Beck Water

The thing about Ray is his injury history and long hiatus from the NFL make one wonder if he's a pre-season warrior. Can he hold up? Kingsley is a player who looks as though he's improving I think the hope the Bills had when they drafted Basham was that he would be able to fill that play both inside and outside role that the Bills signed Quinton Jefferson to fill in 2020, only to see that possibility fade when Lotulelei opted out and the Bills were left scrambling to figure out who could play 1TDT. So far I haven't seen that come to fruition with Basham as the Bills hoped. Not sure on Lawson rotating inside - has he? Groot can be a monster there, I know.

So, Friday was in the Stadium, with 35,000 of Josh Allen's closest friends in attendence.... I wonder if on Friday, Allen was putting a bit more heat on his passes and that made them harder for the receivers to handle? If so, either they gotta get used to it....or Allen has to lengthen his Frank Sinatra playlist pre-game. Nonsense, he's adorable!

Oh now that's adorable!

Well, especially Micah Hyde closely followed by Jordan Poyer, but as I understand it - all of them. McKenzie was an equal opportunity trash talker.

Probably just attention seeking. Everyone knows if you dis Josh Allen or other Bills you can generally rile up Bills Mafia like a nest of hornets and generate clicks and views.

Although it does have to be pointed out (and this applies to Burrows as well) that "solid is as solid does". Allen does his O-line no favors at times; if he took the short pass and the checkdown more at times, his line would look better. I mean, I'm not saying they'd magically look great, but they'd look average or a bit better. And Spencer Brown would still be an issue.

I know Dawkins hasn't been all we hoped last season or so far this preseason, but considering the alternatives that's a real AwShit moment. That's what we want to see and hear about from Kincaid. Although it's not good evidence that Dodson is able to fill the coverage aspect of the MLB role.

Yeah, I mean, Bill Belicheck used to hold that opinion of Allen - that he would try to beat you with his legs, that he would go for the deep stuff and could be baited into mistakes. That opinion changed on Saturday January 15, 2022. Allen has now had 3 consecutive seasons well over 4000 passing yards, with 138 passing TD and 60 INT. We are well past the days when opposing defenders would say "we need to keep him in the pocket and make him be a QB". Lamar Jackson's best passing year was just over 3,000 yds. The rest have been 2,000-ish. Open question "can he beat you from the pocket"? Jalen Hurts had a great season last year. Big step up in completion % to 67% and passing yards to 3700. Lots of passing TD, near the top of the league in INT %. The Eagles don't make the Superbowl without his big step as a passer. Datapoint of 1 season that "yes, yes he can beat you from the pocket".

Micah Hyde is a big believer in "speaking things into existence", for example with regard to INTs Wonder if that's what McD is trying here with Shakir, Bernard, and the backup QBs This is NOT good news on either part, but Allen sounds like maybe precautionary and prudent since he came back and threw. Dawkins, Not Good.

Nonsense on the "fighting daily" bit. Although this is the time of camp when guys are getting worn down and tempers will flair. But, if Sal Capaccio is tweeting during camp O'Halloran is probably OK

My understanding is the Bills rules for media access during practice is that they're not allowed to tweet live during the practice. I wonder if those rules don't apply during training camp, or, is O'Halloran going to get a trip to the woodshed from the Bills?

Wow. There are 32 defensive coordinators in the NFL (well...maybe 31?). So because a few of them have a bad take, that means a defensive minded head coach is bad? That's logical (Not!). I sure hope you don't have a position where people management and employee evaluation is part of the job,

Wow, you really are gunning for "most bad takes in a single thread". Matt Ryan is toast. He looked like toast in Atlanta, he looked burnt to a crisp last year in Indy. He doesn't have an arm anymore, he has no mobility, he acts like he dreads taking the hits he has to take without an arm or mobility, and he doesn't trust the arm he has. Other than that, he'd be great. Bridgewater and Chase Daniel are probably OK.

Maybe if a man who loves to play football says he's done and retires to watch his kids play soccer at the age of 40, we should believe that's where he's at in life and leave him be.

LOL. What I want to know is - there was clearly a "next level" with the Bills DB and Isaiah McKenzie at times, where he would trash talk them and in return, if he made a reception in practice they would get a little physical (clothesline him and take him to the ground) because they knew they were gonna hear about it, and hear about it, and hear about it some more. Now McKenzie is fighting for a roster spot on the Colts, is he gonna get "extra love" from our D?

Says "back soreness". Anything involving the anatomical part "back" is concerning.

They don't say. It was an anonymous survey, and some NFL DCs apparently put Allen in the 2nd tier of QB they'd like to face.

Alert the Media, there are still coaches who don't believe in Dual Threat QB in the NFL. This is what was said: Time will tell.

LOL. Brady is a unicorn. I didn't see how bringing him up would make the case. I don't think Tennessee is quite ready to cut him loose. I'm kind of thinking they keep their eyes peeled around the league and look for a trade partner for Tannehill if they like Will Levis. Or they might think he needs a year (I think he could be the next Peterdude, myself) and cut Willis, who knows.

So there's no mysterious "somehow" about it. Allen was far from ready. Peterman had a great preseason - we all saw it. At the slower pace and lower defensive quality of preseason games, he was making all the reads and enough of the throws. And don't overlook that Daboll likely had a learning curve as our OC. I suspect that at the whiteboard and in the film room, Peterman is unmatched. He's still in the league, you know. 2 seasons with the Raiders, now in his 2nd season with the Bears. I call what Peterman must have, "Catnip for Coaches". Other than naughty pics of 3 different coaching staffs, there's no other explanation. He can probably learn a playbook and understand what the correct read is given the defense superfast and superwell - he just can't apparently do that in real time at regular season game speed, and his brain writes checks his noodle arm can't cash (as Fitzpatrick did at times). Then, people act like Allen came in all ready to be coachable and succeed. If one pays attention to various things that were said about him by Bohl (his coach at Wyoming) and even stories Allen himself tells - that isn't the case. Allen was hard-headed and would sometimes ignore coaching to do what he thought best, with disasterous results at times. Allen told a story about Daboll in one of his rookie training camp practices. The play call was he was supposed to throw to the running back in the flat. Instead he threw to the back corner of the endzone and "it didn't go too well" (it was picked). Daboll was furious and started yelling in Allen's headset. Allen came to the sideline and took his helmet off and Daboll came over and was still yelling. Went away, calmed down, thought it over some more and came back and yelled. And there was still yelling from Daboll going on the sidelines into 2019. This is Allen's story! He has also said he is embarrassed now to realize how little he knew about the Bills protections at that time. Eric Wood on one show intimated that between the Vikes game and the Green Bay game, Allen wasn't focused on a proper week of preparation. One of the reasons McDermott will absolutely bench rookies, or not start rookies, is if they aren't "being coachable" - listening to the coaches, following their assignment as laid out in the play call, taking direction about needed changes in technique. These are young, high-testosterone males who have suddenly become wealthy beyond most people's dreams, including most of the coaches and coaching assistants. And like Allen, some of them have succeeded against all odds, and sometimes they did so by "tuning out the noise" (including coaching) and following their own path. It's no surprise that sometimes it's tough for the coaches to get their attention. One of the only tools the coaches have to get their attention, is to say "you're gonna sit and watch until you're ready to listen and learn". These guys love ball, and it hurts them to sit and watch, especially if they think they could do it better (and as Talley said, if you don't have an ego you don't belong on the field). And yeah, Allen tore his UCL his rookie season, but I think he was kept on the bench a bit longer than he could have been, because they wanted him to watch and learn how to prepare properly and get into a proper routine as demonstrated by Anderson and Barkley. Did the FO totally mishandle the QB room in 2018, and did the coaches tremendously mis-evaluate whether Peterman could start? Yeah, they did. There should have been an experienced vet in there from the start. With Elam, it was pretty much spelled out that the reason he was benched during his rookie year was freelancing and seeking picks at the expense of his assignment. One of the Athletic guys did a feature. With Cook, it wasn't just the fumble. McDermott said about him in a presser, something to the effect of "he's starting to learn that what you practice, carries over into the game. Very seldom does it happen that you play well after practicing differently". If that wasn't pointed I don't know what is.

Awesome post! Thank you for putting this together! This was educational for me - I was under the impression Rousseau had not started his rookie year but after your comment about Elam, I looked it up and learned he had started all 17 games. Taron Johnson's 40% is a little bit deceptive. He was inactive his second game, then inactive/IR the last 4 (injury). And his first game and one other, he played only 21% of the snaps. But the rest of the games, he was playing >50% of the snaps, up to 92% (he was playing nickel)

response: Me: waaaaat? asparagus and broccoli, properly cooked, are both delish!