CincyBillsFan

This is spot on. The Bills are now legit Super Bowl contenders. The goal in the first half of the season is to win more games then you lose and stay healthy. Style points mean nothing in the first half of the season. It's in the 2nd half of the season that you go on a run. That has been the formula for deep playoff runs for most teams over the last 20 years. Hell, that's exactly what Tampa did last year and Tennessee did the year before.

It didn't take long for the Allen haters to come out of their cave. I just figured it wouldn't be after the Bills win 35 - 0. Sure Allen and the offense in general have looked out of sorts. At the same time Allen and the offense have flashed some 2020 brilliance. It's very early in the season and I'm predicting the offensive machine from last year will return sooner rather then later.

35 - 0 against a division rival coming off a week one win over NE. I was worried about this game because I figured at some point we would lay an egg against the Dolphins. Makes this win even sweeter. The defense played lights out. The pass rush was outstanding and Espinoza was dominating. Allen and the offense are still not firing on all cylinders but I'm confident it will come sooner then we think. At critical moments in today's game the offense flashed a bit of 2020 getting off to a quick start (14 - 0) and then coming out of the locker room at half and going 75 yards to go up 21 - 0 to put the game away.

The gusty cold winds the night of the Baltimore playoff would have stymied any NFL offense.

To prove that you're 100% correct here all you have to do is go back and re-watch last seasons Super Bowl and see how Mahomes struggled greatly.

There is a difference between pressure from only the front 3 or 4 and pressure from blitzing. Allen handles the blitz well but IMO NO QB can consistently handle frequent heavy pressure from only the 3 or 4 D linemen. See Mahomes at last years Super Bowl. Again we are overthinking this. Better play from our Oline combined with not playing anyone else this season beyond maybe Washington (and their 2ndary & LB's aren't as good as the Steelers) with a Dline as good as Pittsburgh's should go a long way towards solving this issue.

A lot of folks commenting on Allen's ball security Sunday seem to forget that Big Ben was strip sacked and the Steelers were lucky the Bills didn't fall on that ball. TJ Watt is one of the best D-linemen in NFL history at stripping the ball. Allen also threw the ball 51 times and I don't recall any of those passes being intercepted or even coming close to being intercepted? Big Ben was intercepted and was only saved by a terrible penalty called on White. Allen like Jackson is a risk taking player when it comes to moving around trying to make a big pass play downfield and/or taking off and running with the ball. As such both these guys will make a lot of big plays. At the same time they both will fumble the ball. We saw that with Jackson last night. Should Lamar slow his game down to better protect the ball?

Big Ben also was strip sacked and lost the ball but a Steeler fell on it instead of a Bill. And did you watch last nights Ravens/Raiders game? Does Jackson have a fumbling issue? Lamar lost two fumbles in the 4h quarter/OT that directly led to the Ravens losing the game. Allen is a risk taker and as such he will be near the top of the league in fumbles. But the net effect on the season of his risk taking will be positive because for every fumble he'll make a number of big plays. For some reason the Allen critics ignore Jackson's fumbles.

Definitely means at least 10 Allen QB runs up the gut!

The same could be said of Mahommes in last years Super Bowl or of Aron Rogers in last years blow out loss to Tampa. These are two MVP Super Bowl winning QB's. I would point to the 92 yard TD drive at the end of the 1st half that used up the final 6 minutes and gave the Bills a 10 - 0 lead that was a clear example of Allen NOT playing like a rookie. We need to credit the Steelers with coming up with a brilliant defensive game plan and having the unique collection of elite defensive talent to execute it.

Well Jackson did lose two fumbles - not one like Allen. And I don't recall Allen losing a fumble in OT.

What a bizarre and great game. Man Chucky does know how to put on a show.

Jacksons drop killed them even worse.

A nice clean pocket doesn't hurt either.

How many times are the refs going to let the Ravens get away with holding on Jackson's runs?

NFL officiating sucks. How can they call that offensive PI? Huge call at a critical point in a game. Just like the phantom holding call against White yesterday. It gets harder and harder to watch NFL games.

I disagree. Against an elite defense the Allen of 2018 would have likely had less then half the yards and two or more INT's facing that level of pressure. Allen did not play a great game but it's an exaggeration to suggest he was playing anywhere near his 2018 level. Think back to 2018 when the Bills played an elite D in Green Bay. Allen was 16/33 for 151 yards and 2 INT's.

Daboll and it's not close.

I don't get why people believe Allen played poorly in BOTH our playoff wins. The fact is that Allen was brilliant against a very good Colts D. His play in that game was elite by any measure: 26/35 for 324 yards and 2 TD's. 11 runs for 54 yards and 1 TD. That's all three TD's and 378 total yards. Allen basically won that game. Sure he was average against Baltimore in a cold wind storm. But even here he did enough to win.

The Dolphins gave up nearly 400 yards to the conservative, ball control, rookie QB led NE offense. Sure NE struggled in the red zone but that's expected with a rookie QB. The Dolphins have a solid D but IMO it's no where near as good as a healthy Steeler's D.

This is great perspective. It's even better if you throw in 2019 and include TD/INT: 2019: 13-25-139 1TD/1INT 2020: 24-43-243 2TD/1INT 2021: 30-51-270 1TD

Like I said before sometimes you have to win games 16 - 13 and sometimes you win them 38 - 31. The defense played well for sure but their 2nd half performance was substantially less effective then the first half one. The offense & special teams bear the most responsibility for the loss but to me yesterday was the very definition of a team loss.

I think two opposing things can be true at the same time: 1) The Bills D was not the main reason they lost. They only gave up 16 points. 2) The 2nd half performance by the Bills D did contribute greatly to the loss. The D allowed Pittsburgh to score 13 points on their first 3 drives of the 2nd half. All three drives were long, time consuming drives that robbed the Bills of at least one and possibly two offensive possessions. Now if the offense was firing on all cylinders it wouldn't have mattered. But given the type of game it was the D's let up in the 2nd half combined with the blocked punt TD were major contributors to the loss. Over the course of a long season the offense will win some games 38 - 31 but there are going to be times when the O is misfiring and we'll have to win a game 16 - 13. Yesterday was a prime example of this. And this thread is correct to point it out.

24 pressures! That's almost half the drop backs. This is exactly how the Bucs made Mahomes look human in the Super Bowl.

Sure it was a great play by the Steeler DB but when you get two hands on the ball you can't let the DB strip it. Earlier in the game White made just as good a play on the ball but the Steeler receiver didn't drop the ball. That would have been a huge catch at that point in the game.