Billy Claude

This is one of the criticisms of McDermott that has some validity. I believe that the Bills have been one of the most penalized teams in the league since he got here. So this is clearly not one player nor one play but a long term coaching culture issue.

OK. It is pretty understandable that he had a few drops given all the issues with his hands. The thing that is not understandable is, given the known injury issues with his hand, why the ball was being thrown to him in critical situations, or even why he was on the field in those situations. Oops -- this was suppose to go into the Knox thread.

. He didn't say they were behaving badly either. Just that there were a lot of them. They then made some folding table jokes afterwards but those wee just jokes.

He didn't say anything about Bills fans on the plane. He just said there were lots of Bills fans at the passport check.

Not surprised. You can guess who has a data/stat/math background on this board.

I believe it was a red eye. I can understand being somewhat annoyed especially if they are talking loudly.

It seems like an interesting question how turnovers affect game outcomes, so I went back the last 20 regular season games, i.e., the 2022 season and the first four games of 2023. The Bills had more turnovers 9 times. The Bills record is 5 wins and 4 losses in those games. This included two losses to the lowly Jets. The Bills has the same number of turnovers 3 times. They were 3-0 in those games The Bills had less turnovers 8 times. They were 8-0 in those games. Adding the data for the 2021 regular season. The Bills had more turnovers 15 times. The Bills are 7 win and 8 losses in those games. The Bills had the same number of turnovers as their opponents 7 times. They are 5 and 2 in those games. The Bills had fewer turnovers than their opponents 15 times. They are 15 and 0 in those games. The data does not support the idea that the impact of turnovers is exaggerated.

My guess is also that the Bills won more than 50% of games with more turnovers since the Bills win a lot of games and also have a lot of turnovers. However, definitely if they don't lose the turnover battle, the Bills pretty much just don't lose, at least in the regular season. I checked that the playoffs, the Bills had the same number of turnovers as their opponent in the first three losses. The Bills had more turnovers than the Bengals (1 to 0) but clearly turnovers were not why they lost that game,

I disagree with the first statement and agree with the second. I don't think the impact of turnovers are exaggerated. Since 2021, the Bills have lost 10 regular season games. They have more turnover than their opponents in 8 out of those 10 games. In the other two games they lost, each team had one turnover. At least in the regular season, the Bills just don't lose if they don't turn the ball over.

As someone who hates the interception is as good as a punt excuse, that one was actually justified. It was third and 20, there was no way a dump off was going to get you a first down and they were out of field goal position. I can understand Allen taking the risk there. That was one of the very few cases where the interception was actually as good as a punt.

Here is the data on air yards from Pro-Football-Reference. Obviously the 2023 stats are based on only four games, three of which were blowouts that did not require too many long passes, however, the difference between Allen last year and this year is pretty stunning. Air Yards Per Attempt (2022) #1 Mariotta 10.4 #2 Tagovailoa 9.5 #3 Allen 9.2 (2023) #1 Love 10.2 #2 Tannehill 10.0 #3 Watson 9.5 #17 Allen 7.5 Completed Air Yards Per Completion (2022) #1 Tagovailoa 8.8 #2 Allen 7.5 #3 Mariotta 7.2 (2023) #1 Garroppolo 7.8 #2 Love 7.5 #3 Stafford 7.4 #25 Allen 5.2 Yards After Catch per Completion (2022) #1 Garropolo 7.0 #2 Mahomes 6.6 #3 Z. Wilson 6.1 #32 Allen 4.6 (2023) #1 Tagovailoa 6.4 #2 Richardson 6.2 #3 Stroud 6.1 #8 Allen 5.2 I think it is clear that from that from the beginning of the season, Dorsey wanted to put more emphasis on the short game but Allen didn't have the patience to keep that going initially.

I appreciate your willingness to have an open mind. Its not very common on the internet.

This narrative keeps being repeated but it is simply not even close to true that Allen's turnovers was because the Bills were behind. This is not only the case for this season's Jets game but in general. Out of Allen's 19 2022 regular season turnovers, 12 of them were with the Bill's leading and 4 were with the Bills tied . All Allen's turnovers when tied occurred in the first half of the games. Only three of Allen's 2022 turnovers occurred with the Bills trailing: (1) An interception down 0-7 in the first half against Chicago. (2) A fumble on first down trailing 21-26 at midfield at the beginning of the 4th quarter in the 2nd game against the Dolphins. Plenty of time left to make up 5 points and in fact the Bills eventually win this game. (3) An interception ending OT down 3 against the Vikings -- this is the only one that meets the criteria for a do or die situation. When McDermott keeps saying Allen has to play smarter, it isn't only about sliding at the end of runs.

Definitely it was the Bill's shooting themselves in the foot. Two ints, a fumble returned for a touchdown, and a 50 yard punt return were the only reasons the Dolphins were in the game

Thompson was 18 /45 for 220 yards with 1 TD and 2 Int in that playoff game. The entire Dolphin offense had 231 total yards. I really don't think Thompson's performance in that game did anything to discredit Tua.

I think this Josh only makes mistakes because he has to be Superman is way overplayed. Sometimes its is true but no where close to 90%, This was definitely not true of the Jets game. When Allen threw the 2nd interception which basically screwed everything up, the Bills defense was playing great, the Bills were in the middle of a nice drive, the Bills were already in (very) long field goal territory, and it was only second down. In fact, the offense had been clicking since Allen's last interception. In what way was being Superman required at that time? A large majority of Allen's turnovers last season were when the Bills were leading, often letting the other team back into the game. There is time to take risks and time to play it safe. Allen has to have better awareness of game situation. I also strongly dislike this an interception is as good as a punt narrative. It is not as good as a punt if there was a better option underneath that might have gotten you a first down -- even if you have to throw it in front of the sticks and hope for YAC.

There's level of brain farts also. Throwing a 40 yard pass into double coverage while falling, with your offense clicking (the Bills were on a nice drive at the time), your team is up by seven, you are in the range of a long field goal, and your opponent is totally inept offensively is about as bad as it can get. It was laughable how many reasons that pass should not have been thrown.

Pretty amazing, one week ago you couldn't post anything even vaguely critical of Allen without being down-voted and now it appears that to many people he is basically a slightly better version of Zach Wilson. I expect that he will have a really good game tomorrow against a really bad defense and the board will swing back to Allen farts unicorn mode.

The Bills finished first in red zone conversion rate in 2021 and 9th in 2022. The problem was that in both years I was more confident that the Bills would score a touchdown on a 3rd down from the 5 yard line rather than a 3rd down from the two yard line. I wouldn't be surprised if they finished close to last on converting 3rd and short to TDs in both years. The difference in the red-zone conversion rate wasn't due to being better in short yardage situations in 2021, it was that there were fewer red-zone turnovers in 2021. I think @Einstein led a long discussion of how bad they were shortage yardage situations at during the 2021 season. Just wanted to say that it isn't all Dorsey or Saffold's fault. The Bills were bad on third and short in 2021 also.

For folks who want to laid most of the blame on Dorsey, the Bills were 32rd on 3rd and 1 conversions in 2021 also (56% -- 13 out of 23 vs a league average of 71%). Their struggles on short yardage at the goal-line last season is just a reflection of their short yardage troubles in 2021.

Anyone have their ranking on short yardage situations in 2020 and 2021? My guess it was decent in 2020 but already not very good in 2021.

Is this not the second year of a two year contract? In that case, the Steelers are on the hook for Trubisky's signing bonus whether they keep him, trade him, or cut him. If Rudolph clearly outplays him, wouldn't it make sense for the Steelers to take their losses and get whatever they could in a trade for Trubisky? Hopefully, it is a moot point and Kyle Allen starts looking a lot better.

Supposedly Mason Rudolph is outplaying Mitch Trubisky in camp. I assume the Bills can't afford his contract but he would be a good choice if the Steelers cut him.

This doesn't seem like a he said/she said issue. It shouldn't take much effort for the courts to find out who is telling the truth about this since they can easily subpoena the relevant contracts/ financial records.

From New York magazine: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/michael-oher-claims-tuohys-scammed-him-of-blind-side-money.html#:~:text=According to the filing%2C The,million at the box office. This is what Oher claim in his filing. If it goes to court it should be easy to check: The 2009 movie, based on a book by Michael Lewis, won Sandra Bullock the Academy Award for Best Actress. According to the filing, The Blind Side netted the Tuohys and their two children $225,000 each plus 2.5 percent of the “defined net proceeds” — a substantial sum for a movie that made $309 million at the box office. But Oher claims that a contract signed in 2007 waived his rights to any proceeds “without any payment whatsoever.” He says he has no memory of signing such a contract; even if he did, he says he was not informed of its ramifications. If this is true, its hard to figure out why Oher didn't get at least the same share as the children. Maybe their relationship was already on the outs at that time. Oher was fairly quick to say that the movie wasn't accurate at the time.