Beck Water

Now that was pretty. You can’t get better coverage and it was placed just right

And just like that, Pickett to Pickens connects!!!1 But is Pickett hurt?

PITTSBURGH GOT A FIRST DOWN!!!!!!!!

Changing the topic to the game, How many 1st downs does Pittsburgh have? Is it still….one? Harris hearing footfalls on that one

Chubb has also been trucking guys who try to go high. Again, not defending Fitzpatrick but point is things happen very fast

I’m not defending Fitzpatrick as a totally clean guy, but plays are pretty bang-bang. I think bodies are flying before it registers “oh, he’s being tackled”

They wouldn’t get on Josh’s case about it if he made one error. It’s when Josh channels the Wasatch Brewing Company Polygamy Porter motto “why have just one?” that he rightly draws criticism Mahomes had a 3 INT game just last season, vs Denver. But the Chiefs won, so it wasn’t seen as a big issue.

It’s already been Dr Poyer and Mr Hyde for years as a play on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

So, 4th and 16, do they go for it 👿? NO GOOD! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTT!

Huge mistakes by the Steelers, Gunner O staying in bounds with the catch and then that bad decision by Pickett

Chubb is doing to Steelers defenders what I fear seeing strong, physical RBs do to Terell Bernard. That said the Bills seem to flow to the ball and assist better than the Steelers have been doing so far.

Hmmm yes I can see your point there Niiiiiice pass defense. C’mon Pickett let’s see you charge!

Wow, Steelers positioned to tackle in the backfield and he still gets 7 That Brown receiver got like 4 yds assisted by the Steelers defender wrestling him down Also, Steelers defense needs Hayward in the middle

Anyone still chant “you sick *****” every time they see Watson’s face on screen? Or are we past it? I think he gets his share of the blame. Not on the same page with his receiver.

To be fair to Von and the training staff, IIRC Von's initial MRI and exam were negative, and the torn Achilles wasn't found until he decided to have a little clean up procedure on his knee cartilage to help him play with a brace.

Great writeup, as often, Virgil. You touched on a lot of positive points I took from that game. Super optimistic about many things - the run game, the patience displayed by Josh (most of the time), the performance of Terrell Bernard, the run defense, the pass rush, the better performance by the OL in both run blocking and pass pro And you touched on a number of my caveats: One of the things that bothered me about last week vs. Jets, we had a 13-3 lead at the half and 10-3 midway through the 2nd Q. While one doesn't want to take one's foot off the gas, with a lead, there was no need to 'press" or be Superman, except perhaps to impress the Madden junkies. But the Jets defense was fierce to us, and frustrating - the Raiders defense was 'meh' last season despite Maxx Crosby, and so far it looks "meh" this season. I, too, would like to see a performance like this from Josh against one of the league's best defenses or, a defense that is very familiar with us and can frustrate Josh. And I, too, felt that we still have work to do on that red zone offense that did not measure up last season. I do not want to see us as the Cowboys, winning 30-10 but with 15 of those points off field goals because they couldn't punch it in. I think that works when you're playing a team that pulled its former 1st round QB off the bench and that gift-wrapped turnovers to you 4x, but maybe it doesn't work so well when you're facing an elite offense. Of course, we are not the Cowboys, we scored 5 TD to 1 FG, punted once, and only TOD once. But I'm with you, I felt we should have scored 7 TD and TOD neveh, so Future Goals. I can 100% see it a handful of times. 3-5 say.

Just looking at the snap counts, we can't have used that many 3 TE sets?

To be fair to the players, they are speaking after the game while they still have all the adrenaline and endorphins rolling through their systems. So likely they don't even feel their injuries. It's really not until 24-48 hrs have passed that the trainers get to reasonably assess how serious the injury truly is, after whatever swelling is gonna occur, occurs. Of course, both Hyde and Floyd are veterans and know to hit the training room and take advantage of every treatment they can to minimize swelling and "get right", whereas some of the younger guys feel invincible and just hit the clubs and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

Well, my eyeball test watching the televised film can be deceptive, but relative to last week I thought Dorsey called -a lot more plays under center (not hard since wk 1 was like all shotgun) -a lot more play action (again not hard since not used much wk 1) Personnel wise -less snaps from Davis - 94% last week, 74% this week. Some of this is probably "resting the starters in 4Q", but some is taking him off the field -more snaps for Sherfield 16% last week, 41% this week. Some of these are probably "resting the starters in 4Q", but I'd say 25-29% is using him more -Kincaid saw a drop in snaps from 80% to 60%, again, some "resting the starters" but perhaps some using Sherfield from the slot instead of Kincaid? He is a rookie and expected to have some growing pains. It will be interesting to see the Commanders game. They are 2-0 and would love to go 3-0 on our shoulders. Ron Rivera should have the Book on McDermott's defensive tendencies. On the other hand, McDermott has some Book on Rivera, and will be highly motivated to beat his old mentor/HC. Plus, despite how they looked against Dallas, I do think the Jets are a better team than either Broncos and certainly than Cardinals.

So there are a couple of interesting things in the snap counts. First off, you're exactly right, a lot of backups (Neal, Lewis, Jackson, Williams, Jackson, Rapp) got 15% of the snap counts while a lot of the starters (Poyer, Hyde, Bernard ,White, Milano) played 85%. Lawson got 48% of the snaps last week, so it's reasonable to think that his 60% may reflect getting about 12% more snaps from staying in when the starters went out. He's also a better run defender, so it's possible he was part of the Bills game plan for stopping the run. A Couple other things that struck me - Taron Johnson had 5% fewer snaps than the other starters, while Dodson had 5% more than the other backups (20% vs 15%). -Rapp had the same amount of snaps as the other backups. I didn't notice during the game, but it looks as though the Bills may have played about 5% base 3-4 D. Last week, they brought in Rapp for Johnson and apparently decided that didn't work as well as they hoped, or wasn't as situationally appropriate for this game vs last year's rushing yards leader -Jordan Phillips played fewer snaps this week than last, while Poona Ford and Tim Settle played more. Does that reflect taking out starters, or does it reflect opponent-specific adjustment? Phillps as we know has a tendency to be too aggressive in penetration at the expense of gap integrity against the run

Not according to Micah Hyde

He reminds SUNY_amherst of Romanowski because the former is a poor excuse for a troll. No logic or rational words will reach him for that reason. Just sayin'.

What do fans actually know about a player's on-field and practice behavior and demeanor? Hyde has said Milano is the biggest trash-talker on the team. Defensive players from various teams teams have said that Allen is a big trash talker and our OLmen have talked about the need to get down there quickly to keep things calm "just let the kid talk". 15 yard penalties are always very costly, but 1) let's be real - the root problem here isn't Matt's penalty, it's the fact that what constitutes "taunting" is ill-defined and a moving target, depending upon how that crew of refs or even individual ref sees it. So what a player says or does one week or on one part of the field is fine, and the next week or on a different part of the field, it's a penalty. And that's part of a larger problem: the NFL doesn't do enough to standardize refereeing and to make it consistent, or to enforce any consequences on consistently bad refs. 2) I personally find it sick that a player got almost as big of a penalty for "taunting" as another player got for fouls that could have concussed a player or injured them severely, and more than for tripping which again, could have injured a player severely. Milano hasn't gotten that many interceptions before his 3 last season, so I'm sure he was pumped. I'm sure the coaches had words for him, because I do agree with you that it was costly.

I thought that should have been a penalty I thought Q Williams landing on Allen's head when he was already down last week should have been a penalty.

That would be a huge failure of the protocol if it was the Bills coaching staff. With an unaffiliated neurological consultant up in the booth watching plays and medical professionals on both sidelines, should not be coaches pointing these things out. Edit: confirmed that it wasn't Bills coaches, was officials acting on spotting from UNC.