Beck Water

I don't think he'll necessarily be off the roster. Beane commented that it's quite the step up in competition from Boise State to the NFL. I think part of his problem is he isn't recognizing zone coverage and understanding where his windows are in zone. Part of his problem is he has to learn how to beat NFL-level press coverage off the line. And, he needs to get stronger, NFL strong. He seems to be a nice guy, so I imagine someone will take him under their wing and get him to invest in some of the off-season training that Diggs does ("Receiver Factory: Won't get you stronger, Won't get you faster, Will get you Open") I also think it's going to be a huge help to him to have Beasley around to watch.

If the gloves do get slippery in the rain - maybe part of a good preparation should be, the coaches have the WR do some wet ball drills with wet gloves and then without gloves and decide which is working better for them.

I forget where I read it, but apparently McDaniel's effort were where his mouth was in that PR stunt corny phone call. Google helped me on this one So I'll give the guy props that he didn't just do a goofy PR stunt call, he (or an assistant) actually put some time and effort into convincing Tua that he actually had his back and was going to put some muscle into figuring out what Tua did well and setting up an offense to do it. The media wants Miami to be a great team, and what fans they have are just lapping up the wins. It's the Bills job to put a stake in it for this year, on Saturday. So why were our guys trying to catch with gloves on, last Sunday in the rain? Shouldn't someone, one of the coaches maybe, put the kibosh on that: 'you guys are dropping balls like a 13 year old dropping F bombs, Take Those Things Off"? Or are there different types of gloves, and maybe a type that works better in rain?

Right, like the whole area can be under a state of emergency with a "Do Not Drive" ban, most of the side streets not plowed yet, we have video of Bills players walking through unplowed streets to get to a cleared street with a ride, we have Squirrel Winters and his front-loader clearing a narrow path out of Josh Allen's driveway, but yeah, if we only had a dome everyone could drive to the stadium for the game!

I think you're both "on" to something. One thing the Bills have done really really well most of this season is "swarm to the ball". So if Milano disrupts the play or gets the ankles but doesn't clinch the deal, there's usually a couple of other guys right there.

oooooh....Spicy

I do gotta wonder, how cold cranking up the AC managed to get their facility.

Do you know where is Marino getting his numbers and how he decides what is or isn't acceptable? The Bills do have the #2 defense for points against, #9 for yards given up, #4 for turnovers. So in terms of results, what exactly is "unacceptable"? That has to be some stuff like where some outfit (PFF?) gave Milano a very low grade for the KC game because he wasn't making tackles. Except in the KC game, Milano's assignment was to shadow Mahomes and once he was flushed to one side, contain/pressure/tackle him. So no, he wasn't running around covering short routes or minding a gap to tackle an RB, but to observers who understood his assignment, he Killed it. If anyone has actually watched how Milano has been playing, then uses "unacceptable" to describe it, I gotta say, I kinda question how much they know Ball.

Any word on whether they're gonna activate Ike Boettger, or have Van Roten play for Bates (*shudder*)?

This is a really good and interesting article. TL;DR synopsis: SF and the Chargers both stopped the Dolphins, but the defenses they did it with were completely different. The 49ers rushed 4, played zone - quarters or 2 deep - and relied upon their linebackers to cover the middle. The Chargers played press man, very aggressive. Then, on 3rd down, they showed pressure/man and dropped into zone coverage. Evidently there's more than one way to stop a Dolphin. In the Bills earlier meeting, I think we played them more along the SF model. We got good pressure with 4 but only sacked Tua twice; we kept them from converting 3rd downs (3 of 8). We also played to contain Hill and gave up a reasonably big day to Waddle. Will be interesting to see what the Dolphins game plan is and what the Bills try to do to contain it.

Um...you do realize the game against the Browns (where the game plan was drawn up expecting Buffalo and snow) featured a season-high number of 2 TE and 2 RB sets? We rushed 33 times, passed 27 times, and gained 171 yards on the ground.

This looks like they're inside?

@Buffalo716, what's your "take" on the gloves vs bare hands thing a couple players have mentioned? I know the WR like to wear gloves because in good conditions, the gloves make a huge difference to their ability to catch the ball. I understand they're typically a silicon polymer which gives about 20% more adhesion vs a bare hand. However, I've heard that the gloves actually becomes slippery when they're soaked, and interfere with catching the ball. When our receivers were struggling to catch last game, I wondered if the coaches should have insisted they take the gloves off. Are there different gloves which work better in wet, cold weather? Neoprene? (for those unfamiliar, here's the background: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/sports/super-bowl-nfl-gloves.html) My problem every time I look at the guy is, I remember the interview where he said with the 49ers, he didn't used to shower until Wednesday. So I look at him and wonder if he stinks (literally)

Penguin spit (sleet) or genuine liquid, above freezing point, rain? Gotta reason I want to know, Thanks.

Is it currently snowing in B'lo?

You're also (probably) not alternating periods of extreme, high exertion elite-level athletics with periods of total inactivity. That's gotta be rough.

Are you so perfect you never have negative verbal interactions that in hindsight, you can look at and acknowledge you had a part in how negative they were and why they became that way? Beasley acknowledged this, apparently privately in conversations to Beane and to McDermott, and publicly in his presser. He said he loves it here and he didn't want it to end like that. I'm personally in favor of second chances when that is the case, so count me as "All In" on Beasley being here. I can admire a guy's play on the field without having to agree with his every notion. Do you think all those guys who present a great persona where they're kind to children and doggies are marvelous human beings? They may be, they may not be - I don't know them personally, so I don't assume. To me, "selling our soul to the Devil" would be if my team went out and signed someone like Henry Ruggs, who literally caused a woman and her dog to be burnt alive in front of people who tried to rescue them, by his actions I'm sorry, but you're missing my point completely, and it's not just about McKenzie. I could express it's truly odd to me that someone like yourself, who genuinely does know ball, can't see that Allen has a part in the offense struggling, and goes so far out of your way to scapegoat receivers to avoid acknowledging this. I believe Allen himself has indirectly acknowledged this, for example when he said to Fitzpatrick in the interview aired pre-game TNF that the QB has to function an extension of the OC on the field, to the effect of, it's taken some doing but he thinks they're getting to a good place now. [That was before a game where Cook had 6 targets and McKenzie had 5 - all catches - and Davis was 2 of 7] The selective scapegoating here is WAY out of control (IMO)

That's perhaps abraisive and a poor choice of words. I was in response to this from you: I'll try to make a more longhand response to this. You say a QB can not be expected to always see his open receivers. I say: a great QB has to be able to diagnose the defense, follow his progressions and find those open receivers more often than not, and give them trust, or the offense simply can't function. We see this with Russ Wilson in Denver: he was able to create outside of structure for years in Seattle, but in Denver, being asked to play within structure and follow his progressions, he's repeatedly ignoring what the defense indicates will be open to look for Courtland Sutton and force-feed him the ball, and it's a Disaster. [This is not just me. A bunch of experts have broken down film (Kurt Warner for one) and illustrated what's happening.] You imply, (and please excuse and explain if I have your meaning wrong), that some of the open receivers Allen is overlooking - that would be Knox, and McKenzie, sometimes Singletary or Cook - "deserve" to be overlooked because they run wrong routes and drop passes that are "catchable". My point is: there are guys Allen regularly targets (Davis, for example) who have very low catch % and a large % of scored "drops" (meaning "balls a receiver should catch with ordinary effort") and make route running mistakes or run "poor" (rounded) routes. I'm NOT saying that Davis shouldn't be targeted (though I think Allen was forcing the ball to him and to Diggs for a while, and the passing game is floundering a bit as he backs off). I'm saying that if Allen is in some kind of headspace where he'll look for and throw to some receivers who make route running mistakes and drop the ball, but won't look for and throw to other receivers he perceives as making route running mistakes and dropping the ball (even though overall, they have good catch stats), THIS MAY BE SOMETHING HE NEEDS TO ADDRESS MENTALLY and/or in extra film/conversations with those receivers about what he's not seeing and needs to see, because an offense can't function if the QB isn't willing to operate within its structure and throw the ball to the open guys the defense gives him. It can't. It flounders. It's very admirable that Allen takes full responsibility for the offense and doesn't throw his teammates under the bus after losses, but I'd prefer that he make good in-game decisions to avoid losses - so that's really not germaine to my response to you.

Nyheim Hines is a running back. He is not a wide receiver. He's been being used in 2-back sets (Pony formation) on a variable number of snaps - 23 vs NE, 10 vs the Jets. I'm kinda puzzled as to why someone would think an RB would make a "perfect" slot receiver.

I mean, Man - what does "reliable" mean to you? Diggs only catches 70.7% of his targets, that's 1.6% more than McKenzie, is he "too unreliable"? How about Davis, who hauls in just over 53.5% of the balls thrown his way - should he "hit the bench", even though he's 2nd on the team in yards? You said elsewhere you're not saying he's a bum, just "not a very good WR". I would agree he's not a very good WR, but saying he's "too unreliable" sounds to me like you're saying he's a bum. If that's not what you're saying, then what are you saying? McKenzie is currently out there on close to 60% of the snaps and I think I see him open (at least during a window) much more than he's used. So if he's out there and open and catches 69% of the balls thrown at him, shouldn't he be targeted? If he's "too unreliable", then he shouldn't be out there and, since I don't see Shakir getting open, IMHO Beane should face some scrutiny for letting the WR talent get to the place where our #3 WR who is getting 60% of the snaps and catching 69% of his targets is "too unreliable" and shouldn't be playing. That Is All.

It's a really good question - are they gonna activate Boettger? As I understand it, his 3 week practice window was opened on Sunday 27 Nov, so the Bills have to "fish or cut bait" (activate him or put him on season ending IR) this weekend - I'm a bit hazy on whether the deadline is Saturday or Sunday and what time.

I would like to know where that "missed tackles" stat comes from and how it is calculated I have a suspicion that yes, Milano misses more tackles than anyone else on the team because he's making it into position to try to tackle guys who were NOT his assignment, more than anyone else on the team. It sounds as though potentially, it could be somewhat analogous to PFF's stats on OL where they actually don't know the blocking assignments and charge guys with a whiff when it actually was the other guy's job and they just tried to bail us out.

Huh? Beasley was on the practice squad in Tampa, true. They didn't "finally" elevate him, he was elevated the first week he was on the roster, and the second. In 2 games, he had 5 targets and 4 receptions, so "no catches" is false. The question was, what was seen from him in those 2 games/5 targets? Some people thought he looked slow. I thought he looked slow in the practice video. Still has those fast feet and that quickness to make cuts though. The OP I was reponding to thought, from his interview, that he looked slow because he really didn't want to be there. He did say it wasn't what he expected and he didn't want to be there, but I don't think that means he wasn't giving it everything he had while he was on the field.

I agree McKenzie is not a "very good wideout" (depending on definition of same, of course - but he's not top tier, we certainly agree). But he's what we got this year. He is able to "get open and catch the ball". (Yes, folks, I hear you, but 69% of the time, he does in fact catch the ball, and he's averaging 10 Y/R when he does, so it's not all just pitches) My point is twofold, based on logic: One, you throw it to the guys who are open and catching it, until they prove they don't. Knox is catching 74% of his targets. McKenzie is catching 69% (even with all the ***** he takes about drops). Davis is catching just over 50% (arguably a lot not his fault because Josh is forcing it in sometimes or throwing it away in his direction, but still). So I would say provided they're open, Knox needs more targets and McKenzie needs more targets - and when I look at film, I see them open. To me, that's logic. Two, the QB needs to follow the design of the offense. Right now, Dorsey's idea seems to be to have deep stuff and short stuff and the QB hits the short stuff until the D is either forced out of that coverage (or the Bills get to the endzone on short stuff.) This is a simple-minded breakdown, but the point is, it doesn't work for Josh to keep trying to force it in to Diggs and Davis when they're covered and that's the basic offensive design. Take the easy short throws and let the guys try to get YAC. I personally would like to see Knox or Morris targets increase more than McKenzie because I think they can better handle catching and taking hits in bad weather, but you get my point. Crowder is a good zone receiver, but Beane (and some folks here) are indulging in revisionist history painting it as "Crowder was really intended to be the slot and McKenzie's role was intended to just increase a little bit" (paraphrasing Beane). At the point where Crowder was hurt, McKenzie's snaps had already doubled from 2021 (from 24%-ish to ~50%), thiswhile Crowder was playing. Crowder was consistently getting fewer snaps than McKenzie - ~1/3 to McK's 1/2. Crowder caught 46.2% of his 13 targets (~3 targets per game). McKenzie was getting more targets (5.3 tg/game), and catching more (62.5%), in the 4 games Crowder played. So any ideas that Crowder would be a valuable contributor and push down McKenzie's snaps is based on a hope that Crowder would settle in and develop more "chemistry" with Josh, not based on what he actually had done at the point where he was injured. Which he might have done, that woulda been nice. Factually, McKenzie's snaps per game only increased about 10% when Crowder went out (from ~50% to ~60%). What we did (as far as I can tell) is started to play Diggs more in the slot and put Shakir (or Kumerow, or Gentry, or Brown) outside. Where McKenzie totally lacks what Beasley gave Josh, is in the secondary route concepts - the receiver who keeps working and working and gets open while the QB moves around to extend the play. McKenzie will do scramble drills, but they're simpler and he will also sometimes run his route and be done instead of playing to the whistle. So if Beasley comes in and gives Josh that and it helps us get to the playoffs and deep in the playoffs, I'm For it, but ultimately it would benefit Josh and the Bills if he could learn to play within the structure of the offense more and not lean on that "Cole Crutch". That's what's killing Denver right now IMO - Wilson got so used to going his own way and playing off-script, that he doesn't seem able to follow his reads and hit plays that are there. You may be right that the Bills had high hopes that Shakir would step up more, and that's why they didn't do more to bring in WR help, before the trade deadline. Or, maybe they were really banking on OBJ, who knows?