CincyBillsFan

It's going to depend on the game situation. If they're locked in a shoot out with Brady and up by two scores in the 3rd they'll need to keep attacking. But today they were confident that Eli & the Giants were not going to score on any 2 minute 75 yard drives. As a fan I'm not thrilled with that type of thinking but then again I watch these games with my heart NOT my head. Fortunately for all of us the coaches use a little more of their brains in managing these games.

My grade is an A for the simple reason that we won and like last week he was instrumental in our victory. The offensive explosion in the late 1st/2nd quarter was all Allen. The 98 yard drive was as beautiful as it was improbable. Sure the 3rd quarter sucked and that was a combination of by design and some sloppy play by the offense. But when the Bills needed Allen to come through he did leading a masterful TD drive in the 4th to seal the win. Looking only at his numbers he gets a B+ but taking into account his clutch play when we needed it most (98 yard TD drive and 4th quarter TD drive) and the fact that the Bills won he gets an A+. So by averaging a B+ & A+ I get an A. Now that's my kind of analytics!

I get the frustration and was yelling at the TV like a lot of other people. BUT this is how the Bills are going to play it, at least for the first half of the season. The reality is that we're going to lose a game because of doing this - guaranteed. But in defense of the coaches we'll never know how many games we will win because we put the onus on the defense to protect a 2 score lead. My guess is we'll win more then we lose doing this.

He's smart to. On the run that got us the 1st down and sealed the game late he was clapping while lying on the ground. There wasn't a wasted motion on that run as he understand exactly where he had to get to for the dagger to be driven into the Giants heart.

Here are some random comments on this game: * Get used to what we did in the 3rd quarter because when we're on the road in the 2nd half up by 2 scores we're not going to hand a team a score by being overly aggressive on offense. This is how the Bills are built. Great defense that is very difficult to drive 75 yards for a TD on. Now once the lead is cut to one score then they take the shackles off and get more aggressive on offense. At home though, look for the Bills to go for the kill when they get up by 10 - 14 points. * Allen was superb today. The growth we're seeing in this kid from game to game is astonishing. He threw 30 passes and had only 2 bad throws - the deep overthrow to Brown and the quick slant to Foster. He had a couple of smart throw away passes and about 15 perfect throws all over the field. Allen has shown me through just two games that he can make EVERY throw accurately now. Think about that for a moment - he is accurately throwing EVERY type of pass. Allen's accuracy "issues" have officially entered the land of make believe. Allen is accurate. * On the topic of Allen, that TD drive in the 4th quarter after the Giants had cut the lead to 7 was a thing of beauty. The 3rd down conversion where Allen put a move on a Giants defensive lineman to get outside would have made Thurman Thomas proud. And the throw was a carbon copy of a whole bunch of clutch passes he threw while on the run at Wyoming. * On the topic of the O-line I thought they struggled at times and the false start penalties contributed to our lackluster 3rd quarter. BUT, Mitch Morse is an awesome center. His downfield run blocking is amazing and have you noticed that there isn't a lot of immediate pressure on Allen up the middle. * Beasley & Brown have been amazing through 2 games. And was it me or did Zay Jones drop a great TD throw by Allen? * Dawson Knox had a highlight reel block on McKenzie's TD. * Edmunds is very close to becoming a dominant middle LB. That almost pick six was incredible for what it showed about our 250 pound MLB's athleticism & speed. Truly awesome. * As far as playing 4 great quarters? Do people watch any other NFL games? I mean KC was down 10 - 0 in the 1st quarter to Oakland! * One final thought - going back to last weeks 4th quarter performance our offense has looked very explosive. With 9 new guys and a 2nd year QB they have the potential to be a real force in the 2nd half of the season. That 98 yard drive today in the 2nd quarter was sublime.

It's sad to watch the end of Cam's career. It reminds me of Kelly's last season when suddenly he couldn't make certain throws and defensive coordinators became aware of it. In Newton's case it's worse because BOTH his am AND his legs are failing. D-coordinators no longer fear cam's mobility which means they can sell out to stop CMAC. It's a testament to McCaffrey that he's been as productive as he's been the last 10 games facing this situation. Of course it would be unfair to put this all on Cam. With one of the best TE's & RB's in the NFL; solid WR's and a QB that can still execute at 80% the Panthers should be able to field an offense that can win games like last night. The biggest problem facing Carolina is their offensive line. It is beyond horrible. What good is an O-line when it can't run block OR pass block.

I hate the exclusive use of the cable & end zone cameras. If it's safe for the fans in the UPPER DECKS then it's safe for the cameramen on the ground.

Judas priest what kind of cowards work for Fox sports! The stadium is FULL of people, the refs and players are on the field but these panty wastes won't put their video operators in harms way because there was some lightening earlier! The cable cm is a terrible way to watch the game. My advice is to cut back on the booze because watching this game is like being on a boat in choppy water.

I actually don't think your crazy here. Sure the odds favor the Pats by 35 points and I wouldn't bet a dime that the Dolphins will cover whatever spread emerges BUT remember last year after the Bills went 0 - 2 and folks were debating whether they could beat Alabama? And they were going to Minnesota, a potential Super Bowl team, in week 3? How many people had them up on the Vikings 27 - 0 at half? Zero, nada, nyet!

Yep, you don't get benched right after completing a 40 yard pass!

This is exactly right. I also think the analytics folks grossly overrate the predictive nature of their modeling. The level of variability inherent in EVERY NFL pass play requires a HUGE sample size of plays to have any chance of the model being accurate. This means that the analytics would expect to do poorly in evaluating QB's with less then 5 years of playing experience. The other thing I would add is while the "truth" of Allen is somewhere between the two extremes it's a lot closer to what we fans see then what the analytics guys see. Bills fans (at least the real ones) want Allen to succeed so they will engage in some level of confirmation bias. I know I do. However, the reality is that QB's entering their 2nd year in the NFL are almost ALWAYS a work in progress. They will make mistakes and bone headed plays. This is a given and especially true where a team like the Bills was rebuilding it's offense at the SAME time they brought in Allen. No one can dispute that Mahomes & Jackson walked into much better situations then Allen, Rosen, Darnold and even Mayfielde did. So we fans look for the positive. We expect negative stuff to happen. You can call it "confirmation bias" but we see 3 great throws followed by a bad throw as overall being good for a 2nd year guy in a way we wouldn't for a 7 year vet. We fans also look for evidence that a young QB is IMPROVING and with Allen it's indisputable that he is. We fans also look at the intangibles (try mathematically modeling them) like leadership, competitiveness & the ability to learn. Again Allen shows out very good here.

Damn, though it was only ONE game even Allen's biggest supporters probably wouldn't have predicted he would make a list like that so soon in this season.

I'll go with Kubiack here who thought it was a great throw. From what we know about that play: * I saw an analysis showing how Allen froze the Safety in place on that play with his eyes which resulted in Brown getting single coverage. * With Brown seeing single coverage he EXPECTED Allen to throw the ball back shoulder (under throw) based on the fact that the Jet's corner had taken away the over the top throw. Which given the situation - Jet's up by 6 under 4 minutes to play - one would expect a CB to do. No way is the Jets defense going to get beat over the top here. For this reason, at the snap Brown probably figured that if Allen could look the safety off then the ONLY play to be made would be the back shoulder throw. * It was obvious by the SMOOTH way in which Brown caught the pass and made a move to score the TD that this was exactly the pass he expected to get. * We also know from reports that Allen & Brown have worked on this pass a lot during the preseason.

I saw the Lombardi quote and couldn't believe that someone PAID to follow football got it so wrong. Sure, if you want to criticize Allen say that he was careless with the ball leading to 4 TO's. I would consider this statement debatable but at least it's in the realm of possibility. But to claim that "Josh Allen can't really make a throw" is an incredible thing to say for someone who watched the game. In fact it's so off that you almost have to believe that it's a DELIBERATE LIE designed to reinforce Lombard's dislike of Allen. It was clear to anyone with a TV (maybe Lombardi was following the game on radio?) that Allen was throwing the ball well at times and completing passes left & right. In fact he drove the Bills into scoring position 3 times in the 1st half. I suspect the reason these "experts" can sound so stupid at times and it seems like they weren't watching the same game as us is that in fact they're not watching the same game. They're trying to watch multiple games simultaneously and yea, if you caught Allen's performnce on the one drive where he just missed getting intercepted you might make the kind of statement Lombardi made.

I'm also skeptical about the Bills going 4 - 0 to start the season. I would be thrilled with 3 - 1 start and 2 - 2 would be acceptable. I think the Bills offense will be a work in progress through the first half of the season. IMO, the Giants are a dangerous team at home; the Bengals are much better then people thought and New England is new England.

As others have noted the bickering Bills reached it's height in 1988/1989 - BEFORE they made the Super Bowl run. In fact that 1989 team didn't come close to being as good as their talent warranted in part due to the bickering. I believe that one of the factors that contributed to the Bills going to 4 straight Super Bowls was that they largely stopped bickering and became family during that period.

And this is why Allen will be a great NFL QB IMO. He takes responsibility. If he could have made a better throw, and yes he could have here, he doesn't care what the receiver does if something goes wrong, Allen takes the responsibility. It shows a maturity way beyond his years. And even if Allen makes a perfect throw here and the ball pops up for a pick 6 he would NOT throw Beasley under the bus. The one thing the all-22 won't tell us is if Allen even had an option go anywhere else as long as Beasley was open. It was a 1st down play and the Bills were using these quick hitter passes as a substitute for running the football. I suspect that this was one of those pass plays that's really a "running play". That is throw a quick hit to pick up 5 yards.

Are you watching the Saints/Texans game? Watson just threw two short passes over the middle LOW. This is by design for where they're throwing the ball. It has to be a heater because it's in the middle of the field. A slow throw is picked or deflected. In the picture the THREE Jet defenders look far away but in real speed they are on top of the play. LOW & FAST is the ONLY way to put the ball in there. That was also a running play disguised as a pass. It was 1st down and you hit that quick throw for a 5 yard gain which is a great 1st down pick-up running the ball.

Two early game observations related to the Bills: * have you noticed that BOTH of Watson's throws over the middle have been very low? That's deliberate because they don't want the WR to get blown up and fumble or get hurt and they don't want the ball to bounce off his chest up in the air for an INT. Allen's throw yesterday to Beasley that resulted in a pick 6 was a GOOD throw for that pass play. The pick 6 was purely a fluke. * Did you notice how the announcers said that the 2nd pass completion that was overturned by reply was a DROP by Hopkins and NOT a poor pass (low) by Watson? I bet if Allen threw that pass it would be called "off target - to low". Watching other NFL games can be enlightening.

Today I was listening to the Cowturd show and he indirectly praised Allen. While blasting the Dolphins he pointed out how screwed they were by being in a division with two young QB's - ALLEN & Darnold - who are franchise QB's for the Bills & Jets. I was surprised that he mentioned Allen by name as the Bills franchise QB.

It's his 4th. TN, Det & Jacksonville were the first 3. And as others have noted had Clay hung on to the ball we may be talking about 5 4th quarter comebacks.

Solid analytics there! Sounds reasonable to me. This was true ONLY for the strip sack fumble on the 1st drive. That was careless on Allen's part. As for the fumbled snap: * It was 4th down so falling on the ball would have been exactly the same as losing a fumble. * Allen was unable to fall on the ball because Morse was blown up so bad he was pushed a couple of yards into the backfield into Allen.

I thought the O-line played very well but was rusty at times. Clearly Mitch Morse had to endure a first half baptism by fire as that was the first time he had seen meaningful contact at game speed in over 8 months. Allen had a nice pocket on most of his pass plays and the run blocking in the 4th quarter was outstanding. My favorite O-line play was when on 3rd & 4 during the game winning drive Allen simply took the snap and rumbled to the left for the 1st down. Morse and the linemen on that side all peeled off doing their best best imitation of a classic student body left sweep. It was Lombardi old school!

And just how likely do you think it is that the Bills will repeat yesterday's TO situation 15 more times!? My guess is that the way NFL karma works the Bills may be getting a couple of fortunate bounces going their way soon.

It's proof of their irrational dislike of Allen. Who else DWELLS on those kind of coulda/woulda/shoulda plays? Remember the incomplete dump of pass that Darnold threw when under pressure that hit a Bills LB in the back? That could have been a pick 6. Watch ANY NFL game and you'll have a couple of those kind of passes by EVERY QB out there. These tools are evaluating Allen on EVERY pass he throws. It's crazy.