Taron Johnson is clearly a better coverage corner in the slot. Look at how Jamison Crowder exploded after Johnson left the game during Week 1. Edelman is a 1st down machine and we need to limit the damage. 3. We need to bat down Brady's throws. It's hard to get pressure on Brady because he gets rid of the ball so quickly. It's easy to say we need to get some push into the pocket and get to Brady, but realistically, that ball will be gone in two seconds most of the day. If we can't get to Brady with the rush, hopefully our D-linemen and linebackers can at least get some arms up and get a hand on some of Brady's passes, we can disrupt his rhythm and affect his accuracy and hopefully lead to a turnover. That might help with #1 above, a defensive touchdown. 4. We need to unleash Singletary. This obviously depends on if he is available to play. Hopefully Motor will be back this week and he can light up the Pat's defense a bit and keep them honest and stop the defense for pinning their ears back and coming after Allen all game long. I bet that Daboll has a whole section of his playbook with plays designed just for Singletary. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Daboll has deliberately kept the wraps on Singletary waiting to drop him like a bomb on the Pats this week. We need something on offense that will help even out the odds a bit. I think Singletary is that something. 5. We need to play clean football. I have been impressed with our disciplined football so far this season. We need to keep the yellow flags in the refs pockets. We can't be giving the Pats any free yards or extra series. 6. Josh Allen needs to run the ball. Allen has made huge strides as a pocket passer this year and I have no problem with him throwing the ball 30+ times if we need to, but I think Daboll needs to tell him to not think twice about pulling the ball down and taking off this weekend. He hasn't been running as much this year because he has had a better pocket to stand in and he hasn't had to run for his life as much. This week, instead of him running because he's about to get clobbered, I hope he looks for opportunities to pop through the line and get into open spaces and run the ball. A running QB is a nightmare for a defense and it will force them to make all kinds of adjustments that will help Josh Allen the passer as the game goes on. Being able to pop through the line for a quick and easy 5 yards is a great play if it's there. It might also stop Allen from scrambling around the pocket when no one is open and trying to force a bad ball into coverage. (Hero Ball) I wouldn't want him running all the time every week, but I think this is a match up where Josh's legs give this offense an advantage and we need to maximize every advantage we have if we are going to win.

Actually... he hasn't. He's played 14 games as a starting QB in this league which on my abacus equals less than a full season worth of playing experience. My point is that those clamoring about his play need to keep in mind that if Allen was a car, he would still have that new car smell. For Pete's sake let's give the kid a honest chance to learn the game. He's a lot further along than I thought he was going to be at this point.

That's what happens when I try to do math with my socks on. Thanks for the heads up. I'll change it. Point being, it's still less than a season worth of football.

1. You could tell that this offense missed Singletary today as the second half spark plug to get things going. I think we need Singletary next week to have a realistic shot at winning. Yeldon needs to work on ball security. He has only had 8 touches this year and has put the ball on the ground. 2. This is only Josh's 15th NFL game, not even a full season yet. I think we all need to remember that. He is going to try to do too much and suffer from bad decisions as he learns his craft. He threw another bad interception today, but he did rally the team and bring the Bills back on another 4th quarter, game winning drive. On the whole, I think he is playing solid football so far. He is accurate (yeah, I said it) and he doesn't get down on himself and let his mind beat him when things go sideways. He is clutch when it matters and when he got the ball in the 4th quarter today I expected him to score a touchdown. I haven't felt that way about a Bills QB in a long time. 3. Dawson Knox today. One bad drop. One touchdown. One bulldozer, beast mode, Rambo run. One helluva future. 4. The defense continues to carry this team just like we all thought it would. I read many times on this board over the off season that if the offense could just score a few points, with our defense being so dominant, that we would win some games, and that is exactly what has happened so far. Our offense has averaged just 22 points a game through the first three games of the season and we are sitting at 3-0. That is clearly a testament to how hard our defense is playing. 5. I'm not worried about our kicking game anymore. I don't know what happened between the pre-season and the regular season, but HouseMoney and Bojo are spot on so far. 6. Our offense still hasn't put together four solid quarters of football yet. I'm all about a 4th quarter comeback, but it would be nice to just get a lead and hold a lead. I'm not sure what the issue is. Hopefully McDermott and Daboll can figure it out and get it fixed because there are a lot of teams in this league that we are not going to be able to beat with just 2 or 3 quarters of good play. Next week we are going to need all four quarters to beat the Pats. 7. The AFC is not fairing well in inter-conference play. It should help us down the road if we need to win a Wild Card to get into the playoffs. 8. The Bills have not been shooting themselves in the foot with bad penalties negating big plays or extending the other team's drives. I think this is incredibly important and it is a marked departure from the pulling your hair out play of past undisciplined Bill's squads. 9. I keep waiting for Oliver to finally get his hands on the QB. It would be great to see Oliver bury Brady into the Bills logo next week for his first sack. 10. The Bills D-line are all playing like they are ten feet tall. We had another couple batted down passes at the line today. We've only gotten one interception off them so far, but I suspect that will change if they keep it up. Even if they don't translate to turnovers, they are still passes defended and they also effect a QB's accuracy when they start altering their throwing motion to get the ball around all those arms up in the throwing lanes.

That catch and run from Knox to set up the winning touchdown looked like a Gronk play. He crushed those corners!!! Let's hope it's a sign of things to come. I don't care if Tyler Kroft ever comes back.

Two points; 1. The Bengals are going to be desperate. This is a must win game for them, they know they can’t start 0-3. We are going to get their best shot today. 2. If we lose the media will say, “See, the Bills are still the Bills”. If the Bills win, the media will point out that they are 3-0 playing against three teams that are all 0-3. They can discount us either way. Ultimately, I say screw the media. Go Bills!!!

We just need to continue to bank wins when we can. The difference between 9-7 and 10-6 in this League is huge. I think we are in that range this year if we stay healthy and with the way the rest of the AFC is looking right now. The Bengals are not the Dolphins, they will play hard and they can beat us if they catch some breaks. This is not a team to sleep on. They are pretty banged up and their O-line has some question marks which makes me feel a bit better. This is definitely a game we can win. This is exactly the kind of game this team needs to learn to win if they are going to be a playoff team.

Didn’t even occur to me to see Belichick’s finger prints on Brady’s tweet, but it really isn’t like the “Golden Boy” to take the League to task on social media is it? Maybe my tin foil hat is just on too tight, but you may be on to something here...

Belichick is right, most teams beat themselves. Atlanta and Seattle both lost the Super Bowl to the Pats with stupid play calling at the end allowing the Pats to win. The Bills have been masters of this for a long time. These last two games the Bills managed to stay out of their own way and not give the game away. They had the four turnovers in the Jets game but they were the result of bad bounces more than bad decisions or choking. If the Bills can keep playing smart, clean football they are going to stack up some wins.

When the national sports media talks about the Bills starting 2-0, they all point out that the two wins were against the Jets and the Giants and that neither team is any good. To be fair, it's a valid point. The Jets and Giants do look woeful right now. That's what they see. I see something different in these two victories. As a long suffering Bill's fan who has watched this team wandering in the desert for 20 years, what the national sports media has clearly missed is that in years past I have no doubt that the Bills would have come out of these first two games with a record of 1-1. I have no doubt that the "old Bills" would have found a way to lose one of these two road games. We all know what we saw during these last two games, but what is even more important that what we saw in those two victories, is what we didn't see in those victories. We didn't see stupid penalties twenty yards away from the ball negate big plays over and over again. We didn't see a QB and offense that turned the ball over 4 times, gave up a Pick-6 and a safety, and not score a single point in the first half, just implode and collapse. We didn't see that fourth quarter comeback drive fall just a little bit short... We didn't see questionable coaching decisions and horrible clock management cost the team late in the game. We didn't see some late game special teams collapse, a late TD / punt return, or missed field goal cost us a game. We didn't see Bills players yelling at each other and standing around looking dejected on the sidelines when things went against them. We didn't see a QB who looked over his head and playing simply not to lose the game. We didn't see a blown coverage on defense or a missed tackle give up a last minute touchdown snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Sure it was just the Jets and the Giants, but the thing that impressed me most is not what the Jets and Giants brought to MetLife these last two weeks, but what the Bills didn't bring. They didn't bring all the dysfunction that has sabotaged winnable games over and over again for the last 20 years. If the Bills can just continue to get the hell out of their own way, they have enough talent on this roster to be playing football well into January this season.

Maybe you're right. I just think that these guys who have been "The Man" ever since Pop Warner have a hard time when they flame out spectacularly. What will make it worse for him is that he will know that he never really got a fair chance to succeed and that will be the thing that eats at him more than anything. It's one thing to lose, it's another thing to be cheated. I think it's a lot harder to let those ones go.

I can't imagine what it's like to be Josh Rosen right now. He was traded from last year's most dysfunctional team to this year's even worse dysfunctional team. Talk about "out of the frying pan and into the fire...." At some point he is going to get thrown onto the field in Miami and he is going to get destroyed. He knows it, his family knows it, and the Dolphin's front office knows it. At least Fitz can scramble, Rosen is a statue. He's like a dead man walking right now. This season is going to make his year in Arizona look like a day at the spa. I don't like Josh Rosen. I don't know why. I guess he was just on the wrong side of that fine line between confident and cocky or confident and jerk to me. He just struck me as an entitled rich kid, the kind that I grew up around and couldn't stand. The kind of kid who pulled up to school on their 16th birthday in a new Audi and acted like they had done something to deserve it because their father was a doctor. He just exuded that vibe to me. Maybe I'm wrong and he's a great guy. Who knows? Either way, I don't think he will get a third chance in this league and he'll be out of the league at the end of his rookie contract, maybe even before. He will have to live with the title of "1st Round NFL Bust" attached to his name for the rest of his life. I can see him going the Ryan Leaf route and self destructing along the way. He is going to walk away with a lot of money in his pocket and still be absolutely miserable.

Mayfield has the talent, but I don't think he has the temperament to last in this league long as a QB. I think it's important to be able to stay even keeled over the course of a season and not get too high or too low. I don't think Mayfield has that trait. Everything is right now, everything is the most important thing ever, everything is either amazing or a crisis. That's just not a recipe for success for a team that has to follow his lead.

Certainly possible Sunshower. I think there may be more to it than that though.

Playing the Pats is like a playoff game for this franchise and being able to even split the season series with them would be huge and give us a chance to win the division out right and not need a wild card to make the playoffs. If the Pats and the Bills both sweep the Jets and Phins it’s not an overstatement to say week 4 at New Era has significant playoff implications. Do you think Daboll and McDermott haven’t thought of that? Maybe you have a better explanation for why you don’t let someone touch the ball who is averaging 17+ yards per carry. Daboll isn’t stupid, he knows how important week 4 is for this team. If keeping Singletary under wraps for the first three games gives them an advantage against the Pats I think that’s exactly something that Daboll would do.

My bad. You’re probably right. I’ve long suspected the real reason teams watch film on their opponents is because they’re bored and you can only watch “Golden Girls” reruns so many times. There’s nothing useful to be gained by watching tape to learn what types of plays they run out of certain formations or what their tendencies are. That’s probably why no one in the NFL does film study. Because it’s not helpful. Absolutely absurd... ?

The Patriots are always hard to beat. No news flash there. I thought the schedulers helped us out by scheduling them at New Era week 4 because the Pats usually start the season slow, but not this season. The Pats look mid season form already. The Steelers and Dolphins might not be great teams, but the Pats dominated both in all three phases of the game. It is going to take a great game from the Bills and some luck to beat the Patriots in week four. Having two dozen Singletary plays to spring on the Pats would help even out those odds a little bit.

I was wondering going into the second half yesterday why Daboll wasn’t putting the ball into Singletary’s hands. Obviously he is electric when he touches it and it got me to thinking. We didn’t see Singletary let loose until the second half versus the Jets when the game was on the line and the Bills were staring a week one loss in the face. We barely saw Singletary yesterday but the game was in hand for the most part. I’m starting to suspect that Daboll is deliberately keeping Singletary under wraps so he can unleash him on an unprepared Patriots week four. He might see Singletary as his ace in the hole that will give the Bills a shot to beat a Patriot team that looks dominant. Surely Daboll has a hundred Singletary plays drawn up. Is there any possible reason we haven’t seen a single screen pass to Singletary this season especially when we have lineman who can pull so effectively? I think Daboll is going to keep Singletary under wraps as much as possible until he faces the Pat’s defense. It’s like playing a vanilla scheme in the preseason so you don’t tip your hand on the regular season’s playbook. I just can’t think of another reason why Daboll is sitting on the most electric player on our offense. I hope Singletary’s tweaked hammy doesn’t render all of this a moot point.

The Pats look incredible. Damn it. Doesn’t do any good to sugar coat it. Their defense looks incredible, as good as ours, maybe better. Their offense is clearly better than ours. If the Pats stay healthy they are going to make another SB run. That doesn’t stop the Bills from doing their thing though. I think we can win 10 games this year. If we make the playoffs I truly believe it’s an “any given Sunday” situation and we will have a shot to make our own little run.

Things are different this year. We have an elite defense and a real NFL offense. Josh is continuing to improve every game. They look like a playoff team.

Exactly! The key to beating the Giants today was containing Barkley. Frazier wasn’t worried about getting pressure, it was more about plugging running lanes and keeping edge containment. Eli wasn’t going to beat us.

If you hurry, you can just make it to that hair splitters convention in Poughkeepsie... ?