Beck Water

I don't know about NFLN, but the Bills PR Twitter says he was "elevated from the practice squad", which usually means the Bills are taking advantage of one of his 3 free elevations and he will revert back to the PS after the game. I don't see anything anywhere else about signing him to the active roster. The Bills website shows Rasul Douglas and Linval Joseph on the roster, and Norman on the practice squad. Douglas and Joseph took the spots opened by Knox and Elam going on IR, so the Bills would have to cut someone to sign Norman, and that hasn't been announced. I think NFLN is maybe just using a shorthand or else, they got it wrong. We don't know if Douglas is playing tonight. My guess is that it depends upon Benford's hammy as well as how quickly he's vacuumed up the playbook. It's possible the Bills elevated Norman as a precaution in case when it came to gametime, Benford couldn't go, but my guess is Douglas won't be active and Norman will be asked to back-fill Cam Lewis and Klein's ST snaps with Klein declared out and Lewis the primary backup CB. But I think Norman was elevated primarily for ST. Agree on Norman. Respect for his ST play last week. "We will probably just shelf him until it's too late to even matter"

Again, this at core is another hyperbolic way of saying "I just really don't like Dodson" but I'll take it on because one aspect interests me. Dodson's first year on the roster was 2020, so this is his 4th year. He's always been behind Tremaine Edmunds (1st round pick and $8M free agent) and Matt Milano (Guided Missile gaining recognition as one of the best in the league before injury). So he's a backup. News flash, if backups were starter quality, they'd likely be starting somewhere else. He was beaten out by AJ Klein, the savvy vet steeped in McDermott's defense, in 2020. Also fair point. That doesn't mean he "never makes plays, can't run, isn't helpful against the run or pass truthfully" or that "he has been beaten out by almost every LB on the roster since the day he's been here". In his time here he has beaten out by players on the roster for 1 or more games (not counting camp and preseason guys) 2020 Andre Smith (7th round), Del'Shawn Phillips (UDFA), Darron Lee (1st), Deon Lacy (UDFA). He also starts ahead of Tyler Matakevich, who is here as ST. 2021 Joe Giles-Harris (UDFA) and still, Tyler Matakevich, who is here as ST. 2022 Baylon Spector, Terrel Bernard (Bernard started the Jets game and flamed out, Dodson then got snaps at Minnesota Cleveland and Detroit) And that's not counting the guys who never made it out of training camp or off the practice squad. Guys who can't run can't hit and never make plays can't play ST either. They'd be replaced by STers who can run, can hit, and can tackle. In his start against Pittsburgh last season, Dodson had 11 tackles. Start against Cleveland, 13. Not too shabby for a guy who can't run, hit, and never makes plays. It's fine to prefer the guy with athletic upside and potential over the known factor who isn't long-term starter quality, but in the exaggerated form you're making your point, it's a bad take. I'd love it if the coaches saw Williams as at a point where he can play himself into improvement, but they don't. You're not alone; it's a TBD tradition to anoint a whipping boy and start banging the drum for a rookie who's on the depth chart behind him. Next step is imputations of some broad-sweeping policy (McDermott won't play rookies even if they're clearly better in every way) or some conspiracy type theory. There's always a handful who get all "I'm 100% smarter than our stupid coaches who get paid the big bucks to evaluate and train up football players". Congratulations on joining that crowd and I'll leave you to it.

I can agree with that. The point I want to put out there is, while Josh rightly gets credit when he makes splendid, improvisational, "2 guys in the league could make that throw" plays....the OC does not always deserve blame for "not scheming open alternatives". Sometimes Josh is going off-schedule because he has to. Sometimes he's not, there is an easier play he could make within the design of the play. I would guesstimate it at 2/3 but that's totally a SWAG

Dude, at this point you're essentially repeating "I don't like Dodson, Dodson bad" multiple times with no rationale to back it up. And clearly nothing anyone could present in the way of actual analysis would persuade you. So, have fun with that!

There are different levels of "growing pains", though. There's "guy gets it 90% of the time and makes mistakes/whiffs 10%" and maybe you live with that. Then there's "you can see the wheels spinning and sometimes, the hamster is dead, and the wheel's still spinning, and he's chasing the play habitually". At that latter point, you not only hamstring your own D, you potentially destroy the player's confidence in himself and set him back. Belicheck made him dance. I can't tell where Williams is there, but the coaches who watch film with him and see him in practice know. Contrary to what some posters here believe, McDermott doesn't have any blanket prejudice against rookies where he won't play them even though they're marvelous. I thought Bernard sucked because of how bad he looked vs the Jets last season, and then he never got back on the field. I was "uh-oh, waste of a pick". I'm not the only one either. Turns out, Beane and McDermott knew something. So I'm not going to quarrel with however they decide to use Williams. As an MLB, he was clearly struggling mentally and getting sucked into play action, but he can thump as a tackler, and right now he and Bernard have about the same % of missed tackles. That's all I'll say, as I don't want to do "famous last words" @HappyDays said the Bills were doing medical work on Suh and someone else as DTs, but now that Joseph has been signed I expect that's been dropped. People are always wanting to keep adding at one or another position, but they don't necessarily figure out who to cut or how to keep balance on the roster. Example, a couple weeks ago someone wanted to add Isabella to the active roster and cut Poona Ford. Now we need Poona Ford.

Yeah, I agree, Poyer playing deep would highlight any decrease in speed/range, and I've had the thought that lining up closer to the LOS may help him maximize what he's got left. But Boyst is right it also physically punishes and takes a toll on the body - something Poyer has never shied away from. May you be right!

Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six oh what a winning hand

Suggestion: if you want to deepen your understanding, wander over to the JT O’Sullivan thread and follow the sub-thread where I speculate that Tampa was trying to leverage Josh’s tendencies and Hoofhearted tells me it’s just busted coverage. There’s a back and forth where I ask who should have been covering Shakir and Hoofhearted, Buffalo716, Einstein, and a couple others respond with a back-and-forth about what the coverage actually is (spoiler: go with Hoof) and therefore who should be picking him up. It’s pretty eye-opening about just how intricate coverage responsibilities really are, just how subtle the clues that the QB needs to pick up about what the coverage is can be, and so forth. “Instincts”, in the sense of “go with your gut” can truly equal blown coverage and big gains. The “instinctive” coaches and front office people talk about, means something very different - it means someone who understands the offense and understands what that means to their role in the specific defense they’re playing in so well, that they can react with out conscious thought But it doesn’t mean “go out and ad lib”, which is what not understanding the specific defensive responsibilities in different options specified by a given play call would lead to.

I guess I’m dating myself, but when I was a kid, self-service gas pumps were a novel thing only just getting started. Pull up to a pump, and someone would actually pump the gas for you, wipe your windshield while it filled, and maybe even check the oil and the air in your tires. I’d tip for that, but it was actually just something the service stations offered in those days IIRC. Or maybe they did it for free for my mom? Mom was a Brick House in those days.

Doesn’t this totally screw the restaurants, who can be left with a lot of orders they have prepared, but which aren’t being delivered and thus will result in either them not getting paid (since the customer can say “I never got it, I’m not paying”) or a dissatisfied customer who receives food that has been sitting under the heat lamps for hours (or else sitting around at room temp, becoming unsafe)? And probably blames the restaurant, not the deliverer. My understanding is Doordash really screws the restaurants as well https://www.cpr.org/2021/05/19/restaurants-are-fed-up-with-grubhub-doordash-and-others-now-theyve-got-legislators-on-their-side/ We always call the restaurant directly or make sure we’re on their actual website and see if they have an order link, who they want to use If there’s a local alternative for deliveries we use that.

So riffing along your points….Yeah, Poyer and Hyde have the mind-meld going for sure. So taking him out of that mind-meld duo would seem to lessen us at Safety. On the other hand, Damned Straight that part of the ‘secret sauce’ of the Bills D has been that Milano could really cover, and both Johnson and Poyer could play DB like a ‘backer. So Poyer has been “taking the life” out of himself, by being willing to play hard like that for years…but it seems as though he’s really lost range this year, though maybe it’s just recovering from his week 3 knee injury that kept him out week 4. An alternative view point would be maybe playing Poyer like a WLB will extend his playing window, because otherwise maybe as he meshes in more (I know LA fans would throw up in their mouths at the notion) Rapp might be playing better at safety? I didn’t think Poyer had particular problems game 2 and 3 (before injury). I thought he struggled some when he came back, ‘playing himself healthy’ was my take. But he’s definitely lost some speed and range, so maybe putting him closer to the LOS and letting him thump is more helpful than wicked? I agree that Bernard has fit in surprisingly well. I thought Williams has shown flashes, but obviously the coaches decided he needs to go “back in the pot” to cook some more. I just hope Benford’s hammy is nothing serious, and I hope Douglas comes on board quickly because frankly, I don’t seen Benford and Jackson as quite “good enough”. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow…… Is that why there were “plumber’s candles” on your Cupcakes? 😘

Um…. Dude, if your manner of reacting is to attack, there IS no practical difference between attacking and reacting. I’ve been here a long time with a couple previous screen names (no, I wasn’t banned). I’ve seen fans of other teams come and go many a time. I’ve seen them come with respect, and be respected and well regarded in turn. I’ve seen them come in hot and been asked by a mod in PM and/or by other posters to tone it down and turn to having great football convo, I’ve seen them come in hot and stay hot and get the bum’s rush out the door. I’ll say this. You’re essentially telling me your only conversational tool is a hammer. As the saying goes, “when your only tool is a hammer, Everything looks like a Nail.” There’s a lot of room between being pugnacious and attacking in response to a bit of snark, vs “shut up, bend over, and take it”. I don’t find it necessary to be rude or go around attacking people, but I’d like to think most folks here know that doesn’t mean they’re gonna have a ‘battle of wits” with an unarmed person if they choose to take me on and I choose to respond. But I feel no requirement to respond; I will, if it suits my mood and purpose. I won’t, if it doesn’t. That doesn’t mean I’m “bending over and taking it”, it’s a message board ferCripesakes. No one is going to push your face in the sand or kick sand in it if you focus on what you say you came for, which is football talk.

What did you think of the strategy of going to Dime and bringing Poyer up while putting Rapp at safety

If a player sits out a practice with an injury, the correct designation is “DNP” not limited. If Benford sat out the entire practice but was listed as “limited”, that would be a violation with the league. The Bills listed Benford on injury report with a “hamstring” and designated him “limited”. Most people would consider that definitive that Benford in fact has some form of hamstring injury which allowed him to practice, but kept him from completing the practice in full. No need to “suspect” anything

The point is, these aren’t fans who don’t appreciate “how hard it is to find an open guy on a broken play” pointing this out. These are guys who have played professional NFL ball and/or college ball/coached, and who well understand the details of how offensive plays are designed and what the normal order of reads is, who understand the details of defensive coverage, and who are pointing out things like “the rail route is usually the first read on this play because the mesh routes are designed to interfere with the rail defender, and that was wide open and Josh had time to hit it. Instead he flushed to the L, signaled the TE to improvise by running down the sideline, and made the play”. That's great when it works, big gain, but when it doesn't, it's 3 and out while the Rail route was the "easy" button to a 1D on 3rd and 4. Or people like Greg Cosell who has forgotten more nuances of QB play than I’ll ever know, saying “I thought the curl to Davis was the right read on that play”. The man spends his life evaluating QB play and breaking down film and is widely respected all over the league. So yeah, I don’t think it should be blown off in this case as “oh, these podcast guys just don’t understand how hard it is to play QB in the NFL”. With guys like Kurt Warner and JT O’Sullivan, they clearly understand how hard it is - they’ve done it.

I apologize that I lack the energy about it to go back and look, but I thought you were saying basically everything was hunky-dory for this game, couldn't be better. I don't think a QB with a sore shoulder on his throwing arm who DNP one day exactly 'bodes well'. The GM basically saying "OK, we need help at CB, DT, and RB" but not having those guys in the building with enough time to really learn their roles is also an issue. I'm not saying those will be causes to lose the game, I'm just saying that I think there are several factors that don't bode well, that handicap us.

People were getting annoyed because he was behaving in a way we generally consider trollish, while saying he's just here for good football talk. Slinging insults around, being kinda pugnacious. He seems to have backed it down several notches now.

We start Benford and Jackson. My guess is Norman is there primarily to take some of Cam Lewis ST snaps in case something happens and he has to come in at CB. Damar Hamlin may be active also, for ST and in case we need a 2nd backup safety if Lewis is already playing. Great question of course is whether or not Rasul Douglas is active this week. Well, Gosh, I guess we might as well forfeit the game, pack up, and head back to Buffalo.

The problem the Bills faced, is that they started with a hampered Jordan Poyer and then their 3rd string safety, Jaquan Johnson who was mostly a ST guy and a step below Damar Hamlin. Then Poyer went out, and they played about 1/5 of the game with Johnson and Cam Lewis, who was primarily a DB at that point, at Safety. There's a limit to how many disguises you can pull off when you're playing with 3rd string players who aren't used to either playing with each other, or to actual game snaps on defense. Sure, "next man up", but rinse and repeat too many times and you wind up with weak soup. Similar issue on the DL, where we went into the game with both our rotational 3TDT injured and our primary 1TDT out. Limit to how much stunting you can effectively pull off effectively with 3rd stringers and guys playing out of position. Yes, McDermott will likely be more aggressive. They changed safety coaches in the off-season in part to be able to disguise coverage better - teams were reading our nickel last year. In addition, Frazier openly said in pressers that he didn't like to make too many changes because he thought the players would lose faith in the coaches and the game prep if he changed the game plan. McDermott is more 'well that didn't work, let's try this' I think we're only adding 1 DT, basically to fill in for DaQuan Jones.

Except that several "film room guys" and a coach have broken down play after play and shown that Allen in fact has alternatives on many (not all) plays

McDermott had a plan to collapse the interior pocket last year. It was called Ed Oliver and DaQuan Jones. Jones was out for the playoff game, and Oliver was playing in a LB brace. Jordan Phillips was playing hampered and saw minimal snaps. So McDermott, perforce, started the game trying to collapse the pocket with Tim Settle and Eli Ankou, and also tried injured Ed Oliver and Boogie Basham, who got swapped to the Giants for a case of frozen pizza dough. Also to take into account, we started the game with injured Jordan Poyer and Dean Marlowe at safety, then turned to Jaquan Johnson and Cam Lewis. Our starting CBs were Tre White and Kaiir Elam (you know, the guy who's been a healthy scratch this season?). And Tre White was not playing well at the end of last season. Were you watching the same game I was? The Fuq?

That's consistent of you, but many in the media do not give the QB a pass - which is why Burrows isn't getting one. You might not be, but several Bengals players very notably are. Ja'mar Chase and Tee Higgins I believe? They seem determined to use the out of context words of a minor player no longer on the team to rev themselves up. I think after the Jets game, Josh had a come-to-Jesus meeting with the coaching staff (and probably with himself, since he comes across as self-aware). There was an interception in the Jax game on the 7 yd line that cost us. Strange decision to throw that. It wasn't in the red zone, and it was on 3rd and 15 from the Buf 41, so one philosophy there is "why not take a shot?" but within the structure of the offense, he might have had a short throw that would gain 7-8 yds on 2nd down and another that could convert. It's not just turnovers, or redzone turnovers. It's decisions to roll out and operate outside the structure of the offense, when there are easy plays to be made for easy 1st downs within the structure of the offense. Those plays aren't always there, but sometimes they are and Josh overlooks them.

I don't think it's just that he's won a Superbowl. Burrow seems to be more of a system QB, by which I mean nothing negative, just that he's shown he can play effectively and consistently within the structure of the offensive play design (system), take advantage of his elite weapons, and effectively use what the defense gives him. And he does have 3 elite receiving weapons and the support of a strong run game. Allen to date has at times played within the structure of the offensive play design and taken advantage of what the defense gives him, but he also goes outside the playbook and creates when he doesn't have to at times. This is a double edged sword. He can be brilliant, and he can also contribute majorly to the loss of the game. I think both to elevate his game to the next level, AND to be perceived as a top QB, Allen needs to show mastery of operating within the structure of the offense on a more consistent basis.

Well, for starters, a QB who doesn't DNP Weds with a sore shoulder. Don't you think an uninjured starting QB could be a key factor? Josh has been bad mentally in several games, starting with the opener at the Jets.

It wasn't a stomping, but I thoroughly enjoyed Sept 25, 2011. There the Pats were, leading 24-17 going into the 4th Q after getting ahead 21-0 at the start of the 2Q FredEx, a Drayton Florence (who?) pick 6, and they're losing 31-24. Then they tied it up, and we're all "oh, here we go again with 'just give it to them' or its cousin", but one FG later they got to boo-hoo on home. I forget what it was, but it was supposed to be some sort of milestone game for the Pats if they won. 16-0 in 2016 with Brissett at QB was not nearly as sweet