Beck Water

1) Murray is the best blocker in pass pro and it's not close 2) Yes, you're correct, the Bills get 2 free call-ups from the PS who revert right afterwards so with bringing up Isabella and Klein, they didn't have a call-up. But at this point I'm not sure if that's an issue, because it's the playoffs so not sure how waiver claims apply.

I want to know the meaning of the finger-waggling he does. Sometimes it's 4 fingers waggling, sometimes 2 or 3.

You are correct. Allen shows the field vision and open field runner's instinct, along with trust in his teammates, to change direction AWAY from the green grass and TOWARDS two defenders, believing (correctly) that his two guys who are there will have his back and get in their way/block them out of the play. Which they do. Allen's hesitation also gives Isabella and Kincaid time to set up their blocks, and Knox time to win his footrace and get in the way of the 3rd guy.

That may be true, but it isn't relevant here. Kazee is 9 yards+ away from Josh with an imminent need to make an open field tackle on a guy who is 6" taller than he is, outweighs him by 60-70 lbs, and has a known tendency of posterizing defenders with his stiffarm. He has 3 teammates in the area and they all have Bills in position to block them out of the play (which actually happens), so he knows it may be on him. He has to decide what Josh is gonna do - straight at him, L or R, then pick an appropriate angle. That's why he hesitates, waiting for Josh to indicate. The possibility that Josh might slide and he might hit him for a PF is nowhere on his mental radar screen at that moment, I promise.

Great find. Yes, it's very clear from that he is making a little stutter step before changing direction. If he kept going as he was, he would be tackled by Kazee and someone else - Killebrew? who appears to be blocked out by Andy Isabella who also sidesteps to give Allen room to avoid Kazee's diving tackle. The stutter and COD help Kazee miss and let Isabella (I think), Kincaid, and Knox set up their blocks. As I've said upthread, Josh has been known to 'fake slide' but it looks completely different. It's sort of a knee bend on one leg and drops his hips then keeps running.

I agree with you that most of the time Elam is grabby because he's been toasted, but McDermott was explicitly asked about a DPI on someone who was beaten during the Dolphins game (may have been Benford) and he specifically said that a DPI is better than giving up a TD. So read between the lines there.

I'm sure he wants to be out there. On the 'could've played' thing, though, it's noteworthy that McDermott received the evaluation "out for the game" from the trainers. Douglas wouldn't be the first player who, full of adrenaline during the game, thinks he can come back and play while sports medicine experts who cold-bloodedly look at things like the degree of laxity in the joint and points of tenderness that point to the injury say "nope". It's also not uncommon that guys initially have more function, but after they sit on the flight home and sleep, they wake up and find considerable swelling/functional impairment. It's notable that even though he was ruled "questionable" and not "out" for the game, Douglas DNP every day last week. Dodson is a good question. He practiced, albeit limited, 2x last week. Banged up Bills had this to say before the Steelers game: I was discussing with someone here AJ Klein as MLB vs KC. AJ has "got it going on" mentally, obviously, since he was able to come off the street and not only play, but call the defense. But, in preseason we saw that his already limited range was even more so. The thought of Klein dropping into coverage on Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce over the middle brings on a shiver. On the other hand, if Dodson does indeed have a torn labrum and will have to play with a brace - the thought of him not only trying to play through the pain, but do something that is mentally challenging for him (call the D), is not a happy one. Can McDermott cook up a defense which would have Klein calling the D and use Klein to his best physical advantage, while distributing coverage responsibilities elsewhere? That's way beyond my paygrade and may depend upon whether Johnson, Benford, and Rapp can play.

I gotta like the kid for this: And maybe I need to give him a couple drive allowance for being rusty.

Well, his ***** salad making chef abilities will be tested to the full this coming game, with all the injuries.

You commonly have a lot of good things to say, but I struggle with talk about "legacy" I'm reminded of when we had a family meeting with an elder care finance expert because Grandma could no longer live alone and her house had to be sold. He finally lost it and looked at a couple of the cousins: "You need to stop talking about inheritance, no one has died"

You're asking a good question and one I personally, can't answer without all-22. I don't know who was covering whom. I'm very up-front that I'm not someone who can look at the meagre glimpses the network allows us pre-and post-snap before they focus in on the QB, and read out the coverage. You gotta ask someone who knows ball at a higher level. I can tell you that Rudolph's bread-and-butter in his stint as a starter this year has been short passes with YAC. Going into yesterday's game, a whopping 60% of his passing yards were YAC. And with the Bills missing their starting MLB, using their 3rd string OLB, and missing their nickle corner, if I were Eddie Faulkner I would be driving into the demonstrated strength of the game which got them there, vs. the apparent glaring weakness of playing a guy who just got off his couch at MLB and backups at OLB and nickle. And that's the short passing game.

Elam has a target on his back because he's not subtle about his grabbiness. He's not running step for step and sliding a little arm around the guy's waist out of the ref's vision or committing a jersey grab that's hidden between his body and the receivers. He's getting beaten by two steps because good NFL WR are successfully juking him, then he tries to make up for it by reaching out and using their jersey as a leash. It IS difficult to take officiating seriously, but the stuff Elam is doing is slam-dunk. The thing that bothers me most about Elam is that he seems to shirk physical contact. He got run over pretty good yesterday afternoon. 5'9" 180 Cam Lewis and 5'11" Dane Jackson out-thump him regularly and so can Damar Hamlin who's like the same size. Pacheco runs like a junkyard dog that hasn't been fed in a week and the DB is a steak dinner. We can't have a CB who plays like Wiley Coyote when too many Chiefs players can say "Beep! Beep!"

Open field running and running over people is just not Mahomes bag, whereas Josh gets off on it. Mahomes thing is the fake step on the sideline then dancing down it. We got hosed a few times in the Steelers game. Pretty clear false start on the Steelers 1st TD. Pretty clear DH on Diggs multiple times through the game. It would make me happy if we could get the offensive Offside and the false starts on Jawaan Taylor vs KC. He does it like every freakin' play and they call it maybe once a game.

Josh has fake-slid at times. He's talked about it on podcasts. Josh said post-game that "they" were yelling "Slide!" at him (I assume teammates). But that looked more like a juke to me, and Josh is also on film having a full complement of running back-like moves in the open field. I think he learnt from Shady his rookie year because he seemed to have more and more of them as his rookie season went on. @Zerovoltz , a KC fan, has been accused of being a troll and I've sometimes defended him. But he's either trolling here, or not thinking through the consequences, because his own precious QB is a regular and repeat offender at faking he'll go OOB and then tiptoeing down the sidelines 15 yards after he gets the defender to pull up for fear of a late hit PF. I'd be totally OK with taking an occasional 15 yd penalty ....as long as they penalize Mahomes for it. Every. Time. There was a pretty egregious penalty in the KC-GB game on KC's final drive against Mr. Simone Biles himself, GB S Jonathan Owens. GB leading by 8 points. 2nd and 10, Mahomes runs. I know he's going for the marker, everyone else on the field knows he's going for the marker, Jonathan Owens knows he's going for the marker and takes the perfect angle to hit him and try to knock him back and stop him short to create a 3rd down. The announcers were aghast when a 15 yd UR was called. I was aghast. Never more happy than to see that drive stall out and GB get the Dub.

Yeah, it looked to me as though Deonte was telling him off.

The Bills really need to put oven mitts on him at the start of OTCs next season. He has got the "grabby habit" and he needs to be forced out of it. To be fair, Rudolph was really slinging it yesterday. He had his opportunity and he was really taking advantage. He made some outstanding throws. I do know that Next Sunday's ref crew apparently calls the largest number of DH penalties in the league and we can not afford that. It is pretty clear that the Bills receivers are coached to take a penalty if they have to instead of being beaten for a score. The play where he let himself get run over concerns me more.

I know, I went into the 1st half game day thread because I wanted to find out why Elam was playing - I missed it that Benford and Spector both hurt on that non-fumble-recovery. I got an answer to my questions but My Lord! What a Monkey-House-Throwing-***** show. I backed out of there quickly, and I still needed a shower.

Yes, that was very enjoyable watching the Cowboys get their asses handed to them. You might say....I "LOVE"d to see it.

According to Spotrac, guy has career earnings of $31M and I'm guessing he invested a lot of it. So not sure how much $100k means. Doubt money was a major factor.

How does Bangedup know that Diggs is an abdomen? The most serious injury is Bernard, because even if it 's a sprain - it was a serious enough sprain that they splinted and x-rayed it. It may be a serious sprain requiring long recovery or even surgery. Johnson is serious. Concussions are unpredictable. Benford is serious. He's been playing out of his mind, and Kaiir "Grabby" Elam vs. the ref crew that calls the most holding penalties is free yards waiting to happen. On the offensive side, I think Diggs is injured but it's more of whatever he has been dealing with. Connor McGovern is potentially big

We really don't know that Dodson is back next week. Or Douglas for that matter.

*snap*

McDermott to assistants: "Flower shop to Mrs Klein please. Find out what his kids didn't get that they wanted for Christmas, and Make It So."

Allen also hit Diggs on a 36 yd pass down the sideline. But I think something is wrong with Diggs. Yeah, it was a bit extracurricular, but that extra flip the Steelers defender gave him (and wasn't flagged for) had him on the turf in pain for some time, though eventually he got up and trotted off, and he did come back. Maybe....consider this, just hear me out, I know it's crazy....maybe he's not pretending...

Wow, did he really? I'm gonna have to hunt that down and listen. McDermott and the D staff better send her a freakin' flower shop.