Old Coot

Wish we'd had bass in Superbowl XXV.

Elam is a man cover CB. That's what he played in college. McD's use a lot of zone and even pattern recognition so one side of the D may morph to fit the patterms being run. It's possible that Elam has trouble with the more complex coverages.

I think in the Seattle game he was caught from behind twice. That's why I made my original post.

He will. Life is fleeting and not everyone is blessed with a long span of years. Ride on, Big John!

It's simple physics. In the red zone there's less grass to defend. Of course other teams will design plays based on what they see on film but McD is said to be quite good at disguising the D.

It's possible that the DC was asked about Josh and didn't want to give anything away so he mentioned something relevant but that everyone knows.

On the topic of Josh's running, he doesn't seem to run with the same verve as in past years. He did not get caught from behind previously. He does now. Is he a step slow or just looking to get some yards and slide? Probably looking to slide.

Going to one of the early games in 1960 at the Rockpile with my dad. We paid to park on some guy's front lawn. Mack Yoho was the Bill's kick returner. Every time the opponent teed up the ball the crowd would yell "Yo-ho, Yo-ho." The Bills' uniforms were silver and blue, the colors of the Detroit Lions, Wilson's favorite NFL team.

Lofton and Reed were perfect compliments. Lofton could take the top off a defense which gave Reed room to operate underneath, mostly over the middle. It's possible that Cooper may have similar synergistic results with the present WR corps.

It's all about bargaining power. The college teams aren't about to leave town and they fill their old stadiums (except for USC) so it makes no dollars and sense to incur the huge cost to build new stadiums. An NFL team can move out of town plus the NFL wants modern stadiums so cities and states with franchises must "pay to play" or risk losing their teams.

At varying points Austin TX, Portland OR, St Louis & San Diego were all interested. Let's hear it for the San Diego Bills! NOT!

As Churchill once said, "For every problem there is a solution that is simple, satisfying and Wrong."

Some pre-NFL Buffalo Bills / Bisons history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bills_(AAFC)

Possibly, yes. Remember the game when the Pats gave up the winning score to the other team? They had Gronk at the 1 yard line. It was one of those endless lateral plays. Gronk took the wrong agle and the ball carriers get by him for the score. Remember, TEs practice offense everyday. They don't practice D. Against an elite athlete another elite athlete who is playing "out of position" will often lose.

In theory, yes. In practice, not unless the substituted "hands" players are competent DBs also. Remember, the O gets a look at who the D put on the field before calling/ executing the play. If you have several "hands" guys who don't normally play DB then you call a play to take advantage of that. Exaample: I recall an end of game score against the Patriots (can't remember the team they played). It was, I think one of those "endless laterals" plays. I think the Patriots were expecting a "Hail Mary" and had some taller players in including Gronkowski at the goal line. He took the wrong angle against the ball carrier who took it in for the winning score. Why don't teams prectice D against the Hail Mary? Because the play isn't run very often. Practice time is limited during the season so you can't waste it practicing against a play you might see no more than once every few seasons.

Start Bishop. What could possibly go wrong?

If Josh goes to see a concussion specialist he should have his head examined.

Great contribution to the forum. Thanks for doing this. Based on what you saw, does it appear that, on the unsuccessful passing plays, Josh locks onto a receiver early in the play (maybe the receiver running a mid to deep pattern) or does he seem to go through his reads?

I agree with the posters who say that our WRs are mediocre but remember that we were in Cap jail this off season. We didn't have the money to sign any top free agent WRs. This leads me to a question for our salary cap gurus: How did we come to be in Cap jail? Where is our salary cap tied up? Of course there's the cap hit we took from trading Diggs and Josh's monster deal but where is our money tied up beyond that?

I agree with much of what you say in your perceptive post. Most of our WRs are just average. That's not on the OC. I suppose those who want to fire McD and/or Brady would point to the Chiefs' year when they had mediocre WRs but still succeeded. In response, thye didn't succeed by scheming their WRs open. They succeeded by using Kelsey (who distorts any D) and RBs. There's only so much an OC can do with average talent at the skill positions. BTW, on a different topic: what's happened to Knox in this offense? Why is he not getting targets? Is it the scheme? Is Knox not getting open?

I agree that the DC did well in the 2d half. He's doing it with smoke, mirrors and rubbing alcohol fumes because of all the injuries. Problems with the O are more difficult to diagnose. Not one of Allen's better days. His ball placement could have been better on some plays. At times it seems the OL filed to pick up blitzers or were disrupted by same. Receivers often had no separation. It's difficult to put this all on the OC. I'd need to see the all-22. The quick game we saw in the three wins has disappeared the last two weeks. The Ravens played man alot and the Texans did not seem to play a lot of two deep. If they took the short game away then medium to long game should be open but I don't know that Allen had enough time. All-in-all the O looked out of sync and that speaks to execution rather than lousy play-calling.

Perceptive post as usual, Shaw. Re the defense, I'd like to address what I think is a key factor: injuries, lots of 'em. We had guys playing on D last night that I'd never heard of. NFL D's must play as a unit and that takes experience. When you combine out D with so many backups playing and the Ravens offense with all their motions and misdirection you get what we saw last night. With so many inexperienced players on D now we will be vulnerable to misdirection plays. I think our D right now can't handle the top offenses in this league. On a related note, we gave Lamar too much time on passing plays. What happened to our DL? On a positive note I like how much more active Josh is on his pre-snap gesturing and yelling. That shows growth.

The Ravens have an excellent D, particularly the back seven. Most teams don't have a D that can replicate what the Ravens did. It is worriesome that the best teams (read playoff teams) do have such Ds.

Gambling & the NFL like night swimming & alcohol -- winning combinations. What could possibly go wrong!