dave mcbride

Taking points off the board to run shotgun from the one is pretty much always a terrible idea. If there is no qb sneak threat, the offense is likely to lose on 2 pt conversion attempts.

This is correct. But they find themselves in knives-edge games in the first place because of what the OP is highlighting.

For the life of me, I can't understand why they went into prevent mode with zone coverage all the way down the field right before the half. Houston had plenty of time, and they predictably picked the Bills apart because a) the Bills couldn't get close with only four rushers and b) someone is always open in the Bills zone scheme if no one applies quick pressure on the QB.

Exactly. If you only think you may have had the flu, you have not had it. A full blown flu is AWFUL. Flus kill a lot of people every year, and for a reason.

I'm arguing about UCLA football's pathetic fan base in a separate thread!

The attendance was terrible LONG before Chip. I also think that COVID is what really killed any tradition of attendance at UCLA games. The Rose Bowl is just too damn far from everything--32 miles from campus! He also took over a mess of a program and over time made them competitive. My expectations going forward are extremely low, to be sure, but I think my pessimism is warranted. They are simply not going to get 4 and 5-star recruits, and Kelly at least realized this. They aren't cut out to compete in the Big 10 either, and it's not because they're a former Pac-12 team. Washington, Oregon, and USC are all competitive. Partly because of the money situation UCLA is set up to be an absolute bottom feeder for some time going forward, down there with Maryland, Rutgers, etc. You are right about Mora, who DID get some top-20 recruiting classes. But that was a long time ago, and he was a far worse game-day coach than Kelly, in my opinion.

I thought they had 437 fans!

Well, the Bills scored 44 points vs that team the Rams were facing last night and should have had 46 if not for an errant throw to Gilliam on the 2 pt conversion.

I'm a UCLA alum too and think that Kelly was the best thing that happened to that program in the last decade. UCLA's absolute ceiling is never going to be higher than 10-3, with a more realistic ceiling being 9-4. 8-5 is a good season for that program. They don't have the money, they don't have the commitment, the athletic dept is a mess, they don't have fans who show up to games given the stadium location, and they have long struggled to recruit 4 and 5 star recruits. The academic expectations are another issue. They were competitive with Kelly and had a pretty impressive run game. Kelly focused on 3-star recruits who fit within his system, which in my view was a realistic approach. In his last three seasons, they went 8-4, 9-4, and 8-5, with the fifth loss in the final season a result of a crazy ending vs Pitt in a bowl game. They didn't lose that game because of Kelly. I feel confident in saying that that three-year run is probably going to be the best such run they have in the dozen years that follow after his departure. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6642637/2025/09/19/ucla-football-deshaun-foster-martin-jarmond/ "The biggest issue with UCLA football, according to more than a half-dozen sources The Athletic spoke to for this story, some of whom were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor, has been a lack of financial resources. The Bruins had never been USC when it came to money or commitment to football, and UCLA has piled up more than $200 million in athletic department debt in recent years. But that disparity — fractures of which showed throughout much of this century — became much more of a problem in 2021, once name, image and likeness arrived." ... “Looking at the Chip regime through clear eyes, it was a major rebuild that took too long, at first,” one of Kelly’s assistants told The Athletic. “Then, we really turned the corner and were a top-20 program over the last three years, which is all you really can ask for any non-blue blood.” But, the assistant continued, UCLA wanted more. The fans weren’t engaged — “Chip’s not the biggest fan engagement guy.” It became apparent UCLA folks were tired of Kelly, who didn’t replicate the success he’d had at Oregon before leaving for the NFL, and Kelly, program sources said, was tired of the entire dynamic, especially of [athletic director] Jarmond, who was hired two years after the coach arrived. “You’re trying to sell the players on getting a great education and we can develop you as a player, but we didn’t have any money to pay them, and we were losing out on players,” said one position coach from Kelly’s staff at UCLA.

The funny thing is that the Browns were built like a very good NFC team. They were better than the Broncos. In particular, I think the 1987 Browns would have beaten Washington. They were a better team. That was 1997!

This game is kind of the season for the Steelers. They will very likely lose on the road at Detroit and Baltimore, and 9-8 will not get them in the playoffs. On the flipside, if the Bills lose yet again, they'll be 3-5 in their last 8 and 1-4 in their last four road games -- a bad sign for January even if they manage to slip in as a #7 wild card. Huge game for them too. They need to stop the bleeding and prove they can beat a team on the road not named the (now tanking) Jets or the Andy Dalton-led Panthers.

I don't disagree. It implies that he's not really that interested in managing more complex protection schemes pre-snap, which is not how Manning and Brady operated.

After last season ended, I was hoping very hard that the Bills would go after Davante Adams and do whatever cap maneuvering they needed to do to get him. It stuck in my craw last mid-season that they couldn't get him (I realize it was always unlikely given their cap situation, but still, where there's a will there's a way with regard to the cap), and now seeing him feast for the Rams on a 2-year 44-million dollar contract really bugs me.

Love this! I remember that flu game and defending Bruce, who had a fever of I think 105? It was something like that -- extremely high. He couldn't play football much less maneuver himself around a hospital in a wheelchair in that condition. I remember Cornelius Bennett saying afterward that Smith was EXTREMELY sick and that the critics had no idea how bad that flu was.

My pats fan friends are alarmed about this turn of events. One pointed out that Lowe was the worst LT in the league last year and looked it again yesterday.