Acantha

I haven't liked EJ since his college days, and didn't like the pick when me made it. That said, I held out a little bit of hope until today. EJ has a bunch of qualities that you like to see in your starting QB, but he's just not going to make it. He just needs too much improvement in key areas of the game, and his ceiling isn't high enough to warrant all the losing that it would take to get him the experience he needs to even possibly overcome them. The EJ supporters will point to the injuries, and that's not without some merit, but he's been the same QB every time he has played, no matter who has been in the game. Flashes of excellence with a whole lot of WTF thrown in. We need to move on from him, even as a backup. And yes, I'll stick to this opinion even if he manages an improbable comeback in this game. From some maybe, but not from me.

So far so good on Chromecast. Perfect picture, no buffering, and I have a relatively slow internet connection since I live in the boonies.

This episode was kind of aggravating to me. Sure, it was full of action and Carol was badass, but there was just too many oddities. I feel like the beginning with Enid was a waste of time. I guess they could surprise me with a deeper story line later, but I think the whole thing was just to get the whole JSS thing out there, which just seems like a waste of time to me...something this show seems to be good at. Based on last season's finale, the Wolves were like super organized and evil. Here, they are completely wild and insane with basically no idea what they are doing. Are we to believe they basically have no interest in taking over the town at all? If they want it, why try to drive a truck through it? Why not just get in and open the gates instead of immediately killing and hacking everyone? Again, wild animals...not the evil organized group which we previously saw. Continuing from the last one, I really think the only point of this particular attack and the truck was to expose Alexandria to the horde on it's way. All fine I guess, but again it seems to kind of go against the previous story line too much for me. Morgan went from being kind of awesome to incredibly annoying in the first two episodes. Give me a break already with these characters. I really just want to scream at the writers, "WE GET IT, THERE'S A MORAL ASPECT TO THE STORY!!! NOW STOP RUINING GOOD CHARACTERS!!" Seriously, Morgan sees these guys killing innocent people and literally hacking up their bodies for no reason, yet he's still going to stick to his no kill things??? It's just too much. Speaking of that, I think they're on their way to ruining Carol as well, but I guess we'll see. They do seem to be pretty intent on keeping her the way she is, but I feel like the Morgan interaction was foreshadowing. Unlike some of the people here who have complained about the slower points in the show and want more action, I actually like the character building, but I think the writers are all over the place with it. Sometimes it's really subtle and good, but other times it's just so overwhelmingly in your face and obvious that it comes across cheesy. I think this was one of those episodes for me.

I agree big time with this. Add to it another fallacy, that player "X" should be playing through his injury because player "Y" played through theirs. The tough it out or you're soft crowd is ridiculous.

I have to do this with NFL Gamepass. Middle of last week all of sudden my login isn't showing I've paid so I couldn't listen to the game on Sunday. Sent 3 emails with no answer. I don't have time to call during the week, so I'll be on the phone on Saturday. Hope I have similar results.

This is great! Last year my wife bought my son one of those books and when I sat down to read it to him I said, "is this some kind of ripoff? When did they change it to stain?" Just shrugged it off at the time.

The cop shot at the car??? WTF?

Definitely a chunky nose. And I really, really, really hate painted on eyebrows.

You're right, and I really don't have much to say on that other than it wasn't common. That was one of the most baffling, horribly played games in years (and that's really saying something). On the contrary, it's a trend for this team. IMO, the defenses best performance was against Indy, and come to find out they're pretty bad (and poorly coached) overall. Wins against Indy, Miami and Tennessee just don't get me excited. Losses, at home, to the Giants and Bengals, especially the way this last game went, really gets my goat (I expect losses to NE at this point, so I don't even bother bringing that up).

Yes, it worked against a weak team with a rookie QB, but it shouldn't have even been THAT close. I can only imagine what this basically same defense would have done to Marriota last year. The Titans are 1-4 and only won against possibly the worst team in the league. Playing okay against far weaker talent isn't a reason to be optimistic. They should have destroyed that game.

I don't agree with the 6 quarters remark. They've been playing a similar scheme all season (less so against Indy), it just didn't look so bad against the really bad teams. We may have won the Titans game, but it shouldn't have been nearly as close as it was and I didn't think the defense played close to what we should expect.

That's how I feel as well. Nothing good can come from and owner telling a coach how to do his job (and this is coming from a guy who can't shut up about how pissed I am at the schemes this staff has been using). They should of course be talking and raising concerns for how things are going, but actually telling him what to do is overboard.

They need to just get rid of the recline function on these seats. Luckily I don't travel as much as once did, but no matter how uncomfortable I am, I don't recline when I fly now. Like you said, the seats are just too close together; it's not fair to the person behind.

From my perspective, the one thing that was made very clear in the offseason was that Whaley was NOT hiring the new coach. It's impossible to say what his opinion of the hire was, but IF the Ryan hire goes down in flames, no one can flat out blame Whaley. And not without merit. The problem right now is that it seems Rex has a horrible scheme that has been completely exposed, yet he keeps going back to it. If he shows he's willing to change when he makes a mistake, he'll deserve the good will.

I said a similar thing about the offense after the Giants game. It looked like they went into that game with the idea that they were going to run against the best run defense in the league no matter what. Just to prove they could. Most of the way through the 3rd quarter they finally started passing down field (against the last place pass defense) and the offense finally started moving. Looked like nothing but stubbornness. It's hard to say without knowing the scheme, which nobody here does. Just because they aren't dropped into coverage, doesn't mean their job is to all out blitz. They could be told to plug holes, or hold the edge, or take up blockers. All I know is that last year they were monsters, and with a DL of Hughes, Williams, Dareus, and Mario, there's just no excuse. Even if age all of sudden hit Mario and he's in the midst of a huge drop off in talent, he should still be able to get to the QB regularly playing next to those other guys. As for the quick passing plays, yes it can negate the overwhelming pass rush we should be generating, but there's a reason teams don't just always play that way. Any interruption in the routes screws with the timing of the play. Everyone has to be on the same page ALL the time. It opens up the possibility of mistakes and turnovers. Yes, a QB like Brady is going to be much better at and will always be a problem, but he's a problem no matter what defense he faces. Might as well try to hit him a few times a game and make him feel it! Not going all out after a historically error prone QB like Dalton is inexcusable! The good thing about everyone (players, ex-players) calling out this crappy scheme is that it hits Rex in the one place he needs to be hit, his ego. He's the "player's coach", the guy who seemed to love the attention he was getting from Thurman and Kelly, and now these guys are questioning his ability. I can only hold out hope that we'll start to see something different, specifically from the defense. If we don't see a better scheme after the bye, it might be hopeless.

Bill's defense just broke NFL Mobile. For some reason my drive chart keeps repeating TOUCHDOWN Bengels over and over again.

Even Cleveland is managing to look like an NFL team...staying with Denver. What's that mean?

What's to like? They're a crazy talented bunch of players who won't stop talking long enough to actually play. It's way easier to like the less talented teams who have played their asses off but who just couldn't compete.

That's getting pretty old.

I've been biting my tongue and holding off on being too critical, but I'm pretty much out of patience. It's not a playoff team, and IMO that's all about the coaching. Whaley had one a great job putting talent on the field, and these guys can't gameplan for ****. The crappy part is, since it's such a new hire, we'll waste the next three years giving them time to figure it out. Again.

I didn't say no other team deals with injury, though the Bills do seem to be especially snake bit this year at WR and RB. I specifically responding to the "next man up" comment. If any other team in the league loses 3 of their top 4 WR's, no one would expect the next guy up to play as well.

Oh please. 3 of the top 4 WRs are out of the game. No team in the NFL has enough WR depth to make that a non-issue.

I'm so sick of reporting like this. Complete BS that everyone in the media is perfectly willing to jump on board with. And Sammy's. From the outside looking in, this just strikes me as being rushed back. Hope it doesn't bite them.

I don't know. He certainly had some good moments, but he also had a lot of the same old "only throw when the receiver is wide open" moments. I think this is just put up or shut up time for EJ, and I'm hoping he comes out ahead. Probably, but I think with everything that's gone on this week, he'll try to force getting Watkins the ball. Might be good if he keeps his head.

Bet he forces the ball to Watkins (for better or worse).