CincyBillsFan

Yea what the hell was that? I mean how much time does he practice onside kicks? Was there concern over the Prater injury? I mean I would think an old timer like Prater has some wicked spins or hops he could put on the ball. But Davis? That looked like a bad HS onside kick.

This is why everyone I was watching the game with wanted to go for it on 4th and a half yard on that opening drive. Instead we punt, and it was a great punt pinning the Dolphins back at their 8 yard line. From there Miami went on a 92 yard, 7 minute & 30 second TD drive. At that point you could see the shift in the game.

I think there is something to what we're saying on this thread. They are engaged in a season long experiment in load management. This is the hottest thing in sports especially in those sports with very long seasons like Basketball & Baseball. I agree that Bean & McD aren't trying to lose and they aren't trying to "spite fans" - that would be crazy and they aren't crazy. Both guys want to win a Super Bowl more then we fans do. And they think this approach, which involves load managing injury's and Allen is the way to get the Lombardi trophy. But to properly load manage you have to, behind closed doors, look at some teams differently then others. You have to think that you can beat certain teams with an 80% effort while against others you need a 110% effort. If we are right then the issue is whether load management works in football. It works in baseball with 162 games and basketball with 82 games but IMO it won't work in football with only 17 regular season games. Bean/McD made a decision to focus on defense at the expense of offense relying on their elite QB to overcome shortcomings in the offense. A lot of us think that has been a strategic mistake. If they're now engaged in aggressive load management and not treating every game as the Super Bowl then that to might be a mistake. Only time will tell if this will work and the season is not over yet - not by a long shot. But it's fair to note what's going on.

This 100%. In my mind complimentary football is when the defense forces more then 1or 2 three & outs. How often does the D allow a team to drive 40 yards, take 5 minutes off the clock then pin us back inside the 5 yard line with a short punt? It happened twice today.

The problem is that some poor drafting and FA signings combined with a lot of injury's with the new players has meant that not only haven't they fixed the D it is playing worse then it was last year. There are some bright spots but the return on the draft & FA capital spent on this defense over the last few years has been piss poor.

I haven't read all the posts in this thread so maybe this has been talked about but did any one we tried the onside kick to early? 3:30 left, 3 TO's and the 2 minute warning Why not start Miami at their 30? Instead they started at the Bills 38 allowing them to be more aggressive then they would have been back at their 30. IMO you save the onside kick until the last moment. Hell, the extra pressure on the receiving team with a minute left might make a difference.

TO's are going to happen. In the past the Bills often overcame them because they were built to overcome them. This team not so much.

Allen started forcing things in the 2nd half with the Bills down 16 - 0. That's when TO's can rear their ugly head. In the first half bad coaching, terrible WR play and a piss poor Defensive effort all contributed to the Bills being down 16 - 0. And when Allen put the cape on it was to little to late as the Bills simply don't have the explosive plays or play makers to exploit what Allen brings to the table.

Yea today they were a problem. But my point was that when you look at the issues facing the Bills THIS SEASON Allen is the LEAST of their problems. Sure when Allen has to play Superman he puts the ball in greater risk. There will be TO's. But he also makes spectacular plays. I am a fan and I am being honest when I say that the Defense is still a major issue and that our WR group is as bad as there is in the NFL. And the coaching can be head scratching at best.

We're getting Allen cheap. Look at the money we've paid Miller, Hoecht, Samuel & Palmer not to mention extending a bunch of our own draft picks. The money has been there but the choices may not have been the best. But hey, maybe Bean can get the Jets to give the Bills their five 1st round picks for Allen. That will solve the "Allen problem" some of you people think exists.

People can criticize Allen all they want. But anyone who thinks Allen is even a small part of the problem doesn't know football.

The truth is going to be hard for us Bills fans to accept but going forward Meathead will out coach McD in head to head meetings as well as over the course of a season. And the Pats front office will outperform the Bills front office.

Agree and we are not out of the division race yet. Twice in the last 5 seasons we have been further out of first place at this point in the season as we are today. But here's the ugly truth about what this loss and the NE win tell me about the future: we MIGHT squeak out one more division title but while Josh Allen will be a better QB then Drake Maye during the next 5 years the gap will not be that big. But the gap between the Patriots Head coach and McD will be wide as a chasm. The Pats will also be a much better run operation then the Bills.

To be fair: * McD did not let them exploit the Bishop pick when he punted on 4th and half a yard. * The 2nd pick had as dumb a block in the back as you will see in an NFL game that moved the ball back to inside the Bills 15 yard line.

I don't have the time or inclination to track that down. I just wasted over 3 hours watching that mess. I only know that in the moment going for it seemed like the right thing to do and as the game played out the Dolphins never came close to stopping the tush push.

Don't get me started on that play. It was clear the Bills were going to pass it on 4th down and the Dolphin TO at the snap ruined a chance to surprise Miami. That Brady went back to a pass on the very next play was what a bad High School coach does. It was obvious that the Miami coaches reminded the D that it was okay to let the Bills convert the 4th down on a 2 yard gain at midfield but unacceptable to let them trick you for a 50 yard TD. That pass play had ZERO chance to trick Miami. That they ran it was astonishingly stupid.

4th and 2 is not the same as 4th and half a yard. In this game the Bills had a great opening defensive series and I believe Allen had a 95% of converting that 4th down with a tush push. It would not have taken much to get Miami to fold their hand. And if the Bills didn't get it Miami drives 40 yards for a TD in half the time they used to drive 92 yards for the TD after the Bills punt.

I know this may not be a popular take but IMO when McD refused to go for it on 4th & half a yard on the Bills first possession it set a tone that the Bills never recovered from. KC, Detroit, Baltimore, NE, and a half a dozen other teams would have rolled the dice there.

I fully expect the Bills to rally and win this game. But with that said and knowing I'll be right back on the bandwagon drinking the kool aid if they do win the game it's abundantly clear to me that McD & Brady are at best mediocre. After the Bills gave away that they were going to throw a pass on 4th & 1 they came right back and tried to throw a pass the next play is the stuff of bad High School football. The fact is the Dolphins would rather give up 2 yards and the 1st down then let you beat them downfield for a TD. There was NO way a pass was going to work there.

I'm an Ohio State fan and if the Jets were smart they would wait for Sayin. That kid is impressive. And if they really manage all those picks wisely they might be able to land the Buckeyes great WR Jeremiah Smith. They could swap their likely #1 pick this season for enough draft capital to enable them to get the first 2 picks in 2027.

As an aside I wasn't being sarcastic I was actually excited that we might get a healthy Milano for the rest of the season. When he's healthy he is still a force on defense.

On a positive note, Milano is NOT on the injury report.

To put it in perspective that 30 million plus audience was 3 million MORE then the audience for the 7th game of the World Series! And they included Canadian viewers in the world series numbers.

These are good points. The Bills were locked in their own version of the movie Groundhog Day and the only way out was to change things completely. The problem is that with the CAP and drafting stricture of the NFL changing things completely in a short period of time is almost impossible. The Bills chose to do it on the offensive side of the ball by reinventing what they do and changing how they would use their elite unicorn of a QB. I've seen this type of change play out over several seasons as a teams elite QB ages but I have never seen it done in less the one season with the elite QB at his prime. Like others it makes me uncomfortable because I've been conditioned to see Allen play a certain way and when he's on he's unstoppable and it's exciting as hell. But this just seems weird to me. However, you can't deny the results over the last 25+ games.

IMO, that's a big IF. The question is are the Colts the 2021 Rams and is Danial Jones Matthew Stafford? They think so but I don't. Two 1st round picks is a lot of draft capital for a corner back who has not played great the last 2 seasons.