dave mcbride

both things can be true and are!

The Bills have no credible WRs, and the loss of Clay makes the situation even worse. That's the beginning and end of the conversation with regard to qb productivity, I think.

That may welll be the case, but I do dispute the idea that Whaley had any power after McDermott was hired. He was kept on to ensure the smooth running of the draft, and had no say beyond that. That's my take and I'm stickin' to it, at least with regard to Whaley. Re: Sammy, you've been saying a version of the above for a while, and I think that you may well be right (not saying it was the right decision to move him, btw - that's a separate issue).

14 catches for 183 yards in four games - 3.5 catches per game, 46 ypg, and 13.1 ypc. Extrapolated over a season, it's 56 catches for 732 yards and 4 TDs.

Kinda sacrilegious to say this, but to my eyes Kyle Williams is not playing all that well this season. He's not nearly as disruptive as in the past, and despite a lot of playing time he has very, very few tackles.

Agreed. The craziest thing about this season? Glass Goodwin is producing at a light years-better rate than any Bills receiver (243 yards and a 17.4 ypc), and with a worse QB. Zay Jones's most amazing stat: he has been targeted 23 times and has 5-count-'em-5 receptions.

Kind of a backhanded knock on Watkins there - basically stating that he knew Watkins gave up on the play (which he did). Not to excuse Watkins, but he was at least double- and sorta triple-covered on the play.

Buffalo had 408 yards against the Jets. It's only been 4 games.

Gerry: Not sure what you mean by this. Whaley was effectively neutered and had no say over what to do with Watkins' option, right? Or am I misreading?

Hi Josh: it would be great if the Bills reporters and columnists evinced more knowledge of stat analysis. Just by way of example, I've seen JS, BG, and VC continually invoke context-less and simplistic stat rankings to judge the Bills. It may sound like I'm shilling here for Football Outsiders, but the BN's reporters should familiarize themselves with their approach and methods, which are really strong. Last year, I felt like I was going to scream every time I read JS mention the Bills' 32nd ranked passing offense, which simply did not capture the reality of where the Bills actually stood beyond a raw yardage measure. The same goes for VC's invocation of Bills' defensive rankings; they were actually far worse than the mid-tier ranking in yardage/points under Rex in 2015-16 if you dig a little deeper. This is something friends of mine talk about a lot in both this and other contexts (everything from politics to movies to whatever): fans are a LOT more knowledgeable than I think a lot of writers assume. It's a breath of fresh air to read someone like Tyler Kepner on baseball in the NYT. More of that, please! More importantly, I think that people expect that now. One of the most persistent criticisms of the BN's coverage here is the thin level of analysis. It has gotten better over the years, but it's still not good enough.

Good post. Pretty much says it all.

I don't think so. I just think that they'll struggle too often to score 20 points, which is going to get them to 7 losses (or more). In my view, they have 3 automatic losses on the horizon - NE twice and KC. I don't see them going 7-1 in the other 8 games. I think that 10-6 is necessary for the playoffs because I think that Denver will definitely get to 10 and some other team too. Who that is, I don't know at this point.

Jones dropped an incredibly easy pass at the Bengals 9 yard line, McCoy dropped a pass right in his freaking hands at the 1, Tate dropped one in the third quarter in the middle of the field at the Bengals 32 yard line, and Tate also had what was effectively a drop near the end of the first half when he failed to execute an easy foot drag that most legit starting WRs in the NFL can do in their sleep. I agree with you most of the time, but McCoy has decidedly not been awful. His performance right now is akin to Marshawn in 2009-10 - what looked like poor play really wasn't because no back in the league was being hit a higher rate behind the LOS than Lynch. Everyone thought Lynch was overrated and slow because of the ypc problems, but didn't factor in the context. The same is true for McCoy this year. Did you watch Dawkins try to run block yesterday? Or Vlad Ducasse on that third down and short play at midfield? McCoy has zero chance to succeed in this offense given the awfulness of the receiving corps (especially now that we're going to be without Clay for a while). In fact, McCoy has ripped off a number of big runs this season where he has flashed elite skills, but almost all of them have been called back because of holds.

LAMP

Ps - do not blame playcalling, please. The talent is so poor. That's the issue.

Dawkins is brutal this game. He has cost the team points. The talent on this offense is so bad. Unwatchable.

This explains a lot. Thanks for the link.

The Bills' defensive talent is leagues worse than that on Denver, Seattle, and Carolina. What's going on right now is nice, but I don't think it's sustainable. I hope i'm wrong, of course.

All he did was throw outside in 2015 and for much of 2016.

See my post above. Don't automatically assume he likes playing NFL football at this point in his life.

I don't know if this applies to Dareus, but I don't know how many people here are aware that many NFL players don't actually like playing football. It hurts - a lot. I'll never forget hearing an interview with Chargers D-lineman Burt Grossman on the Jim Rome show over two decades ago. In response to the question of how much he still loved the game (he was nearing the end of his very solid 6 year career, in which he had 43.5 sacks), he essentially said that he never liked playing in the NFL and only did it for the money. Rome then asked him if college was the last time he liked playing. He said he hated playing in college too (he went to Pitt and was drafted 8th overall in the first round). He closed by saying that the last time he liked playing football was in high school. He had stuck with it because of the money. Kris Jenkins' NYT piece from a few years back is quite revealing about the punishment DTs take: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/sports/football/kris-jenkinss-view-of-life-in-the-nfl-trenches.html . Consider all of this when thinking about Dareus, who is effectively set for life. The only financially stupid thing Dareus could do at this point is retire, because he'd forfeit millions of dollars. Even if he's unmotivated, he needs to stick it out to collect that cash. Again, I don't know if he hates playing football, but he might. We as fans are justified in not liking this, but this sort of situation is more common than you might think. It's why teams are terrified of guaranteed contracts. This ain't MLB w/regard to "love of the game."

Tell me if I'm wrong here: this claim by Gannon about Taylor's game before this season is utterly false, correct? "When Gannon watches Taylor, he sees a quarterback who, especially when on the move, is more comfortable throwing to the tight end than outside the numbers to his receivers. This hasn't changed a whole lot since Taylor became the Bills' starter in 2015 or during the past two years when he had Sammy Watkins in his receiving corps. "Part of that is (Taylor's) height," Gannon said. "When you're 6-foot or 6-1, whatever he is, it's hard to see over those guys in front of you and be able to find lanes to throw the ball outside. So that's a scary throw if you don't have really good vision." http://buffalonews.com/2017/10/03/vic-caruccis-bills-analysis-taylor-clay-can-continue-carry-passing-game/

very interesting piece. Thanks for the link. It really sucks that he seems incapable of motivating himself to play to his talent level, although to be fair I do think that he's playing hurt right now.

They played very well against Green Bay, and their defense shut down Houston. They are better than their record.

Getting someone who knows the playbook is absolutely crucial, I think.