Beck Water

Yep. Rams too. Last year was #4 vs #4

Twice even. Next Fall.

Levy said similar when people would compare football to war. Something like "I've served during a war. Football is a game."

Eh, I think you can score all of those games as "games in which the Bills were beaten". In Miami, we missed two chances to punch it in from the red zone. The Vikings played in similar heat stroke conditions and won. You could say we sort of choked in the Jets game as well - Josh threw two bad "brain fart" picks one in the red zone on 2nd and 10, we missed a FG, Davis had a chance at a catch that could have given us a chance to tie. We definitely had our chances. Their D did give our OL fits though. On D, we learned some stuff about the limitations of our then-backups at OLB and safety. I think the Dolphins will be dangerous as long as they have a QB who can get Hill and Waddle the ball. But this concussion business with Tua makes it look as though he might not be that guy. I do agree that the Jets have some very good young talent on D, a better OL than they've played with this season due to IR, and at least 1 good WR.

TBH I think that says more about Kyle Shanahan and the SF offensive system than about Brock Purdy. Shanahan managed some wins with Nick Mullins and CJ Beathard too. They rush almost as many attempts as they pass; they achieve 4.7 yds per attempt, which moves the chains. More than half (55%) of their passing yards are YAC. The QB basically needs to work within the offense efficiently and know where to go with the ball, generally with time to get it there. In contrast, the Jets have a poor run game and are mediocre at YAC in the pass game. I think Mike White would kill it as the QB in San Francisco. I think Zach Wilson may be one of those unfortunate "Big Man on Campus" type QB who starts believing his own hype train when he's drafted high in the NFL, and doesn't feel the need to keep his head down and grind as hard as he needs to. I could be mistaken, that's just the vibe I get from him The first Jets game? Seriously? Seems to me there might be a few more things that went into that. OL giving up 5 sacks, defense giving up 174 rush yards, missed FG, that kind of thing. We've won 3 of 5 games in which Josh threw 2 interceptions.

We're far more specific than that. We love NWE, Dolphin, and Jets fans pain so much, in that order.

I'm picking on you guys, but I'd really like to understand the thought process when people say things like this. Shakir has a 50% catch rate. 9 catches on 18 targets. 18 targets on 260 snaps. If, in 260 snaps, Allen has only seen an opening to target him 18 times of which he has caught 9, why do you want to see him more involved? Hines has 6 carries for -3 yards. That's arguably not his fault, but it arguably doesn't show he's "deadly with the ball in his hands" either. He has 5 receptions on 9 targets for 53 yds, a 55.6% catch rate. This is on 63 snaps, so it's not like he's never been on the field. Now I'll grant that in those 53 yds, 45 of them are YAC for 9 YAC/reception, so he is getting YAC. But ~half of them come on one reception vs. NWE. I want to love Hines and Shakir, I do - I'm just wondering what you guys see that leads you to the conclusion that the Bills wouldn't involve them more if they were in position to be more involved, especially Shakir.

This has been, IMO, a slightly promising development of recent. Bills have lined up in a heavy set with an extra OLman then throw.

With all respect, when we watched the Bills in pre-season and opening day against the Rams, many of us thought our run game looked very promising. But that didn't last. I think the bottom line is that we can run well against weak DLs, but we're still struggling to run between the tackles against top DLs. Unfortunately the Bengals fall into the "top DL" category, so I'm not anticipating 250 yds, but I'm hopeful that between the Vikings the Browns and the Lions, we've identified some run strategies that can work. Against the Browns, we rushed for 171 yds - of which Allen had 7 He's just a short armed blocker ATM because he's not getting open. He's not getting releases when he plays on the line, he's not decoding the zone correctly when he's playing against zone, he's not beating his guy when he's playing against man. This is from what I've seen, and I'll make the caveat that I haven't watched all-22 of every game nor does NFL+ make it easy to pull out individual plays. Agreed, that was a sick move. I think the correct term is "progressing" How many of those throws do you want him to haul in?

Morris can get a good release off the line, and run really good routes, too. when OBL had Cosell on he commented "that's a very good route for a TE" on a couple of Morris clips. It's because he's a converted WR of course. His TE skills like blocking are still coming up to speed, though.

I do think that Daboll had an ability to beat that out of Josh that Dorsey and Joe Brady somehow lack.

So here's the paradox: Josh CAN do it. He did it against Miami Week 3. He did it against KC Week 6. And he did it against NE week 13 to the point of making Bill Belicheck look like a fool - his defense was set up to prevent Josh from racking up long runs and to prevent deep throws. And Josh smiled sweetly, handed off to the RBs, and It's like he does it when it's in our game plan and those are his "marching order" from the start, so we know he CAN do it.

Part of that is, Josh seeks the deep throws and when he does take the checkdown the space has closed around the checkdown receiver. QBs who get lots of YAC are taking the checkdown early in the play when there's a 10 yd cushion. I don't doubt you, but I'd like to know where the stat on this is 'cuz, can't find. Link please? Um....the reason the GM is being asked to sign guys off the couch (not practice squad) is because we have 2 receivers on IR I had hopes for Hines also, but when a guy is buried on the depth chart for a "meh" team (#4 or 5) at both receiver and RB, it doesn't argue that he's Eckler or CMC in waiting. I would like this 1000x if I could Which INT last week are you talking about?

I do watch other games and see receivers haul in contested balls that I think our guys don't manage, and I do feel envious. On the other hand, it has to be realized that there's some cause-and-effect involved. Brady and some other QB play in timing offenses, hit your drop, make the throw most of the time. Since these are often shallow/intermediate throws, it kind of opens up the deep game.

https://www.nfl.com/news/daniel-jones-gets-standing-ovation-as-giants-return-to-postseason-a-special-mome Anyway, congrats to Brian Daboll on reaching the playoffs his first season. But playoffs at 9-6-1 and #3 in their division? Who would have thought?

Yeah, seemed as though the after-game shows started out proclaiming the Chiefs the #1 seed. Then someone must have poked them and they started saying "if the Bills do win in Cinncinnati, they become the #1 seed again" I thought it was kind of reluctant. Some people say it's hard to beat a team on hat-and-t-shirt night For conspiracy, NFL-is-rigged theorists, though: -on the one hand, my sense is that the NFL really wants to see the Chiefs #1 -on the other hand, if the Bengals lose, they will be playing the Ravens next week, in Cinncinnati, for the division title. And I'm pretty sure the NFL wants as many meaningful Week 18 games as possible. So maybe we'll get a fairly called game.

I think it's looking better than we've had for like, a month.

And be sure they got enough jelly. Have the dental floss ready next to the orange slices.

Thunderstorms usually mean wind, but if it's actually thunderstorming, I would expect them to delay the game as they did in KC one year

Yeah, I actually had to go look because I thought people would blame that 5 game losing streak on playing without Tua. But 4 of the 5 losses were 100% Tua.

OK, fair POV He wouldn’t be the first QB whose performance was significantly downgraded by contact with McDaniels

Well, I do, but that may have nothing to do with what’s best for the Bills in the playoff picture.

Say more about this, because I have the impression that Saleh is a man of pretty deep integrity and would have sorted this kind of thing before he signed on. I could be totally wrong of course Do you really trust Derek Carr as a starting QB? He can play brilliantly but he can also play ….um, not brilliantly

I can agree with that. We need an upgrade at WR this off season, maybe 2 upgrades To be fair, that was the same problem both Beasley and John Brown had against the more physical, press man coverage teams in 2019. There’s only so much a short, 170-180 lb receiver can do to compete for a ball with a bigger, heavier back. Davis, though, has the 6’2” 210 lb frame that he should be able to compete for contested balls. Persuasive!

A number of both Davis and McKenzie’s completions are secondary route concepts aka “scramble drills” aka the receiver “helping the QB” by giving him a target when the play breaks down