dave mcbride

Bledsoe is nothing compared to RJ. DB was basically Houdini in comparison.

9.4, which is bad, but it still was much better than RJ in 2001 (12.6) and 2000 (13.8). Johnson not only has the highest sack rate in league history (14.8 percent), no one else is even close. Historically bad player despite real talent and some decent passer ratings on occasion. Even in the two games he played for SB winner Tampa in 2002, he was still getting sacked at a 16.7 percent rate. That’s one out of every six dropbacks.

Among the 12 other teams listed, 8 made a SB and 5 won it. That's a pretty high percentage.

That's the lowest in Bills history (granted it's early). Flutie had a sack rate of 3.3 percent in 1998 (laughably, RJ's sack rate in six games that season was 21.3 percent) and Fergie had a couple of low rates (2.9 percent) in 1980 and 1981 although I don't trust those numbers because sacks weren't an official stat then. I'm a big believer in the idea that QBs are the ones most responsible for their own sack rates, albeit line play does of course matter. Low sack rates are huge for offensive production because sacks are drive killers. It's a great sign for both Allen and the Bills offense. He hasn't been taking the bad sacks this year like in the past.

Yup, and as we all know, injuries happen in the NFL. He'll get his chances.

The Bills are a lot like the Patriots on offense; some game plans will feature a player heavily and then see him buried the next week. I wouldn't be surprised to see Beasley get 8 receptions next week. Also, a number of these games have been blowouts, which skews everything. Not the KC and Pitt games, of course.

For those wondering, Beasley is still on pace for 88 receptions this season. He's also catching 76.5 percent of the passes thrown his way.

Ha ha! I've been on the Sanders train since last year. Glad to be right for once! The two top WRs on that team were AJ Brown and DK Metcalf!

Take the defensive grades from this game with a grain of salt. Houston had only 42 offensive snaps, and their last dozen or so were against backups. Moreover, they are so bad and the Bills blew them out so badly that I wouldn't be surprised if the Bills' defenders were in "injury prevention mode" after going 19-0 early in the third. That game was over relatively early.

If they lose both of these games, I still see them getting to 12-5 and a division championship with relative ease. They play a lot of bad teams plus some OK teams at home in Orchard Park.

To be fair to Poz, IIRC both were broken bones and didn't speak to the overall soft tissue issue. A broken bone is almost by definition not an instance of "injury prone" but rather bad luck on a brutal collision play. The frequent hammy issues with Milano do make me worry a bit, but the way I look at it, if he plays 12-13 game out of 17 person season, that's good because he's so good. I'd obviously prefer 17, but as long as they back him up with a slightly above average player like Klein, they're fine. Point is, if we get "elite" for 12-13 out of 17 as opposed to "Keith Ellison" for 17 out of 17, I can live with that. But more importantly: ,

To be fair, he suffered a bad season ending injury in his first season; it just happened as the season was just about over. If it had happened in game 1, he would have missed the full season. Getting it late doesn't make the injury any less bad. My own view on this is that I sense some Poz vibes among Bills fans. Everyone said he was injury prone because he got injured a lot with the Bills, but then he goes to Jax and hardly every gets injured over the course of the seven years. Injuries can be kinda random, and we sometimes misdiagnose randomness for a tendency.

I get the bad calls -- it's a fast game and all -- but I feel like obvious false starts always get called. I was pretty shocked that the last one that should have been called on NE didn't get called. It was pretty obvious. Jones looks pretty good, but I'd be concerned less about him than an offensive strategy built around 12 play drives. So much can go wrong on any given play and often does. It's why they're averaging 17.5 points per game.

I wonder if it was pretty minor yesterday but ended up causing him to be pulled simply because the opponent was so bad. No point in risking making it worse when you have near-zero doubt you're going to win easily.

He doesn't actually come across as dislikeable, although the people in this thread who personally know him and who have voiced their opinions will have a better sense than me. I don't know the guy myself.

Collinsworth is horrible.

Just looked it up - he ran a 4.58 in the 40 at the combine which is extremely fast for a linebacker. And in his career year with the Bills - 2004 - he had 5 picks and 18 passes defensed, which is just ridiculous for a LB. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/S/SpikTa00.htm. And he had 4 forced fumbles too.

He was extremely fast for a LB … until he tore his achilles. He was never the same after that and was basically a thumper.

There are a lot of not-very-good CBs playing in the NFL. Good ones are very, very hard to find. He’s crafty enough and has enough ball hawking skills to at least be a decent CB2 option. Who else is out there, after all? That’s all I’m saying.

Good signing by the Bucs. They have injury issues on the back end, and he's at least league-average. League-average guys are hard to find at this point given that just about all of them are already on teams.

He's actually 63-74; I give him credit for the game in which Brady went down very early (season opener of 2008) and Cassel played the bulk of the game. It was 0-0 when Cassel came in.

Payne is a beast. He dominated vs. the Bills in 2019.

I’m a little surprised no one is rooting for a host of 6-8-week non-contact soft-tissue injuries on both sides.

Excellent! I did not know unitas went there. I wouldn’t put bridgewater there yet - he’s been decidedly mediocre - but maybe this season he makes the step up.

Agreed about Jones. He will definitely have some ups and downs this season - that goes without saying - and NO’s defense is good. We’ll just have to wait and see.