CincyBillsFan

Great point Rockpile. I remember saying to my son that there should have been TWO dead ball taunting fouls on that play. Overall the refs did a nice job but that miss cost the Bills 3 points.

I guess the accuracy bar for Allen has been raised to 75%. The hot takes during the game are simply an accurate representation of the huge amount of alcohol consumed.

They won because my 6 year old grandson started quoting the announcers word for word in the 2nd half. It culminated in him solemnly saying after we had stopped screaming and high fiving the Bills winning TD pass "did you know Papa that the Bills have scored 17 unanswered points". His dad and I burst out laughing at that.

This is the BEST post I've seen describing the 1st half. I would also add that: * 99 out of 100 times the Jet's pick 6 play would have ended either as a 5 yard Bill's gain or an incomplete pass. That it resulted in a pick 6 is the very definition of a FLUKE PLAY. * The Allen "fumble" on 4th down was likely a direct result of Morse not seeing any contact under game situations during the preseason. It's unreasonable to think a center can just go out and excel in the 1st half of the opening game after missing the entire preseason. Did anyone else notice how much better Morse played in the 2nd half? I mean he looked like a beast out there. I suspect that had Morse gotten in some game reps during the preseason there isn't a fumble on that play.

5% losing Mosley and 95% the Bills, including Dabold, executing properly on offense. Can't folks just accept a thrilling Bills comeback win on the road against a Division rival without looking for excuses as to why they won? Well here's some excuses as to why the Bills didn't blow the Jets out in the FIRST HALF yesterday: * A lot of people are criticizing Dabold's pass happy opening but it worked. The Bills moved the ball right down the field. A blown block by the tackle and Allen not protecting the ball cost the Bills at least 3 & maybe 7 points. * A lot of people claim the Bills lucked out because the Jets missed an extra point & FG! So what! The Jets ONLY TD of the 1st half was a fluke play that 99/100 times would have been either a 5 yard gain or an incomplete pass. * Did anyone consider that the 4th down "fumble" between Allen/Morse was a DIRECT result of Morse not being involved in any contact throughout the preseason? This was his FIRST game of contact football this season. Did you notice how much better Morse played in the 2nd half? I suspect that the 1st half was a problem, including that fluky fumble, because Morse needed to adjust to the speed & physicality of the game. Going forward the Bills will convert that 4th & one 9 times out of 10. * Or how about on 3rd & long Allen makes a nice run to put the Bills in FG range at the Jet's 24 only to see the yards lost on a ticky tacky dead ball taunting penalty against a Bill's O-lineman. * By my count if the breaks/fluke plays had evened out the Bills should have been up 13 - 3 at half! * The narrative that the Bills were lucky to win; that the offense and especially Allen were terrible in the 1st half just doesn't pass the smell test. The Bills had multiple good drives in the 1st half that ended without points because of some fluky stuff that happens in week 1. Throw in a 1/100 fluke pick 6 and you have a 1st half like we saw.

Remember the Monday night game against Cincinnati when Kelly threw THREE INT's in the first quarter! I do because we had a big party at my house loaded with Bills AND Bengals fans and I almost lost my mind. Then James Loften got open a couple of times!

I agree. The #1 stat for assessing a QB's performance is whether they were a major contributor to a VICTORY. And today the answer was a clear yes for Allen. So the A is warranted.

And this is why he will be a great NFL QB. I saw the same look. He will learn from his mistakes and make less of them next week.

It's frustrating to me because it's so nasty and over the top. I know I should ignore them and over the years I have but their attacks on Allen seem completely unhinged.

You make a great point. And I think it came within a hair of working big time for the Bills today. Their rustiness, the last time they had run an all out passing attack was in the 1st quarter of the Carolina preseason game, was enough to create the conditions for a couple of fluky TO's. The truth is that the Bills were moving smartly down the field with the opening KO and also moved the ball well in a couple of other 1st half drives. I would do it again next week against the Giants.

The most frustrating thing about these quotes is that it proves the guy wasn't watching this game and had never actually seen Peterman play. It would have been harsh but probably fair to say Allen wasn't protecting the ball but his passing today was quite accurate, even in the 1st half. He was mostly throwing darts out there and hitting his short passes. As for the Peterman comparison, Allen's 4 TO's were not remotely similar to what you got with vintage Peterman. In fact it would be fair to say that Allen was only responsible for 1 or at most 2 of the TO's. Remember last year how the Bills set an NFL record going 9 straight possessions without a 1st down against the Ravens? That was vintage Peterman. Or check any of Peterman's pick sixes and compare them to the fluky bounce off Beasley's hands pick 6 today. It's hard to to take these ignoramuses seriously. I really don't get the irrational hatred a large segment of the sports media have for Allen. They are rooting for this genuinely decent kid to do poorly. It's sick IMO and says a lot about the bankrupt souls of these petty little creatures...........................Man I feel better now!

And lets not forget the big picture: a ROAD win in the division. Those are a big deal and at the end of the season when we're clawing for a playoff spot how big will this win be? HUGE is my bet. Like others I did not expect the comeback and I was pissed at the turnovers. But there was NOTHING fluky about that comeback. It was like a switch was thrown and the offense EXECUTED. Equally important the defense kept doing what it had been doing all game. In the end this was a quality TEAM win. Oh and one last thing IGNORE the National media (and some local media). After listening to them over the last year I'm convinced they're eating brightly colored mushrooms growing on logs in the forest. It's that or they're simply stupid.

A few thoughts about this game: * The 1st 3 quarters seemed like a weird dream to me. On the one hand the Bills were actually moving the ball & on most of his passes Allen was throwing accurate darts. There were moments when everything we hoped we would see with Allen & the offense was coming true. But then you had 4 bizzare TO's that completely messed things up. IMO only the 1st fumble was on Allen the other 3 were a combination of fluke & bad luck. Hell, Darnold had more balls batted at the line into the air without suffering an INT. And even when Allen put us in FG range with a nice run we had the taunting call that snuffed out that drive. It was like an invisible force field of bad Karma once we reached the Jets 35 yard line. Maybe Thad Brown had a Bills voodoo doll he was stabbing! * While the Offensive troubles were going on the defense played magnificently. But like a lot of games over the last 3 years it was looking like no matter how well the defense played the offense would screw it up and we would lose a close game in which the D largely dominated the opposition. That we were only down 6 - 0 at the half was astonishing. * Then the 3rd quarter got even weirder. The defense softened and the offense yielded a safety to compliment the pick six and the Bills ran ONLY one offensive play through the first 12 minutes of the 3rd quarter! Down 16 - 0 most of us were thinking a final score of 23 - 0 or maybe 30 - 7. * This is where the difference in this Bills team versus others materialized. The offense would catch fire and on their next 3 possessions score 17 unanswered points. Allen would get blisteringly hot completing 8/10 passes for over 100 yards & a TD. Singleterry would show game breaking moves and the Bills O-line would demonstrate that they are a much better unit then last year. Throw in some clutch receiving by Brown, Sweeney & Singleterry and the Bills EARNED the comeback win with a 4th quarter Offensive explosion. * In response the Bills defense smothered the Jets. * IMO Allen's TD pass was under-thrown by design. John Brown is a PRO and when he was streaking down the sideline knowing that he was being single covered HE EXPECTED to get the EXACT pass that Allen gave him. That's why that play looked so smooth. Brown, Beasley & Singleterry are going to have some big games going forward. * And for the record I agree with those who say that despite the score we outplayed the Jets for most of the game. Had Allen not lost that fumble on the 1st drive I believe we may have won the game going away.

I would be disappointed. But a bad outing by Allen in week 1 wouldn't exactly shock me. With a whole new cast on the offense and having only played about 4 quarters in pre-season I would expect the Bills O to get off to a slow start. Honestly what would shock me the most is if the Bills offense & Allen start off hot in the 1st quarter. And lets not forget what others have noted: the NFL season is a marathon not a sprint. Remember how after we traded for Drew Bledsoe we opened the season by crushing New England 31 - 0! And Bledsoe was SHARP. Then the next week we go on the road and beat Jacksonville 35 - 17! Talk about visions of Super Bowls dancing in our heads. But how did that season end? As I recall we finished 8 - 8 and missed the playoffs.

Maybe not playing your starters at all in the last preseason game is contributing to the poor offensive play so far.

I'm thinking 10 - 11 is achievable as long as the Bills stay relatively healthy. I'm not sold on the idea that the Patriots are better then they were last year or that the Jets are improved a whole lot.

Nice article, thanks for posting. Bottom line is that Allen now has to show us on the field that he can be that guy at QB. I'm optimistic. As an aside I couldn't help but notice that some folks are still talking about that across the body pass he threw in the Detroit preseason game. Has ANY single play in a Bill's preseason game ever been analyzed to death like this one has? I choose to focus on the sharp two minute drill Allen & the offense executed when Dabold took the shackles off. That is worth talking about a week after the game.

I feel bad for Zay Jones. Obviously he doesn't need a distraction like this. But bottom line is that what his dad says on Twitter has ZERO relevance to what he needs to do to make this team and contribute. And for the record, what do you think Josh Allen's parents thought if they were foolish enough to read some of the posts on the Stadium Wall after the Bill's selected their son in 2018? Talk about BRUTAL. Or hell just think back to last Friday's game. If Zay's dad thinks Cole Beasley took crap from the fans for the fumble (which he didn't BTW) what does he make of the obsession on Josh playing Hero ball? One bad pass that was called back by penalty has been diagnosed to death with a number of Bill's fans pronouncing it as evidence that Allen has not made any progress from his Green Bay outing. Me thinks Mr. Jones needs to develop a thicker skin or stay off social media.

Me to! All I thought was - wow, great pass and catch. Glad he got the fumble out of his system in a useless pre-season game.

Exactly right. And now that Allen has his version of the classic NE slot receiver in Beasley it's a good idea to study every throw Brady has made to his slot. Think about how many yards & TD's Tom has generated with those throws. Allen's willingness to LEARN and more importantly admit that he has a lot to learn are one of his strengths.

I watched a lot of Farve over the years and he would make that kind of bone head pass on 1st & 2nd down all the time. he also converted some spectacular plays throwing the ball back across the field. I'm not worried. I watched Mahomes the other night in his 2nd game and he looked off hitting on only 2 of 5 passes while I watched and one of his completions was a crappy throw that the TE made a nice adjustment to catch. Allen looked very sharp in his 2nd possession against the Colts and looked sharp in both of his possessions against the Panthers. And the only time the coaches let the Bills run their offense, Allen looked very sharp leading them on a 95 yard two minute TD drive. For some reason we hold Allen to a higher standard on his ball placement while holding our receivers to lower standards on their catching ability. Other QB's throw the ball real hard and it's caught and the top QB's routinely put the ball in the vicinity of their receivers rather then placing it perfectly on the numbers. In just the last 2 weeks of watching football I've see the top QB's make throws that were not perfectly placed only to have their NFL caliber receivers still catch the ball.

McCoy looked great and I suspect that the Bills screen game will be much improved this year. There is an awful lot that the Bills aren't showing yet. Last week it was work on the short pass and Allen carved Carolina up and Beasley showed us what a load he'll be in the season. Last night the BIll's focused on the run and Shady, Gore and Singleterry all shined,. The Bills rushed for 126 yards in the first half and that was WITHOUT the threat of play action passes. But we haven't seen to many screens and not much down the field either. Look for a very different offense in week 1 against the Jets.

First off Farve was making those types of bone head throws from his 1st preseason game as a rookie until his last game in the NFL. He didn't earn the right to do it, it was in his football DNA just like it's in Allen's. What Farve did though was refine & improve his game to the point where he was able to overcome the mistakes he made from being a gunslinger. And if Allen actually can attain the level of play that Farve did I would be the happiest Bills fan in America. We couldn't ask for more.

Perfectly put! The two minute drill is what people should be focusing on. Allen was in there to get his timing down on the hand offs and making line of scrimmage run adjustments. It's one thing to do it in practice it's another during the chaos of a game where a 300 pound DT penetrates into the backfield to disrupt the hand off.

The fixation by some posters on Allen's bad across the body throw would be wrong headed if this was the regular season and the INT hadn't been cancelled by a penalty. That it's happening after a meaningless preseason game is bizzare to me. As others have noted Allen channel's Favre in this respect. Hopefully he'll be as good as Favre but that remains to be seen. But every once in a while he's going to do this kind of thing. And over the course of a season he may get picked once or twice throwing that ball but I suspect you'll also see a couple of huge gains off this type of throw. Last night the only truly awful decision/throw Allen had was the INT. * His first pass was on the money to Jones. His 2nd pass wasn't a good throw but it was the right decision to target Beasley and it wasn't a horrible throw. * His 3rd pass was a dime to Beasley that unfortunately he fumbled. * His 5th throw to Brown was on target and a good decision that was broken up by an excellent pass defense play. * His last 2 throws to Brown, after he was allowed to throw on 1st down and out of the shotgun, were both excellent and went for long gains and 1st downs. Allen also had a nice run for a 1st down as he led the Bills on a 95 yard TD drive to take the lead at the end of the half. All in all a pedestrian performance with a flash of brilliance in that last drive. That 2 minute drive is what Bills fans should focus on and be encouraged by. Instead some choose to focus only on the bad INT.