Beck Water

Stroud looks good. Really good.

I thought so. But he’s trusting his defense. And so far, Colts are not giving him reason to regret this Miami is warmer than Buffalo

I was wondering if it was one of Bills Mafia making a pit stop on the way to Miami

I think Titans over Jax gets them in?

Prophetess!

Jordan Phillips once ***** sat on a fumble and was too busy flapping his arms to notice

Edit: and the Baltimore D just said “Nope”

They can only do that if the vaunted Baltimore D allows them to

He’d look better if his OL was playing like they meant it

They balanced that out not calling Offside and DH on the next 2 plays

I thought Highsmith was off sides there.

Cuz I mis-typed Ravens next question

Yes they do. They’re getting beat by a 3rd string QB because they earned that 1st seed fair and square and have the luxury to rest starters.

May be a Bills fan, May not be a Bills fan, 100% message board troll.

We’re like Sebastian the Crab said “You want it done right, You got to Do It Yourself” (to the Bills)

Looks that way

Nice throw by Rudolph. Bad bust by Steelers secondary

He was shown walking to the locker room by himself

I should feel sad to see a player like Watt down on the ground in pain but somehow I’m having trouble mustering it

It was my impression too that the Ravens offense is playing as though they want to be somewhere else - anywhere else. I mean c’mon, they’re not starting backups all along the OL 🤮 On the other hand, the Steelers started out very strong running right at Baltimore and now they’re trying to bounce outside and it’s Just Not Working Also, Pittsburgh has how many fumbles - 5 now? Lost 3? So it’s not as though the Steelers are humming and clicking

TF, Huntley losing his helmet and taking a 5 yd penalty to start the 2nd half? WTF kind of bull#### is that?

You're actually doing something you're not supposed to do in statistics - you're grouping together 3 single year datasets, then comparing them to a smaller data set of one year. One dataset has 484 points, one has 152. No bueno without strong justification. You need to look under the hood at the data to be sure that's OK to do, then you probably need to use some special statistical tools to ask "is this difference significant"? Where's one of our stats mavens to set us straight with the technical reasons? @oldmanfan I think? For example, if you look year by year, 2020: 49% 2021: 46% 2022: 55%. This season: 41%. Binning together 3 years hides the variance year to year. And is 41% that different from 46%? Is 165 Now, that said, I think there are some points. Diggs is being used somewhat differently this year, in ways he wasn't used the 3 previous years. I don't recall Diggs being used on screens, or from the backfield, previously (as he has been this year). I think he's been used more from the slot. That folds into the fact that while his catch % is still good, his overall Y/R are down to 11 Y/R from 12 his first 2 years and 13 last year. But it's a long stretch to say the problem is, we're "forcing the ball to him too much" when his targets are actually down from 2020/2021. There actually is a stat, Success %, defined as a reception that gains 40% of needed yards on 1st down, 60% on 2nd down, and 100% on 3rd down. Using that stat, we see that Diggs Success % is down this season (53%), but similar to 2021 (55%) when he was targeted even more. Data from https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/D/DiggSt00.htm I think its a good call that something is off with the offense, and off with Diggs, but I'm not sure "forcing the ball to him too much" is it.

I'm not sure about "over emphasis on trying to get the ball to Diggs". I'm saying that because I did a quick thumb-through of some other top teams, and it seems as though a *****-ton of targets to the top WR is a not uncommon pattern for top offenses. Dallas, for example, targetted CeeDee Lamb 168 times; their 2nd target their TE with 98. Detroit, Amon Ra St Brown 154 times, Sam Laporta second with 113. Note that in both those offenses, the #2 target is a TE, in the Detroit case a rookie TE. Eagles AJ Brown 157 to Davonta Smith with 112. On the Lambs, Puka Nacua just took over 154 to Kupp 94. Other teams of course are more equitable with a #1 and #2 receiver. San Francisco, Miami, Packers, etc. The point is it's a perfectly reasonable offensive strategy to target your best player and 152 targets for Diggs as the #1 is not necessarily out of line around the league. Nor is it out of line to have the 2nd most targeted guy be the TE. What's a bit unusual is how relatively few yards Diggs has for that number of targets (Kincaid too). When I think of the Bills 2022 and 2023 offense, the word that comes to mind is "disjointed". It just didn't flow. It didn't work together right. The various pieces (Diggs, Kincaid, Cook, Davis, even Harty) just didn't seem as though they were being used to their best advantage. Ex-NFL QB who do film breakdown have dropped some breadcrumbs, of which my bottom line summation is, it's more than one cause.

There are about 4 guys on this board (2 of whom don't post much any more) who really have a deep understanding of the X's and O's of football, and interestingly both who are still posting at times have more of a defensive background (which means they very well understand where the QB ought to attack on a given coverage). So it's not quite "none", but it's close. But yeah, the fascination of football to me is the intricacy of the game, and the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know and how much there is to know.

Bengals spent $64M, $31M guaranteed, on Orlando Brown Jr. That's a pretty big spend. $21M on Germaine Pratt? Now I grant you their cap hits last year were pretty small potatoes, and I haven't looked at the contract details. But seems like they do spend at times.