dave mcbride

That's just not true. The Bills ran a bunch of WR screens and edge runs, but most were completely shut down. Baltimore may have made the necessary adjustments from the previous week.

Because it's the truth?

I think part of the problem is Allen; he's gotta keep the blitz beater passes at the front of his mind or this is going to happen over and over. Beasley is a blitz beater if there ever was one. I just wish they had a more reliable TE in that regard too. Knox's drop yesterday was really disappointing. There have just been too many of those, and you have to think that it's going to color Allen's decision-making with regard to him in the near future. Brown is a really good player, but he's not Julio Jones. He's a lot smaller than Peters.

That is some damn good defense. Brown ain't that easy to cover on a slant given his speed. You know how you can tell Peters is good? He repeatedly gets kicked off of teams yet other good teams covet him. I have a very different definition of what a "drop" is, but reasonable minds can disagree. The pass was on the money, but i don't think it was a drop either. Regardless, Allen put it where he had to on that play, and it was a money play. Just good D by Peters.

Well maybe not knocked away, but textbook coverage that usually results in an incompletion. Peters is a good player (although a first-class jerk).

No. NE will absolutely steamroll both teams because they are a far better team in every aspect of the game.

You probably have a different definition of what "drop" is than I do. Passes that require circus catches are by definition inaccurate, and leaping attempts by receivers who fail to catch it even though it hits part of their hands aren't really dropping it. For instance, I think it's crazy to say that Singletary "dropped" that deep throw. It simply wasn't accurate enough. More to the point, every damn team in the league has "drops" like that every week. We see great circus catches every week during the highlights, but I can assure you that there are far more not-quite-accurate enough throws that go incomplete than those that result in completions. They just aren't on the highlight shows.

I am concerned about that game. That Steelers D is a matchup nightmare for the Bills. Cody Ford vs. Watt? Ai yi yi.

Good post, although I think we're a little too prone here to qualify throws requiring circus catches as "catchable throws". The Singletary pass was definitely overthrown and would have required probably the greatest catch of Singletary's career (college or pro) to haul it in. IIRC, that McKenzie "drop" was not an easy catch at all.

Agreed. There definitely weren't 8 drops.

Peters knocked it away. It was a great play by the DB on a good throw and a good route. There are good players on the other side too!

I don't think he could have caught that even if he hadn't jumped. It wasn't a terrible throw, but it wasn't as accurate as it could have been.

You seem awfully sure of yourself about this. I recommend letting his career play out. No one here can predict the future.

I counted three drops - one by Beasley on a deep-ish throw, one by Knox that should have been an easy first down, and one by Singletary at the LOS that probably wouldn't have gone for much.

The PI call was a joke. The ball was so uncatchable that you’d have to be blind to think that it was, and Beasley put on a great acting job to boot. I was happy about the call, though.

I think that stuff is important too. But Gore has 64 carries for 170 yards in the last seven games (and 55 for 136 in the last 6) and 3 receptions. That is well under 3 ypc. At some point, production matters.

He was a healthy scratch for a game because Reid has bought into resting older players for a game mid-season. McCoy said the week off was incredible for his body. The story is actually all over the interwebs. McCoy is a great receiver and always has been. That alone changes how defenses line up and react.

4.9 ypc and an 88 percent catch rate suggest otherwise. Last year, shady’s season was a mirage - kinda like Sony Michel’s this year and Marshawn Lynch’s final dozen or so games as a Bill. Teams key on them because they don’t respect the passing game, and they get hit in the backfield on no-chance plays at an inordinate rate.

I fixed it! Sorry - doing this from my phone ...

There have been 12 other games.

And I say that as someone who loves Frank. The Bills certainly could have afforded McCoy. He’s just a lot more versatile than Frank at this point. When Gore is in there, his role is insanely predictable, which makes the offense more predictable. McCoy is having a sneaky good season. He is averaging 4.9 ypc and has 27 receptions on 31 targets.

Dawkins isn’t great, but it could be a lot worse. He’s at least average, and he is durable (possibly the most underrated attribute among fans). Ford isn’t very good right now, but most rookie tackles struggle in the nfl. Marcus Cannon was terrible early on and is now excellent. Going back, Ken Jones was a holding machine for the Bills but became excellent over time.

An NFL qb with literally the strongest arm ever - and a guy the bills drafted to deal with the wind - should be expected to occasionally connect. He has to keep trying even if this year is a lost cause. They basically drafted the next big ben, but ben is an accurate deep thrower. He has gotten more accurate on other throws, so it’s wise to push and push him. Crazy opinion: Orton was the Bills’ most accurate deep thrower since Kelly 2/3 of the way through the 1992 season (he ruptuted his bursar sac then and was never the same).

I like to think of myself as a realist. Baltimore is good. They held SF to 17 last week. This week, SF scored 48 on the road against a good D.

It’s a loss they could give. They were never going to win the division. The Pitt game is a lot more important than this one.