dave mcbride

So, @YoloinOhio, this basically means that the cycle needs an additional tank-ruining stage, right??

Good context regarding that preseason practice session with Indy. Cleveland has some problems. https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2019/11/myles-garretts-actions-on-thursday-should-cause-browns-to-look-deeper-at-why-keeping-composure-has-been-so-difficult.html

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call that one head hunting. It looks to me like one of those unfortunate but not really intentional hits:

I'll say this about Hughes' tweet - he speaks a truth that a lot of people try to ignore. It is a very, very violent game, and you have to have a taste for violence to succeed at it. Again:

You and I both know that pretty much every team in the league runs little dump offs at the end of out-of-hand games. Their occurrence is so frequent as to be banal. Please don't engage in whataboutism.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/11/15/nfl-is-sanctioned-violence-myles-garrett-still-violated-its-codes/ Please, please, don't engage in whataboutism.

The larger issue is the Browns culture. Why Garrett is taking a QB down HARD with 8 seconds left on a meaningless play is the real issue given the broader context of the Browns' constant cheap shots. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/11/15/source-thursday-nights-game-was-like-a-bounty-game/ A high-level source with another team, who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject and league rules that prohibit the public criticism of other teams, had this to say about the situation: “If the league is serious, they should fine Browns $5 million and fine [coach Freddie Kitchens] $500,000. That was like a bounty game. There were so many unnecessary flagrant hits, and then the cherry on top.” While Myles Garrett‘s misbehavior will receive most of the attention, other illegal hits happened. Defensive back Damarious Randall applied an illegal hit to Steelers receiver Diontae Johnson, resulting in an ejection — and images of Johnson having blood running from his ear. Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster also suffered a concussion during the game, courtesy of a pair of helmet-to-helmet hits at a time when he was in a defenseless posture. (No flag was thrown.) The Browns have played an undisciplined brand of football all year long. During training camp, the Browns engaged in joint practice with the Colts. Cleveland coach Freddie Kitchens said after a session that featured multiple fights that “we’re not going to back down to anybody.” Kitchens grew angry at having those words read back to him after Thursday night’s game, insisting that he doesn’t coach penalties. Maybe he doesn’t coach penalties, but it would be interesting to know what the coaching staff did to get Cleveland’s players sufficiently cranked up for Thursday night’s game to result in an ejection for an illegal hit, another illegal hit that wasn’t called, and ultimately the Myles Garrett incident. While Kitchens surely never told Garrett or anyone else to remove a player’s helmet and hit him with it, it’s Kitchens’ team. He lays down the law. He says what is and isn’t acceptable. And whatever messages he and his staff communicated prior to Thursday night’s game helped set the stage for what unfolded. Consider this, from Jeremy Fowler of ESPN: “Myles Garrett completely lost it, connected the helmet square on Mason Rudolph’s head. And the Browns were celebrating the whole thing from the sideline.” (Emphasis added.)

Some of the people in this thread seem like they'd be terrible bosses (I say this as a boss). Re: Gase, we're talking about a guy who dumped Jay Ajayi to the Eagles for speaking out, and in 10 games including three in the post season, Ajayi ran for 584 yards and at 5.3 ypc rate. In three postseason games, he ran for 184 yards at a 4.4 ypc rate (and had 9 carries for 57 yards in the SB). He got hurt the next season, but that's an unpredictable thing. Regardless, he was excellent for a SB-winning team. Gase also dumped Jordan Phillips and got rid of Jarvis Landry for not being "Gase culture" guys. Phillips has been excellent for the Bills, and Larvis, while unlikeable, is a great player. Gase seems like a Queeg-like automaton when he speaks, and the history of his actions back that assessment up.

That tweet is both hilarious and true!

Teams run harmless short passes like that ALLof the time at the end of games, and that sort of mayhem never happens. Keep excusing it though. Blaming Tomlin is certainly a novel concept, though.

He is also flat-out one of the best players in the league. An uncomfortable truth about the NFL that still applies despite all the talk about player safety:

He was angry after an unbelievably cheap shot, especially GIVEN THE CONTEXT. He took him down WAY too hard given (again) the context. I have watched it about 5 times. There were 8 effing seconds left in the game, and the score was out of reach. Eight. Effing. Seconds. Garrett is a GREAT player, but he is also a straight-up thug. Of course, that’s partly why he is so good.

No one deserves to be suspended on the Steelers. Rudolph was taken hard to the ground well after the pass and with 8 seconds to go. He was angry and trying to pry Garrett off of him and got his hands on his helmet. What happened afterwards is the ONLY thing anyone should be focusing on. As for Pouncey, all Steelers should be excused for their actions after what Garrett and the other Browns player did. It was beyond the pale and ineffingexcusable. That was George Atkinson/Jack Tatum-level stuff after a game of cheap shots by Cleveland. Two years of Gregg Williams, the excusing of the fighting and cheap shots (especially by Garrett) all season by Kitchins, the bringing on of a bad guy like Kareem Hunt, the trade for guys like Landry and ro a lesser extent Beckham, and this is what you get. That is a team that should be 7-3 based on talent, and they are 4-6. The one silver lining is that the rivalry between these two teams is going to be ferocious going forward. Reaction to an unbelievably cheap shot by Garrett — he took rudolph hard to the ground well after the pass with 8 freaking seconds to play in a 21-7 game.

He actually underthrew him. That's gonna get picked in an actual game!

I don't care about yardage at all, really - I care about ypa. If he's hitting 8.5 ypa in a game, that's elite-level.

You know, if Denzel Ward wasn't such a good corner, the take on the playcalling on that drive would be a lot different. The Bills tried to get the ball way down the field to their best offensive player who was in single coverage, which is not a bad idea! Ward simply made a terrific play. There's a reason he was a top-five pick. Good players on the other side sometimes make plays that blow up good plans.

The Redskins have four first rounders on their D-front: Allen, Payne, Kerrigan, and Sweat. Collectively, they are really good. Unfortunately for the Redskins, it's the only good part of the team.

This is a really smart take. The thing I'd add is that perhaps they're factoring in that Allen is actually pretty bright (high wonderlic and clearly intelligent in interviews), and tossing him into the fire with a complex offense is the best way to advance his career, which could end up being very long (I hope). I also think he has mental toughness too; he doesn't look like he's going to be a Tim Couch/David Carr type who is going to wilt. As I've said elsewhere, our assessment of the offense would be a LOT different if he had hit on just three of those many deep throws to wide open WRs. The fact that he hasn't hit on any of them does a couple of things: first, it brings the offensive numbers way down relative to other teams, all of which hit the occasional 70-yard, 7-point deep ball pass; and second, it allows defensive coordinators to gamble with cover-zero blitzes or by lining up 8 in the box at a disproportionate rate because they're assessing the numbers just like us and assuming that the chances of him hitting the deep ball are slim to none. To his credit, Daboll is getting those deep guys open, and it's on Allen to start hitting them. If he does, everything about the offense will change, and for the better. Bear in mind that the Bills' offensive numbers with Taylor looked pretty good because he regularly hit deep passes, especially in 2015. This one is from 2016, but it's indicative. It's an 84 yard, 7-point play, and the ball was perfectly placed with the sort of arc that Allen's balls don't have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EqEUD3jJLE

C'mon John. "20 yards" is more for effect than anything else - he's basically indicating that the balls aren't catchable. Even you aren't that much of a homer to defend Josh A's deep game this season, right? He's been good in other areas, but him hitting zero deep balls has knock-on effects with regard to how teams defend us and the degree to which they're willing to gamble.

I truly respect your opinion, but i don't think anyone is catching that ball. I just think it was flat out overthrown, like all of the others. Every week I feel like we have a debate about the WR looking back to early or not cutting his route short or slowing up at the crucial moment on the deep throws. They're just not accurate, plain and simple.

I think that if you watched most NFL receivers, they're looking back early too. People on this board ripped John Brown for allegedly looking back early on an overthrown deep ball too, but neglected to mention that he's a great deep receiver who has been running good deep routes and catching bombs for years. It's not as if receivers run 30 yards down the field and turn their head at just the right moment with the ball falling magically into their breadbasket. They have to look back to be aware of what's coming and where it's going to land.

I think that's fair. My admittedly odd opinion - I don't think the Bills are a particularly good rushing team. I think they tend to get stoned at a disproportionately high level on obvious running downs, and neither RB has breakaway ability. The numbers admittedly look alright, and it's not as if they're terrible. I think the larger issue is they simply haven't been able to build two score leads, and that's partly a function of dreadful third quarter performances. They tend to find themselves in a lot of see saw battles where they have to pass late, even against bad teams. The Washington game was an exception, and the running numbers were big in that one. They were behind for most of the game vs Cleveland, NE, the Jets, and Philly, and the even the Dolphins and Cincy had late leads. They threw it more than they ran it vs. TN (36 passes to 27 runs, with 10 by Allen), but Singletary was out in that game and the game was tied in the 4th quarter. Just about all of their good running plays came on the final possession; prior to that they had rushed 18 times for 60 yards against a stout TN d-line.

It's also much easier to march down the field at the end of games because you have four downs and defenses tend to be tired. It's why the ends of NFL games are so exciting.

Most of his runs in that game were designed runs - the two TD runs, for instance, and a couple of others. I think two were scrambles. Mackenzie ran one too.

Yes, Gordon looked good. He's basically uncoverable on those throws.