Beck Water

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!

See examples above Also Eagles last year 0-2 with Minshew - supports your contention Ravens 2-2 under Tyler Huntly - supports it San Francisco 5-0 with Brock Purdy and plausibly, one torn UCL from contending in that playoff game - argues against your contention Cowboys 4-1 under Cooper Rush argues against it

Looking at the backup QBs on the Indy roster when Peyton was there, that was certainly true. On the other hand...Denver got to the Superbowl they won with Peyton, on the strength of going 5-2 under Brock Osweiler. And, Philly won in 2017 on the strength of going 2-1 with Nick Foles then 3-0 in the playoffs. So a competent backup QB can be critical to a championship, and it's a piece I don't think we have this year. This...but also, I have to say I think Kyle Allen may have come in presuming a little bit on his prior experience training with Barkley and Josh off-season, and not felt "OMG if I'm gonna make it there I'm gonna really have to put my head down and grind". Barkley, on the other hand, sees this as his best and maybe last chance to start some games for the first time in 3 years - he's no longer clear 3rd string to Trubisky and to Keenum - and he seems to be full-go

Woaoh!!!! "Sun's Out, Guns Out" someone was not skipping arm workouts this off season!!!!! He intends to hold his own in the hand fighting! I think it had to do with Beasley having locked down the slot until last season, and then Dorsey basically not using pre-snap motion much at all last year. Diggs did play in the slot a lot last season, but in general as many have noted pre- and post-snap motion was much rarer than previous seasons.

It's correct that McDermott has not always played a 4-2-5 or "nickel" defense. It's also correct that he hasn't always played the "little to no dime" defense. That is personnel driven by the fact that Milano is so good in pass coverage and that Taron Johnson can function as a linebacker in run fits that allow us to use a 4-2-5 base. However, the idea that 4-2-5 or "nickel" was "new" to McDermott during the 2020 season is just factually incorrect. So is the idea that the Bills are playing this defense because they don't have 3 quality LB, rather than because they feel it is the best match for most of the teams they face in today's pass-heavy NFL. And I don't know how to put it tactfully, but the stuff in your post I responded to "They started 3 LBs well into the 2020 season, McD's 4th season." "We officially started 3 LBs into McD's 4th season and only switched mid-season. " is straight-out verifyably Incorrect. Taron Johnson played the overwhelming majority of the snaps - >75% --- in the first eight games of the season with the exception of vs LVR (72%) and Tenn (56%). He played slightly more snaps (>90%) for a 3 game stretch while Milano was on IR, then actually saw his snaps drop a bit the last few games of the season - not because we were playing a 4-3, we weren't, but because Siran Neal and sometimes Dean Marlowe was splitting the snaps with him. You trend to post very definitive sounding posts in which you claim to be factual and definitive, but (as in this instance) are sometimes just mistaken, and frankly that IMHO casts doubt upon your other claims, which I don't have energy into tracking down at the moment - just saying it how it was. PS I'll take on this: "Remember, Milano still hadn't come into his own as an all-around top LB yet, he was excellent in passing D, but a liability in the running D dept.". This is nonsense. Milano was a very developed, mature LB in 2020, his 4th year in the league, because he was a "thumper" in the run game as well as a strong coverage LB. He was a pending free agent that off-season and widely expected to have great interest and to claim a price the Bills wouldn't be able to match, had he not made the decision to stay here. As Beane said "the only knock on Matt, and he's aware of it himself, is injuries"

Are you suggesting that the Bills have been a primarily nickle team "because we don't have 3 starting caliber LBs"? I don't think that makes sense. Nothing has stopped McBeane from throwing resources (cap $$,high draft picks) at other positions on defense. It seems logical that if they wanted an upgrade at LB for a 3rd starter, they would have spared no effort to obtain one. Moreover, in Klein, the Bills have had a LB who started in New Orleans for 3 years and made 11 starts for the Bills his first year here (as a replacement for Milano, who was injured, and occasionally in a 4-3 base D). In Dobson, they have a LB who they regard as a potential MLB starter. A lot of teams play primarily nickel these days because of the primacy of the NFL passing game.

Um, Wat? 'Zo Alexander retired after 2019. So he didn't "not start" because he was slowing down, he was not on the team in any role. Who "starts" a game for McDermott with a heavy rotation, is often not a useful question, but by 2020, we were very strongly a nickel team and No, we did NOT start 3 LB well in to the 2020 season. Taron Johnson started the first 3 games of 2020 and played 72% of the 4th and 56% of the 5th (in which S Dean Marlowe actually took the starting snaps at NCB). In the games where Taron was healthy, he was starting and playing more like 85% of the snaps. We went into the 2020 season primarily playing a 2 LB set. So it makes no sense to say "we went to a 2 LB set because Klein has never been a reliable starter" when Klein not only actually started 11 games for the Bills that year, he played the overwhelming majority of snaps in 7 of those 11 starts (low of 69%, 88-100% in 5). "Klein has never been a reliable starter", riiiiiight, that's why he started 12, 15, and 15 games for NOR the 3 years before joining Buffalo in 2020 and why he won DPOW in 2020 Week 9. I think you might be confused by seeing Trent Murphy listed as a LB, and starting - but he was really playing a DE role, and listed as a LB in some services. But the Bills considered him as a DE and that's how he played, in a rotation with Jerry Hughes, Bam Johnson, and Quintin Jefferson. Although that really should be clear by looking at some box scores. So no, "how you laid it out" is not "exactly the circumstances", it has a lot of the details of how the Bills were playing defense in 2020 factually incorrect.

Factually, Wyatt Teller started 7 games (week 10 on) at LG his rookie season for the Bills. He replaced Vlad "the impaler" Ducasse. He didn't look like "all that" between Dawkins and Russell Bodine at C, but I'm not sure anyone would have looked like "all that" next do Russell Bodine at C in Juan Castillo's blocking scheme.

"we were wrong" is assuming two things: 1) that Teller would have been as good of a blocking scheme fit in Buffalo for Bobby Johnson and Aaron Kromer and developed the same way in B'lo as he did in Cleveland (which I think it more of a power gap team) 2) that the Bills didn't recognize Teller as a potentially talented G (but not a fit for the positional flexibility they demanded of backups) when they traded him I personally give those 0 for 2 but I also think drafting O'cyrus Torrence is somewhat of an admission that perhaps acquiring and developing 2 guys who are very talented guards is necessary, and that valuing positional flexibility over all has its limitations.

That's a strange way to look at it. -Poyer was signed in 2017 -Teller was drafted in 2018 and traded before the 2019 season -In team building, the team evaluates position groups against the other members of that position group. So, logically, Teller was traded because Bobby Johnson and the FO rated him as lower than the other IOL talent they had in 2019: Quinton Spain, Jon Feliciano, Mitch Morse, Spencer Long, Ike Boettger and Ryan Bates. Spain and Feliciano started, along with Morse. Long was the backup C with proven NFL starts. So fundamentally it came down to the Bills evaluating Ike Boettger and Ryan Bates as better prospects for their OL than Wyatt Teller. Both were felt to have more positional flexibility and to be a better scheme fit for Bobby Johnson. Maybe that evaluation was mistaken; mistakes happen.

Being multiple and matchup specific in personnel can become a "tell" if you let it But if we're playing Dodson for his superior run D....we gotta come up with another wrinkle in coverage, cuz that boy can't cover

Hopefully the Bills have learned their lesson about counting on a dark horse who "wins the preseason"

If the Ravens are doing everything they can to get Lamar up to the level of the "true superstar QBs" then why are they not letting the QBs wear wristbands? Brady. Brees. Mahomes. Rodgers. Allen. Burrows. They all wear wristbands. I was talking earlier to a friend about something I need to try to make. His advice was, watch a bunch of Youtube videos and if everyone else is doing it one way and that one guy is doing something completely different, consider very well if you want to pay attention to that guy.

Just a little note that the 51 man roster is a bizarro-world function of the NFL offseason. Why, no one seems to know. After the cutdown to the 53 man roster, all 53 AND the practice squad must be under the cap.

Well I'm not sure, but I think the Cliff Notes are "the plans for the new stadium suck because it isn't designed for MLS and rugby." Honorable mention to Ken and Barbie as apparent Bills fans, News to Me

You do know they both said that story was crap, right? Which Kelce?