Beck Water

A mystery of life: why the Bills are incompetent at screens

Essentially their entire remaining draft - 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th round picks. Think the 5th round may have been for next year; they have an extra 3rd round pick for McDaniel getting hired by the Dolphins so they do still have a pick.

Absolutely, though I do think SF can utilize him in away we wouldn’t. I think they have a better OL and a more creative run-designing coach

Y

Somehow this reminds me a little bit of the (possibly apocryphal) saint who decided to see how he could tolerate being burnt by putting his finger in a candle flame.

While that may be optimistic, it may very well make a difference that Von's ACL instability or tear wasn't significant enough to see on the MRI and that the ligament was apparently still partially intact when it was repaired. That may well result in a shorter rehab timeline than when the ACL ruptures under a load and causes a bunch of ancillary damage I don't know for sure, and likely too many unknowns for a medical professional to tell without inside info, but I could see it as possible

Diggs doesn't "dig" snow; Run fleet, Catch Many Passes Sit Diggs in the Fourth

I'm going to go for Dawson Knox. He had a great start last game going 4/4 and seems to have taken a lot of responsibility for missing some catches in the 2nd half. He's a big target, he likes to show off his guns in cold weather, let's see him use them.

First Things First - let's focus on delivering said Beatdown first before hypothesizing the reaction. Chris Simms/Mike Florio - Florio is "buffaloed" by the fan chatter about depriving the Dolphins of sideline heaters. Simms carefully packed up a large crate of Bulletin Board Material, labeled it "Tungavailoa, Tua, for the Use Of" and shipped it FedEx Overnight to Miami. TL;DW basically said that when Tua has had to play in bad weather, he's not just been off, he's been awful. Kurt Warner echoes the concerns about Tua needing to prove he can play in bad weather but in a more measured, positive way. He also echoes the concerns Greg Cosell, Dan Orlovsky and others have raised about our WR corps: how good is it, after Diggs? Can the #2 and #3 guys make the tough catches, because last week, they couldn't. Says in the red zone, Josh is going off script and pressing trying to create and that's causing problems.

LOL I'm sure this is all fan/Internet chatter - our guys want to be able to warm up, so we'll have the heaters out. But --- it "Buffaloed" Mike Florio. I just listened to his segment with Chris Simms on the Dolphins game, and Mike Florio believes the Bills won't use heaters, so the Dolphins cant. Chris Simms, by the way, ladeled out inspirational bulletin board material for Tua by the truckload - saying it's a question, can he play in bad weather, that when he's tried in the past he hasn't just looked bad he's looked awful, doesn't think he can do it. I agree with this 100%. The NFLPA should file a grievance for the teams that are scheduled to play the Dolphins at home the first 6 weeks of the season. The NFL absolutely does not prioritize player safety here.

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.