Beck Water

LOL where does the "subliminal" part come into it? Joe Burrow has made some legitimate elite big-boy throws in the playoffs. I don't want to dunk on him at all. He's very talented, but even talented QB get shut down at times by strong D. One could argue the Bills got "bailed out" by our D, not last year but in the 2020 playoffs especially vs. the Ravens. I think we get fed up at times because of the media narratives. There are a bunch of football fans who hop on the bandwagon and start paying attention only during college championships and playoffs and maybe the draft, so the narratives mesh in nicely with that.

It would be interesting to know what those "clearly obviously WRONG things this year" might be. From what I can see, Dorsey has done a fairly solid job for his first year ever as OC. He makes use of less trickery-dickery than Daboll did, but that's not always a bad thing - people forget about that trick play lateral to Devin Singletary off to the L from the Pittsburgh 5 yd line, resulting in a fumble OOB (thankfully) and a FG vs a TD. Trick plays don't always work and they may pose a distraction from executing fundamentals. Don't forget about Josh Allen up the middle for no gain on 4th and 1 at the end of the Tennessee loss. Last regular season, we had 5 one-score games and we lost every one. Let's not forget that. In 3 of those losses, the Defense gave up 23, 9, and 14 points, which more fingers the offense for being unable to score enough. This season, we've had 8 one score games, and we've won 5, which is a substantial improvement. I wouldn't want to deny that there are things I believe Dorsey could do differently, and better, but I also think there are ways in which his offense overall executes better than Daboll's did. I think there's a lot of recency bias in comparing Dorsey and Daboll, and, of course, Daboll had 4 years to evolve as an OC.

The defense did blow that game. Yes, there was a fumble, but each team had 1 TO. The 2 HOU TD drives that let them take the lead started at the HOU 25 and 26 yd lines. Obviously it's on the offense too, but it was a total team loss not some kind of offensive meltdown.

Ah, OK, thanks for clarifying! That seems like a stat which ought to be available, but, I’m not sure where. Do you know a source for these stats?

Just a little point that Josh has 16 fumbles and has lost 6 of them, which is a bit ahead of the 50/50 odds these things are supposed to have, and supports maybe "average" luck?

They've managed to put together a very talented team though. I don't think it was all FA signings.

One of Cosell's comments is actually that there's no "synchronicity" (his word) between the Bills running game and passing game - meaning that there aren't connections between the run plays and pass plays they run where defending the threat of one opens up the other.

https://www.buffalobills.com/video/greg-cosell-bengals-at-bills-in-depth-preview for those who might still be debating the INT on the pass to John Brown - Cosell leads off the show talking about it. Says that it's a "flood concept", the play is designed to go to Dawson Knox as the first read but he's covered. Says John Brown is running a clear route and you never want to go to John Brown on that play, but that's the way Josh thinks. Puts the blame on Josh for that one. As always, a good listen. Overall, my impression is that the Bills offense kind of puzzles Cosell. He sees it as "erratic". But then he looks at the end result, where the Bills score a lot of points, and sort of throws up his hands. He acknowledges that it's the best 3rd down offense in football, so "something must be working"

Or this

If he never practices, how come he had no designation for W and Th practice? If he's paid a lot of money, how come he shows up on the Spotrac Bills Salary Cap list as playing on a Veteran Salary Benefit contract? If he's invisible on the field, how come I always see him on coverage and return ST? 🤷‍♂️ Recent high visibility - Hines 2nd KO ret vs Pats who is to Hines R as he finishes the run? Just cuz there was no Pats left to block, doesn't mean he wasn't in the right place ready to do the right thing. At 34, can't argue with you on the "old" part tho. But Hines can really scoot - and look who was right there with him You got it!

You're not reading it correctly. The dashes mean he practiced normally all week, until he had a vet rest day today. If he didn't practice, it would be "DNP"

As has been said. Troll. Ignore.

Shhh! then don't tell them about this: Even during the regular season, guys who were designated questionable were something like 50/50 especially if they practiced all week OR were "full" on Friday.

DaQuan "questionable" for Sunday scares me.

Just a troll poster, Ignore him.

LOL because firing a coach always works out so well for a team. Denver: 9-7 with Trevor Siemian unacceptable 1 year after we won the Superbowl, let's fire Kubiak and move on from Wade Phillips! Denver since 2017: Waaaaah, we suck! Haven't had a winning season since we fired Kubiak! Cowherd can bite me. Lots of things this depends upon; Cincy has rhythm passing game and Burrows can get the ball out quickly and function behind a patchwork OL, he's had to most of his career. They don't depend much on the run, so maybe limited running chops won't hurt them. And then, what do they do on Defense and what do we do on Offense? Saying that Cincy is down 3 OLmen so if the Bills don't win the coaches should be fired is fools talk.

No Crowder.

I don't think he batted the ball into the air on that pick. He was trying to body catch it and his L arm was held down then the DB got a hand in to bat it up. The main concern I have with Beasley is that while his footwork and moves are exquisite, he still seems very slow. I think a couple catches were missed because he wasn't where Josh expected him to be in the route at the point the ball got there. That's timing that could be adjusted, of course, but that takes reps and of course, being slower means the D has more time to adjust.

8 or 10 I think, but yeah.

Right, so (and I didn't read the Ringer article because I don't have a lot of respect for Solak) this is where context matters. The completion to Diggs, on 3rd and 15 from the Buf 42, was a high value-added choice if it was there. There were open options underneath, but likely would have been tackled short of the 1D and outside of FG range. If we didn't convert, we were gonna punt anyway, so why not take a shot? The interception to Brown, on 1st and 10 from the Buf 47, is more ambiguous. On the one hand, we have two more tries to convert if if falls incomplete so why not take a shot? On the other hand, we had guys open underneath who could have gained at least half the distance to convert, and at that point we were leading 17-3. Taking the play with the higher probability of sustaining the drive may have more value there. I don't fundamentally have a problem with taking a shot, but need to be sure that it will either be an incompletion or a completion. Whatever caused the DB to be in better position to make the catch than Brown was, we can't have that.

Wow, I guess this is one of those "eye of the beholder" things. Beasley had an INT bounce off his numbers in a play that some here think "any NFL WR should be able to catch"; I dunno about catch, because I see him as being held pretty hard, but he was in a position to bat the ball down or OOB if he couldn't catch it and prevent the pick. He had 2 receptions on 5 targets, a catch rate we have pilloried other WR for, in addition to the INT that bounced off him (which we have also pilloried other WR for). Beautiful that he had that TD catch, truly clutch. But how do the Bills assess the other 3 targets/the INT? If everyone is healthy, will his snaps stay where they are? Getting back to your question, I think Gilliam and Morris could both have big games, but I'd like to think Shakir is poised to break out.

Like I said elsewhere, the Bengals have to choose. Either they were a great team of sportsmen who were also traumatized by thinking they just witnessed a brother player taken off dead, and whose players and coaches mutually decided with the Bills players and coaches that they couldn't reasonably continue the game OR they were screwed out of the #2 seed by a Bills team too soft for The Show Must Go On mentality they would have preferred to embrace and robbed of the win the first 10 minutes guarantees they would have gotten Either Or, Not Both

I think you'd have to start by demonstrating that there is, indeed, some kind of quantifyable difference in how Josh plays at 1 pm vs later.