dave mcbride

Oh man. I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. There is a huge hole in the zone early on. That's where you hit him. There's a reason he waved his hand. You adjust to what the zone presents to you, and Allen, who is a great player, did not in this instance. Instead, he waited to make the longer throw, into a defended zone. But go ahead, blame the receiver rather than analyzing the decision making.

No worries. It was a lot further than 2 yards and was totally uncatchable. And Allen has to get the ball to Sanders a LOT earlier on this play below; it should be hitting him in the hands once he gets past the sticks and is in the middle of the big hole in the zone, not as he is entering the back zone which is occupied by 2 DBs. That's the QB throwing his receiver into a bad play and creating an easy pass defense for the DB. (In the old days, the DB--Pierre--would have completely blown him up.) Josh had to deal with a sieve of an o-line, so I'm sympathetic, but he didn't have a good game either. It'll get better.

Dog, this pass HAS to be thrown sooner. It should be hitting him in the hands as he gets past the sticks. As I said, throwing him into covered:

You are arguing with a phantom. I never said that the Bills lost because of the White PI call. Never even close to it. It was a legit bad call, but whatevs, bad calls happen all of the time and PI/holding can be called on a ton of plays. No excuses for the officials, though; they should be judged too for their performance. Carry on with Edmunds with someone besides me. I know you have plenty of sparrers here to work with on that front.

Normally, yes, but against a team that can bring massive pressure with just four, it's the answer. The Pats have done this for years and have had no problem scoring. Yesterday, it would have been an answer to the problem the Steelers posed.

I totally disagree. That was a significantly tougher catch than the ones you list given that the defender was primed, ready, and most importantly able to actually ATTACK the ball with a striking downward motion; it's not like he was off his feet and tangled up with a receiver on a jump ball. On none of the plays you mention were the Bills defenders in a position to violently attack it. It amazes me that people think that's an easily makeable play.

I suppose the one thing they could have done is gotten in Allen's face and told him to exploit the short stuff play after play. His game yesterday consisted of playing to the Steelers' defensive strengths -- looking downfield constantly into 6-7 man coverage units while his o-line whiffed in front of him. There are answers if you have guys who can get open quickly, which the Bills have.

Honestly, I hate that "he needs to catch it" line. The QB set up the receiver to fail, plain and simple. Watch it again -- the DB is in perfect position to swat it hard and downward immediately after it arrives. That's an extremely difficult for any receiver to make. Don't get me wrong, I love Allen, and that was to be fair an accurate throw. But he has to recognize the coverage and where the WR is going to end up. He just played poorly yesterday; he'll play better in the future.

Tua looked better than I expected he would. I've been down on him, but he looks more healthy w/regard to his hip. The ball came out with a lot more zip than last season. Jones was very good and should have walked away with a win. That's the issue with 12-play drives, though -- more opportunities for mistakes.

Sanders didn't "drop" that. Allen was late on his throw and set him up to get stripped. Sanders raised his hand 10 yards into the route, signaling he was open, and Allen waited too long before delivering, hitting him just as he entered a window with two defenders. The moment it hit has hands, the defender was right there in perfect position to strip it. That ball had to be delivered sooner. You know what they say about "throwing your receivers open"? That was a case of "throwing your receivers into covered."

Sanders is a better player, I believe, but Davis will get his snaps. He played 38 percent yesterday. Specifically, given the scheme they faced yesterday (6-7 DBs and a ferocious 4-man pass rush, you need guys who can separate quickly in the short to medium range. Sanders is definitely better at that than Davis. My point is, factor in the opponent.

Emmanuel Sanders is a top 25 receiver of the last decade who hasn't actually lost a step. He's an upgrade from Brown (tougher, better route runner) who consistently gets separation. Beane has been chasing him for years for a reason. The whole idea behind bringing him in was to put in place two "mirror" receivers (Diggs and Sanders) on opposite sides of the field who could run mirror images of each other while both separating (Diggs, Sanders, and Beasley were 1-2-3 in the league last year in gaining separation). That forces teams to defend both sides of the field and not weight their defense toward Diggs. Beasley, Knox, and Davis/McKenzie should be able to run free. Davis is a nice player, but his hands are inconsistent and he has separation issues. He'll get his targets, but he's not as dangerous a weapon as Sanders, who over his career has thrived in sophisticated passing attacks and knows the full route tree like the back of his hand (as does Diggs). Yeah, they lost yesterday, but not because of Sanders, who was the one guy on the team to beat the Steelers deep. Obviously, the o-line has to be better, but if it does start playing well, the passing attack should be harder to stop than even last year's.

No, I don't care about the Edmunds debate. I care about the defense overall. The Edmunds debate is just tiresome to me. I realize that a lot of people feel differently and are very passionate about it. I'm just not one of those people. As for forcing turnovers, the Bills finished third in the league at forcing turnovers last year, so I'm not too worried. They may regress to the mean a little, but matchup zone is a fairly good scheme for forcing TOs, especially against young QBs. They're facing Tua, Jones, and Zack Wilson twice as well as Lawrence, Darnold, and Winston, so they'll get their share of TOs over the long haul. I'm not sold on Wentz being good at preventing TOs either. He's a strip-sack fumble sort of guy.

I think there were four holds called and two declined. I'd need to check.

To be fair, they got a dominating strip sack and got a bad bounce (e.g., the randomness of fumbles, as you point out) and had a pick unjustly called back. I'm not one to blame the refs at all for the loss at all, but that was a really, really shaky call. I'm surprised it was called, to be honest. That said, the Bills fumbled four times (one a garbage-time sideline one by Singletary at the end) and turned it over on a blocked punt. Allen had a couple of passes that hit Steelers' players hands, but they were bullets that no DB was ever going to be capable of catching.

Like I said, not interested in the Edmunds debate. Re: Allen, I feel like I'm watching the football version of Stanton, with Allen's missed bombs the equivalent of Stanton's no-arc 121 mph singles that result in no runs.

It's actually 54 passes because he was sacked 3 times.

Agreed, but that sorta confirms my point -- he has to be pinpoint, and every once in a while he will be because of the law of averages. But the approach is going to result in a very low completion percentage overall on bomb throws relative to other good NFL QBs.

It's not a one-off, though - it's been an issue for years. If nothing else, throw it up there with more arc and draw the 35-yard PI if the d-back catches up and tackles Sanders. He's just giving his WR zero chance on those throws. They need to be pinpoint given the arc and velocity, and it's extremely hard for anyone to be pinpoint when you're throwing it 40+ yards on a throw with only slightly more arc than a rope. Mahomes always puts some air under those and allows his playmakers to catch up or adjust and make plays.

Ford is not a good pass blocker. He probably needs the help. But so does Feliciano.

Is he actually slower? I can't tell. If someone has info on that, I'd be curious. He didn't turn his head back because he was beat. Not by much, but "not by much" is often good enough for a good QB/WR combo to connect in the NFL. Anyway, that's what happens when you get beat. Wallace absolutely should have been called for it in the first half too on that pass to Claypool on the other side of the field but got away with one. He never looked back and plowed into Claypool well before the ball arrived. Roethlisberger and Claypool were incredulous, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Roethlisberger informed the officials about that and told them to pay extra close attention the next time he did that.

The Bills D-line wasn't drawing the holds, however. The Steelers D-line was because the Bills couldn't handle them. Felciano and Dawkins were horrible yesterday. Felciano is OK against JAGs but he's an utter liability against the Chris Joneses and Cam Heywards of the world. Simply not athletic or strong enough.

Whatevs. If he's defending like an elite safety in the passing game, he's worth the money.

They were tough catches. Allen's ball placement was off on a lot of passes yesterday. Not his finest hour. The DB went through Sanders but played the ball all the way. Could have gone either way, but it was bang bang and I wasn't upset by it. The Bills got called for offensive holding on the play anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered.

Agreed 100 percent. It is unbelievable.