CincyBillsFan

And this is why we should be encouraged long term. We even moved the ball on the Pats to the tune of almost 400 yards. And this isn't garbage yardage piled up after we were down by 4 TD's. In fact this kind of stat is expected with a very young & inexperienced QB and an offense with 9 new players including as many as 4 rookies on the field. It's a hell of a lot easier to get better at ball protection then it is to start moving the football up & down the field. TO's are a solvable problem but learning how to move the ball with your existing talent when you haven't been is a lot tougher nut to crack.

I agree about how the game goes if Singleterry is on the field. And your 2nd point is why Gore can't be the #1 RB. RB's get in a rhythm. They break off a big run and two plays later they break off another. Gore is to old to be the guy that lugs the rock 20 - 25 times when he gets hot. IMO Gore & Yelden are very limited as a one-two RB combo.

I agree with everything you posted except for the part of why we got rid of Shady. That was primarily a cap move and a good one for the long term benefit of the team. But if management truly thought that this was our year they would have cut Yeldon and kept McCoy. Shady still has gas in his tank and we could have used him against the Bengals and yesterday against the Pats. Singleterry made some big plays in the Jet's game and in the 1st half of the Giants game. I'm confident he'll be a very good NFL RB. I'm even keeping my fingers crossed that he'll mimic two other recent 3rd round RB picks that emerged as studs - Hunt & Kamera. But we need to see if Singleterry can continue to make big plays when he gets back from his injury. My point is that when we're forced to use Gore & Yeldon as our 1/2 RB's we're fielding one of the worst RB duos in the league. I get Gore's positive impact on the culture and in short yardage/goal line situations he's a valuable asset. But looking at almost every other NFL team I would take their 1/2 RB's over Gore & Yeldon. That changes if we're talking about Singleterry/Gore. And it's important that Dabold moves Singleterry to #1 assuming he picks right back up where he left off before the injury.

No I'm speaking about in general with the caveat that Gore & Yeldon are in the backfield. I agree that Singleterry likely would have made a huge difference. And when he's played the early returns are promising that he'll be a difference maker in our run game. But Singleterry just hasn't played enough for us to see how big a difference he'll truly be. But with Yeldon & Gore in the backfield we don't run the ball well; we don't get good production from the RB's in the passing game and for some reason we don't run screen passes with them. I think it's a combination of Gore & Yeldon not being among the upper half of RB's in the league and a scheme which puts our RB's in the spread far to often.

Question for the docs posting, and thanks for sharing your expertise it's much appreciated. What should we conclude, if anything, by Allen running off the field to the locker room? I would have thought if he was still "loopy" they would have had a trainer escort him rather then let him go on his own. Should we be more or less hopeful that this was a minor concussion?

I thought your original response may have been sarcastic but I wasn't sure - my bad.

That was NOT my point. But Marino went to only one and Mahomes has a way to go before he sniffs Marino's career stats. It takes more then gaudy stats to get to a Super Bowl and win one.

Maybe they are but going off week to week performances isn't going to tell you that. I mean the Bengals only lost by ONE POINT in their game AT Seattle. And in that game Cincy had twice as many yards and twice the TOP! So that would mean that based on tonight's result when Pittsburgh plays the Seahawks they're going to kick ass becasue they obviously have way more talent! Wait, they did play two weeks ago and Seattle won. Never mind!

Living down here in Cincy I'm not surprised by this. Pittsburgh has the Bengal's number big time.

I'm of the opinion that the Pats let Gore run wild because they knew he wasn't a threat to take it to the house and that he wasn't a threat to carry the ball 20 - 25 times for 150 - 200 yards. Against a lot of other NFL teams yesterday's Pats defensive scheme would have been shredded by a relentless ground game. But we don't have the ability to run the ball effectively. Sure we got a couple of big plays but the Pats were willing to pay that price in order to keep Allen in the pocket and to blitz the hell out of him. As for Yeldon he's not done anything of note in the passing game. In a league where RB's routinely catch 7 - 8 passes per game a couple of flair passes out of the backfield is underwhelming. I'm as high as you are on Singleterry's POTENTIAL. But he's missed the last two games and all we've seen is a flash of brilliance. And running screen plays are called plays NOT check downs. Yesterday, in spite of playing a Pat's D which blitzed on almost every other play, the Bills only attempted one screen pass. Football 101 demands that you throw screen passes to defeat the blitz. Why didn't we? I believe that in part we don't throw screens because with Singleterry out of the line-up Gore & Yeldon just aren't very good at it. And while we're on the subject of checking down to your RB's how the hell is Allen supposed to do that if his RB's are NOT in the backfield but lined up in the spread? They ran empty backfield sets all game. Pittsburgh makes it easy to check down to the RB because that's what they want to do. For some reason Dabold thought we could slice the Pat's secondary up with intermediate & deep routes.

More then half his 1st half completions were to RB's. I think part of our problem on offense is we may have the worst set of RB's in the NFL - pending whether Singleterry is the real deal or not. We just don't know about him yet but the Gore/Yeldon combination is weak - very weak.

That was pre-Madden when wins were more important then stats. I agree that in today's NFL no QB with those stats would sniff MVP. However, QB's with those stats could win a Super Bowl. Which is more important?

But that's not on Allen. Screens are called by Debald. For whatever reason we don't run them. I suspect that once Singleterry is healthy he will be our screen guy. Yesterday, against all the Pats blitzes we should have run several screens. But look at our RB's, do they strike you as the type of guys that can make the initial moves and have the acceleration & vision to fully exploit a screen? Gore is a bruiser but not a great screen guy. Yeldon, IMO is wasted space with the exception of the flair pass. An honest assessment of yesterday's offensive debacle has to move beyond folks claiming Allen was terrible. He was but there were underlining reasons that aren't getting the attention they deserve.

Fair enough but as i recall when watching Favre he did take a lot of big sacks and had a lot of fumbles. If I get a minute I might look it up.

Your comparison is not only valid it's a valuable way to modulate our reaction to Allen's performance yesterday. The idea that you can't compare today's QB performance to those in the 1990's is flat out wrong. INT's were bad in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and even in the 1990's. QB's that threw more picks then TD's are struggling no matter the decade. The stats on Favre you posted are particularly relevant IMO. I suspect that after throwing 19 TD's & 24 INT's in his 3rd season there were a lot of Green Bay fans wondering if he was the guy. It would be interesting to see Favre's stats on fumbles & sacks his first couple of seasons. I bet there uglier then Allen's are.

The Steelers fans are being weirdly quiet. A lot of empty seats and ZERO energy in the stadium. It seems more like an exhibition game then a Monday night game.

I haven't read threw this whole thread so pardon me if someone else has already brought this up but there may be a hidden advantage in having Barkley go this week. Now I'm a huge Allen backer and if he can he should play next week. But isn't the TN coach part of Belichicks defensive coaching tree? Yesterday another member of Belichick's coaching tree, Matt Patricia of Detroit, held Mahomes to an 81 passer rating and NO TD throws. Sure they still lost the game but clearly Detroit had an excellent defensive game plan to frustrate Mahomes. And who do you think shared this plan with Patricia? If Allen plays Sunday, Debold & McDermitt better assume that Belichick passed on his defensive scheme for containing Allen to TN. If Barkley plays that plan goes out the window as they have completely different QB styles.

Which would be easy to counter if we had play making RB's. But with Singleterry out we do not. This IMO is the issue not so much that Allen is rattled by the blitz. And when was the last time this team executed a decent screen pass? That's another excellent way to neutralize the blitz. I agree. Especially with no tape on them. Give Barkley a week of prep and we can win this game if 3 things happen: * the D plays very good * the Special Teams play well and don't give up a TD * the offense doesn't turn the ball over a lot and plays efficiently. Nothing wrong with winning a game 13 - 10.

He has improved his completion percentage. And we can't judge the rest until later in the season or better yet until after the season. For crying out loud are you really going to make the final judgement on Allen and the offensive improvements we made right after playing NE? Talk about skewing the numbers!

Fine add a FG to my scenario and we still lose. BTW we should have made the 49 yard FG. The only scenario where we DON'T lose is if we switch the performance of the punters. Switching the performance of the QB's doesn't get us a win becasue you would have to take our TD off the board to mimic Brady's end zone INT.

Yea, with KC's skill players and with Andy Reid at coach you've got to expect half time adjustments that work. And Mahomes is the modern incantation of Dan Marino - a uniquely gifted QB who needed very little time to rise to the top of the NFL. But that doesn't change the FACT that the Pat's were able to shut KC down, at KC, for an ENTIRE half. That was an amazing defensive performance. And then 2 weeks later they shut down the LA Rams, probably the 2nd or 3rd best Offense in the league, for the ENTIRE GAME. I know we all hate the Pats but they have elite pass defenders and are coached by the greatest defensive mind in NFL history. Allen & the offense was always going to suffer yesterday. I went with my heart & not my head so I was disappointed in Allen & Debald yesterday to. But after sleeping on it the Bills need to gather their sh## and beat TN next week. The season is still a LONG way from being lost and Allen is still a long way from being a bust.

Where would you rank the Bill's running backs? Even more pertinent to the discussion where would you rank Gore & Yeldon versus the rest of the NFL? I would put them bottom 5. The Bills did not rebuild their RBs. They brought in an old war horse; they took a gamble on a rookie 3rd round guy and they added a non-descript journeyman RB in Yeldon who they appear afraid to give the ball to (fumbles anyone). I think the gamble on Singleterry will work out and cutting McCoy was needed for salary cap efforts going forward. But it's obvious that McCoy still has gas in the tank and would be helping this team right now if available. Yesterday's game SCREAMED for McCoy & Gore trading off possessions and slamming the Pats with our running game. That would have slowed down the pass rush and opened up the receivers. They did rebuild the O-line taking it from being the 2nd worst O-line in the NFL to one that's probably in the middle of the pack. Still there is much improvement needed here. They did rebuild the receivers taking them from being the WORST receiving unit in the NFL to middle of the pack. But we're still looking for a true #1. They did rebuild the TE's taking them from being one of the worst units in the NFL to POTENTIALLY one of the better position groups. But RIGHT NOW we're relying on 2 rookies and a guy who hasn't played a down yet. All this means is we must have patience with Allen AND Debald. The offense is still a work in progress.

They are? Our FG kicker should be able to make a 49 yard kick on a perfect weather day. As far as the rest goes I remember one other sack that took us out of FG range, NOT two. Also Brady had a lot of 3 & outs that would have hurt the Bills to. IMO any way you look at it if you switch Brady & Allen's PERFORMANCE yesterday, the Pats still win. But if you switch the punters performance the Bills win. I don't see how it can be more objective and honest then that.

One of those sacks still gave us a chance to kick a 49 yard FG. That was a bad miss IMO in perfect weather conditions. I see 50 yard kicks being made all the time in the NFL. Again Special Teams play yesterday had more to do with the loss then Allen's poor play. But yea, you can get the game score to change a bit depending on how you move the plays around but I see NO scenario where if you switch the numbers between Brady & Allen the Pat's still don't win the game. And that's because in a very close defensive game like yesterday giving up a Special Team TD is almost always fatal. Even more fatal then throwing 3 INT's that give your opponent the ball around midfield.

Simple thought exercise: Let's take Brady's game stats & give them to Allen and give Allen's to Brady: * First if you told me before the game that Allen would attempt 36 passes and complete less then half of them for 150 yards, NO TD's (rushing or passing); have multiple 3 & outs; and throw an INT in the Pat's end zone to kill a drive I would have thought we lose the game 27 - 3. * Now, back to the exercise. Give Brady Allen's stats and IMO the Pats still win. NONE of Allen's 3 INT's gave NE the ball in our Red Zone or took away a Bills red zone opportunity. So instead of going 3 & out and punting & giving the Bills the ball at their own 40, Brady, throwing Allen's INT's, would have given the Bills the ball at midfield. Somehow I think the Pat's D could handle it. So lets say the Bill's get a FG or two off the 3 INT's. * And with Allen channeling Brady he would have thrown a red zone INT like Brady did so you could take that Bills TD off the board. * IMO switching the passing numbers means that Bills probably lose the game 16 - 6 or maybe 16 - 9. Now if you switch the punters stats giving the Bill's the Pat's guys numbers and vice versa what do you think the final score of the game is? I'm not saying Allen didn't have a bad day - he did. What I am saying is that Allen DID NOT lose us the game. IMO the blocked punt for a TD cost us the game. Not all INT's are the same. An overly aggressive throw downfield that gives your opponent the ball at midfield is NOT the same as a PICK 6! And a bad decision that results in an INT at midfield is NOT the same as throwing an INT in your opponents red zone.