colin

NANTZ IS A FRICKIN UNIT

the scariest team is the ravens, and it's not even close. computer cowboy put up a chart of teams ranked based on their combined epa per play on O and D. the upper right was best at both the lower left worst. the ravens were just above and just to the right of the bills, who were second overall. you can argue josh sitting out way more might have changed the offensive numbers, maybe some starters not sitting would have nudged the d numbers but it's pretty evident baltimore and buffalo are the two teams no one else in the play offs wants to see. kc being in KC and our 3 losses there in the playoffs is a whole other thing -- i think if we host and beat baltimore the confidence of the bills team going into kc will put them over, but it's a game that very few teams have won.

he will have to make meaningful contributions for us to win it this season. we'll need him to break the back of the baltimore secondary if we face them in the divisional round. he'll get likely less than a half a dozen chances, and he'll need to make good on a few of them.

honestly, this is a big basis of all of this. in college, up until a couple of years ago, the champion was decided by media opinion. it is still influential because how you are ranked at the end of the season gets you into the tourney, and how you and opponents are ranked early makes a big impact on how much love you will get for playing well enough to be in the conversation. every nfl player was a college player in their more formative years, so that culture is imbued in nfl football too. it's pretty obvious the bills have talent deficit to other nfl teams. big dead cap, only 3 or 4 players drafted outside of allen who can be compared to the top of their position (both tackles, benford, kindaaaaaaa cook) and our big name FA guys are old and underwhelming (von, cooper). mcd is a good but not great coach, and allen is the greatest player in nfl history, at least over the past 5 years. two years ago baltimore was one fluke turnover in the redzone from beating cinci late in the year with huntley at qb. they've overall added talent since then. lamar is a great regular season qb, but he's starting on third base compared to allen.

allen has his chance to prove everyone wrong again and get a ring out of it too.

there is a boxing coach near pittzburgh named tony yankello. he's got a youtube channel and does lots of instagram posts. he drills his fighters like mad (he's worked with some great fighters, including roy jones jr) and his basics are great. he preaches flat feet, particularly flat rear foot, 60 40 weight on the back foot, and rotation of mass through the fulcrum of the center of the hips. some of what he's specifically doing is building in defense into punch mechanics and set ups, so it's not all apples to apples, but the basics are entirely the same. throwing the back hand (right cross being the most popular for right handed fighters) is the same thing, more or less, as throwing the football wrt motion. i love seeing this kind of stuff!

bookies still have josh up, so i presume it is likely to happen. as much as i like josh and think he's the best ever, im not a fan of players, im a fan of the NFL Buffalo franchise, The Buffalo Bills. I want a chip. if it's all laurels and no chip, i don't want it. if it's snubs and anger and pissed off players showing the fugg out in the post season rubbing dirt in the faces of the media who said it shouldn't happen and a chip, then i really want that. the lombardi is Valhalla for football teams, and all of the players on them. awards are the prattling of people who do not hoist the lombardi.

the DE from michigan looks like a giant monster, but while sewell is obviously a great player, I thought Brown outplayed him over the last month of the season. I suppose the consistency would put sewell over brown, but brown is at least close. I think ex players generally don't make the best coaches, but there seems to be a select few of them that are just super top flight personnel guys. Spielman, lynch, both just know how to identify players who bring juice, and ozzy newsome might be the best of all. I remember ozzy had a selection critera and his three main attributes were height/weight, speed, and temperament. baltimore over his span had more top 2 round hits at more positions than any other team i can think of, but where it kinda stood out to me was how he did getting veterans signed in free agency. shannon sharp, rod woodson, mcnair, steve smith, all of them played some really good football for his teams coming in on discounted contracts vs what they did. i think someone with eyes like that is what we are missing in buffalo. our free agent signings for dline and WR have generally not been up to snuff.

if we are just looking at how the season ended, post the rams game the bills D has actually been opportunistic, i'll chalk up the 4th quarter vs detroit as playing too soft with back up back ups. sadly allowing drives to the jets and NE, but righting the ship and dropping the hammer when needed, and moving the ball at will except vs NE where they were kinda playing turtle. denver was in must win mode, and their d allowed a sad number of yards. i fully expect allen to go off and just chug the ball down the field like an on time train.

44-24 bills over broncos.

If he's right, he could but I don't think he's been right all season. He had a game here or there where he looked good in spots, but I think his injuries have basically removed his greatest ability. Hope he's actually better now tho.

on O, the bills do a little bit of everything and are decent at all of it at worst. we don't really seem to have a really tried and true tendency this season, aside from some like macro concepts (man beater on one side, zone on the other, which is a big part of the EP O). our highest efficiency has been when josh is blitzed/pressured (as in we exceed the rest of the nfl in that situation, not that we want to be pressured), and our passing game to the backs. we average nearly 11 yards per completion to backs. denver is awful at covering backs. their d kinda reminds me of the shwartz d's we had here. d line just assaults people w a four man rush, outside coverage is really solid with one total shut down guy, and they body up runs w dline impact and backers screaming into gaps. misdirection, passes in the middle (when protection holds up) and passes in the flat and on wheel routes and screens to RBs destroy them. we are going to see our backs have a game similar to the detroit one, and a few deep shots will keep the secondary honest. i also expect allen to hold the ball and scramble and run to great effect, and over time the run game might find a crack and show effeciency. on the other side, we will kinda let them run a bit, and send pressure on passing downs. nix will convert a few, including some with his legs, but he'll be forced into mistakes. i think by the third quarter the bills will double dip or score, stop, score and just open up a can on the broncos.

the biggest issue w big money WRs is there is only one football. multiple sick weapons is always the path to big offensive numbers and chips lead primarily by the offensive side of the football. obv qb matters the most, and upgrading the OL always helps (there are 5 of them so you really can't have too many, they play every snap and don't need the ball, so they add value on every play). don't get me wrong, if it fit cap wise i'd consider having hill on our team, we don't have outside speed and he might be the fastest. it would create insane issues for defenses. but if it's pay him 25 or pay like garrett or crosby or whever 25, i'm going w the d end. a defensive player can always contribute making plays and keeping the defense sound. a wr can be a decoy or a blocker, but really the impact of a top guy is when they have the ball in their hands. I also think an impact (not necessarily elite) wr is more common than an elite pass rusher, and that it's much easier to manufacture elite looking results in a given game for a wr than a pass rusher (gabe davis had 4 tubs in one game).

lots of interesting match ups. i see the eagles two ways -- sick OL and 2k RB, along w a running qb, means we might just get trucked to death in the run game. on the other hand, hurts is not a smart qb and the eagles passing game is just so vanilla and simple. if we do anything to slow down the iggles run, or they have some penalties to get behind the sticks, I can see their passing faltering because no one on the d gets fooled. the eagles d is really solid on paper, but i think anyone who we face in the playoffs will see allen go super sayian and cook will break something outside and rip them, so i really think it comes down to our D.

like spags (he's not as good) he's a guy who plays offense on D. these kind of stacking chips to make one thing hard can work wonders in the playoffs, i think that's heavily influenced by the fact that the refs kinda put the whistles down, so you get offensive holding which hurts "clean" pass rush teams who have a 4 man concept (like us) and help (relatively) teams who will overload or blitz more (can't hold a guy if no one can touch him). this also means Ds that disrupt routes more with physical contact get away with it more, but the sort of unwritten rule is that you have be close to the LOS (they let it slide a good bit beyond 5 yards tho). also, a single prime pass rusher has moves to disengage quickly and beat linemen even when they try to hold, sadly we haven't shown anyone on our roster like that, cinci has one. The downside of this kind of d is you get opened up for big run plays when your zone LB is trying to mug the slot or TE and there is a back barreling through, and if the offensive player can clear the clutchy defender you get guys out of position. also, if the o is wise to it, they can just structurally put your aggressive guys in bad positions and move the play (being aggressive means it's harder to adjust on the fly at a player to player level). babbich has been a disaster at times, but he's shown a much stronger willingness to mix up coverages, sort of randomize blitzes and dogs, and be less stuck in a deep shell (although he's had way way too many instances of allowing too many yards on whatever down and long, lots of 2nd and 15s become 3rd and 4s when he doesn't challenge and just hopes to rally to the ball). I hope our d looks a lot more like how it looked in the first 3 quarters vs the lions. if you can take the confidence out of the O (especially the run blocking/pass protection) then you can force some negative drives and get josh allen the ball. imo mcd d's have actually been good at the rock paper scissors stuff, but they either are way too ineffective when they do blitz, or the settle on forcing a difficult throw and catch which playoff qbs make way too often. getting better returns for the risks taken on D is what it will take for us to get over the hump. no matter how we play d, we will need the DL to play how they did vs detroit (or kc) a lot more than how they played vs baltimore this season and we need our corners to hold up. the greater willingness to play bishop and to a lesser extent williams makes me think they at least have this in mind.

He's O'K.

we just gotta win 4 more. at least two at home and one at a neutral site.

we were still in offensive kamikaze mode, only going for ultra deep passes, and we had post retirement beaz and brown out there with knox and diggs and davis, and singleterry at rb. we also had staffold who put in what i think is the worst post season performance by an OG in the playoffs i've ever seen. the difference, not just in philosophy, but also in talent on our O now is kinda shocking. diggs was great, but that season and the next he fell off hard and was a bozo in the playoffs. singleterry is worse than any back we have, kinkaid is a real upgrade to knox, who is an upgrade to whoever was behind him before. dawkins is still dawkins, but our LG, C, RG, and RT (brown has gotten much better, i think hes top 5) are all better now. at WR, I'd say davis/coleman is kinda a wash, shakir is legit better than diggs was the past two playoffs, and cooper and hollins are miles better than the trash we had rounding out or roster the past two off seasons. i expect shock and awe from our O the entire playoffs. it's gonna be the josh allen show with the backs and oline chewing up the left overs.

i'd like to see kinkaid go off and flummox the interior of the denver back 7. if the bills can run the ball early, it will be a 5+ td day and nix will falter and throw bad passes and picks.

pittz should alternate fields and rus to confuse the ravens, and whatever they do just show a totally different look on D to make playoff lamar come out. im way to cocky right now, i think we can beat denver, baltimore, and kc in kc. it would be better if we didnt have to tho

you have to think players in NE don't want them to get better draft picks, because that means there will be more new sharks in the tank fighting for the same cut of meat. benching the qb but then winning is crazy work, i think mayo knew he was gone and said eff it.

what he does in the playoffs will determine his value this season, same with the rest of the team. if he can make the hard high point catches, or turn slants into big gainers, it will make life hell for opposing defenses.

Green Bay winning, followed kinda distantly by Houston winning are my most likely upsets. Stiller's winning is my obvious hope. If those losers coulda just won a couple late games they'd be the higher seed sending Baltimore to kc in the second round w a Houston win. Can't believe they suck so bad!

I'm prolly over confident, but I expect Denver to get absolutely steam rolled. Boat race from the first snap.

I think that dude is at best the 2nd best RT in the NFL.