Beck Water

I think he's viewing all our remaining games as must-win games for us to have a shot at the 1-seed.

McDermott has played against the Rams twice as coach of the Bills: 2020 (10-6, division round, Goff) - this was the Josh Allen "Wild Man" game, where he drew an unnecessary roughness play for grabbing one defender by the face mask, throwing him into the path of two other defenders, and then stiff-arming Aaron Donald to avoid the sack and throw the ball away. 35-32 win 2022 (5-12, Stafford) - businesslike 31-10 thumping on opening day. McDermott was DC in Carolina for two meetings, both losses. In general - I would say that McDermott has shown he has a Good Plan against offenses from the Shanahan line. Of course, the Bills players have to execute, and we need a Good Plan on offense as well.

No, Bishop has 138 defensive snaps and 159 special teams snaps. Typically 62 snaps per game, he's played 1 3/4 games and then a few others here and there. Should be noted that he played in game 4 and 5, so he should have had some more time to "watch and learn", and that both Terrel Bernard and Dorian Williams looked "lost in space" as rookies.

Well, Rapp was limited all week, but doesn't have a game-day designation. But he is a vet. This will be Coleman's 4th game missed, if he misses it, so that's the "break even" point where we should have put him on IR (except that he has gotten to practice for 2 weeks). I kind of wonder if this might be gamesmanship

Hmm, what part of "He's a free agent, he can make his own choice" was insufficiently clear (first sentence of my post)

Dude. "Twitter doctor" really? The Bills have team physicians who give physicals to every player they sign. In Hyde's case they have detailed access to his prior medical history. Do you honestly think they're going to sign him if "he isn't in playable shape"? His face looks thinner. But as for the rest of him, how do you know "he isn't in playable shape"?

I mean, it's true that Buffalo has one of the lowest blitz % in the league, but so does Green Bay They were missing their best CB, so perhaps playing Man wasn't the best strategy IDK Pretty sure McDermott and Babich have a couple of assistants in a back room studying the Houston game, where Goff threw 5 picks

The packers were missing 4 starters on D I believe

The Packers were missing what, 4 starters on D? Or 3 going into the game then lost a guy early on? The Lions were missing 3 guys too, but they handled it better whether that’s coaching, belief in themselves, higher quality backups - I don’t know. Dan Campbell definitely has them believing. I was wrong about Campbell, I thought he was a buffoon. DOG is what, 5 yards? Is a 43 yd field goal that much different?

They don’t look like a team that is likely to fulfill your hopes. And the Bills are getting them off a mini-bye with West Coast travel.

Are those cajones or just crazy jones?

Brain fart sorry to trouble you to respond

I think they just don't post their injury report on their team site until later in the week. Here's a link to their injury report Weds in a fan post. They're still pretty dang healthy, but it's not zero. They've got Alaric Johnson, their starting LT, who DNP with a foot; and Demarcus Robinson limited with a hand. I'm kind of anxious to see whether/how much Johnson practiced today. I was gonna say that. Smoke in 2019/2020. ? Hail Murray game was a home game for 'Zona?? We had a neutral field the next week when Bills @ Niners was also played in 'Zona.

Agreed, but the Laws of Physics are still against them.

I think that's a fair take. The Bills scheme takes the attitude, "yards? Meh. It's points we'll keep from you." It's built to defend against the pass, and ordinary RBs. But it's susceptible to a Brute like Henry, because our "nickel" linebacker (Taron Johnson) and our linebacker "nickels" (smaller lighter LB) are built to defend the pass and OK at defending ordinary size RBs. But put 'em there with 300 lb Patrick Ricard followed by 247 lb Travis Henry coming at 'em all game and the Laws of Physics are against them. Still, we have to remember that when Henry ran us over, we were without Milano, Bernard, and Taron Johnson. That's almost 30% of the Bills starting defense that the Ravens didn't have to worry about. Kind of analogous to when KC got to face the "Little Sisters of the Poor", AJ Klein and one-winged Dodson along with Dane Jackson and one-foot Douglas at CB in the playoffs.

They may, but Hyde got "his bag"; there are a bunch of young 'n hungry guys on the PS who've been good soldiers all year. "Need" will drive the decision, but if there's no perceived need, I would expect them to feed the kids first.

Yeah, there was a play against the Rams in 2020 where Aaron Donald horse-collared Josh and absolutely spun him around and Allen was LIVID there was no flag. Well, he was in the pocket, so by rule, Good No-Call - but by common sense, if a horse collar tackle is illegal because it's dangerous, what makes it less dangerous to a QB in the pocket? Allen has never missed a game other than Game 7-10 as a rookie when he had a UCL injury. He did sustain a hit in 2019 where he was running, upright, being tackled by one defender (thus going down) and Jonathan Jones came barreling in helmet first and clobbered him on the chin. In the box score play by play I can find, it isn't listed as incurring a penalty; there was an OH on Dawkins commented as "offsetting", so I do think it was flagged as UR. But, it knocked the starting QB out of the game into concussion protocol, and wound up with no consequence at all to the defense because of the hold. (Allen didn't miss a game) Which perfectly illustrates the other side of the story. A defender can eliminate the most important player of the game, the QB, by putting them into concussion protocol and maybe be flagged for unnecessary roughness. That's a pretty clear advantage to the defense, and in fact, it arguably won the game for Houston when Al-Shaair knocked Lawrence out. I don't think he figured he'd be ejected or suspended, and if he'd kept his head and not gone on to throw other players around and continue after the ref told him he was done, it might have stopped with the penalty.

You know, we're running a big-ass pity party for defenders over the wrong things IMO. These are elite athletes. The offensive skill players decide to change direction in an instant in response to defender moves. Defenders change direction in an instant in response to offensive player moves. Now all of a sudden they aren't able to go over a sliding QB or divert off to the side? There's no question in my mind that Al-Shaair deliberately forearmed Lawrence in the neck/head trying to knock him out. You don't forearm a guy to tackle him, so where does the "oh poor Al-Shaair had no time to react" pity party come from? Refs do use some discretion with their flags, if they believe the defender is legit trying to avoid the QB and go over them, put an arm down etc etc. I do think it's legit that some QB (*cough* Mahomes *cough* Williams) fake like they're going out of bounds, defender pulls up and he dances down the sideline for another 10, defender hits him as he's stepping out of bounds it's a penalty. I don't think that should be a penalty unless the QB is clearly OOB when hit. I also do think that Brady has a point, if we want to protect QBs, why are OCs drawing up designed QB run plays like the QB draw that resulted in Lawrence getting hit? This is true. What on earth was he thinking putting his head down and running into Hamlin?

If they start flagging fake slides, they better be damned careful they don't start flagging jukes, which is what Allen did in the Pittsburgh game. @JGMcD2 posted video clips of several runs that were jukes and an actual fake slide for contrast. In a fake slide, the QB tucks one leg back.

I thought they both looked as though they'd fallen off physically. But I don't think Hyde is coming back to be a starter. I think eventually he will be good, but I don't think it's entirely coincidence that the Bills lost the 2 games where Rapp went out with concussion and Bishop played 72% and 100% of the snaps. Of course correlation is not causation. Missing Bernard as well for the Ravens game and having him be coming back (too soon?) vs Houston surely didn't help. We'll see how the Bills use Hyde. Hyde went from JAG to top-notch when the Bills moved him from nickel/dime (where GB had been playing him) to safety. It wasn't his thing and I don't think that's changed. I don't think the Bills would elevate him just to take a dime role I agree, best if Hyde doesn't see the field because the guys who are currently out there continue to be healthy.

Yes. But the player can also just say "nope, I'm good, thanks!" and stay on the practice squad. He's a free agent, he can make his own choice. So when a team tries to sign a player on another team's practice squad, one of three things can happen: 1) player says "nope, I'm good, I'll stay on this practice squad, Thanks" 2) original team says "OK, we'll match them and sign you to our 53 man roster 3) new team signs the player and must pay him as though he's on their 53 man roster for a minimum of 3 games Since rostered players get paid a lot more, a young guy would usually NOT refuse an offer to sign to another team's 53-man - but it has happened when they really feel they have a much better chance to be developed and have a career with the team they're on.

You got some great stuff here that I'd missed somehow. But for "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas", your version is fine, but I gotta give flowers to the original Gayla Peevey version. She was 10 years old when she recorded this fine tune in 1953. Then her non-stage-parents said "we want a kid who can be a kid" and "Nope'd" out of show biz for her. Especial props to the gleeful way she announces "Mom says a hippo would eat me up but then...teacher says a hippo is a vegetarian"

I agree with you, which is why I was surprised at Tom Brady's POV on this. You're absolutely right that Al-Shaair went braced arm to the neck/helmet, and I don't at all see how that was unavoidable to him. By the way, Trevor Lawrence still looks like a horse.

It's an interesting question. Hamlin himself told teammates it was harder on them than it was on him, because he didn't know anything about it while they had to watch it unfold. That said, there are some interesting learnings about the unconscious state - that patients who are unconscious and later recover can hear and remember things that occurred while they were 'out of it'. There's also some interesting stuff about somatic memory where people who have no conscious memory of a traumatic event can still register stress responses when put in the location where the event occurred or into a similar situation. It's not rock-solid research but it's interesting. So as far as the events after his collapse - the CPR and so forth - Hamlin is probably right that it was harder and more traumatic for his teammates than it was for him, for the reasons you cite. As far as having no imprinted memory, though, I'm not entirely sure about that. Either imprinted, or just the learned knoweldge of what happened, I think there probably was some stuff Hamlin had to work through when it came to actually giving and taking a hit (he said some stuff in an interview about needing to work through some things last year).

For whatever it's worth, I agree with you. People give Hamlin grief for staying back and letting up too many yards, but forget that was a Hyde trait as well. The coaching is "keep it in front of you". Hyde watches incredible amounts of film and is very good at digesting it. I expect part of his role will be injecting some late-season energy into the DB film sessions for the young guys. Listen to the interview I linked and tell me it sounds that way to you.