Low Positive

I don't pretend to understand the finer points of football and during the game, I thought that it was all on Goff. But this breakdown by Andy Benoit at SI explains how the Pats gameplan worked to take away what the Rams want to do. For those disinclined to read the article, it boils down to a Cover 4 scheme to take away the crossing routes that the Rams like to use and a 6 man front with the linebackers not allowing the edge runs that Rams used all year. I barely understand what the means, but what I do know is that if you give Belichick two weeks to break down film he will come up with a scheme to take away any trends that he can see on film. John Sullivan (Rams center) said that the Cover 4 was something that the Pats had not done all year. So the Pats completely changed their defense in those two weeks while the Rams kept their offense intact. So if you have to blame someone, I guess that it would have to be McVey because he prepared for the Pats like they are any other team and not one lead by the mad scientist of defensive football. https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/02/04/bill-belichick-sean-mcvay-super-bowl-liii

Ha! But maybe it was not such a good idea to spend all your free agent money on Sammy Watkins.

If you watched the Chiefs all year, outside of that one playoff game against the Colts they had to win every game in a shootout. Well, defense might not mean much in the modern NFL, but it sure as hell means something in overtime when you lose the coin toss. Chiefs used all their available cap space and draft capital on one side of the ball and paid the price today.

Given what happened with the DB giving Jackson the ball after the INT and Mayfield’s comments, I think Grego used this “betrayal” as motivation all week to fire up the troops. Kind of like how the Bills used Ramsey’s comments.

Archives go back to June 1999.

We still wouldn’t get it because the Raiders have completely quit on Gruden. They won’t win another game. Say what you will about McD, but his players play hard for him. I expect this defense to win at least another 2 games for us.

If press conference gold is what you what, you have to hire this guy...

I think that Lincoln Riley will go to Cleveland to coach Baker Mayfield. For the record, I think that Beene and McDermott should get another year. If they don't, I like Jim Bob Cooter for the job. Offensive coach and a name that sounds like a minor character in Smokey and the Bandit? How can you lose?

The Chargers signed a 20 year lease for a stadium that’s not even built yet so they’re kinda stuck in LA.

I think that people watch the games, get emotionally involved and then react out of those emotions. And every team's fans do the same. People seem to think that Buffalo fans are somehow unique in their negativity and emotional swings. I'm a fan of non-Buffalo teams and their message boards are just like this one. The coach needs to be fired after every loss, no one is worth their contract and the GM doesn't know what he's doing because he doesn't make the moves that fans would. Bengals fans want everyone fired after one loss to Pittsburgh today and Pacers fans wanted everyone fired after the Paul George trade.

This year, I’d rather wait in line than watch the reds starting pitching.

That just looks like coaching to me. He saw that they were not taking a drill seriously enough and told them this in an animated way. Then he stuck around, watched them run it some more, was pleased with the results and told them so. My kids soccer coaches would have done the same thing, albeit without the profanity.

That part of NYS tends to be an extension of NYC in its sports fandom. Met Life is closer by an hour and the Giants used to have their training camp in Albany. This map is a bit old, but it gives you an idea of the limited geographical reach of Bills Mafia. https://www.google.com/amp/s/matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-where-to-find-fans-of-your-nfl-team-across-the-us/amp/

Arizona is a big mess and they just spent a crap ton of money to Sam Bradford to start for a last place team. The Giants have a good defense but their line is as bad as ours. The Lions are also very bad; they gave up 48 points to the Jets at home. I’m not saying that we are not awful, but we have competition for the #1 pick.

This is a move that a team makes when they are contending to address a weakness. We are not close to contending.

I think that the hardest part about being a sports fan is that you care passionately about something over which you have no control. People deal with that in different ways.

For those of us that don't live in WNY, this year is especially hard because you have to take so much from fans of the local team. I can't wait for the Bengals to lose two in a row so that things can return to normal around here. But what I don't get is how my being angry and not "drinking the cool-aid" is going to change anything. I keep hoping that Beene is some sort of genius because if the negative posters here are correct then we are screwed for a decade. Regardless of what anyone says, you cannot keep firing coaches and GMs so we have to keep these guys until at least 2020. I hated the Rex hiring but I wish he was still the coach. Not because he was a better coach than McD, but because an organization needs to build some stability. And FWIW, Preston Brown has been the most interviewed Bengal in the early season. Every time I turn on local sports talk (if you think WGR is bad, try ESPN 1360 in Cincinnati), Preston is getting interviewed. He's a local kid (Northwest Highschool) returning home and Dave Lapham (Cincinnati's color guy and a bigger homer than Hawk Harrelson) just keeps asking him about his childhood fandom how he felt when this or that bad thing happened to the Bengals. And Preston feels the need to keep proving his loyalty to his new team by telling everyone far and wide how happy he is to be "home." Of course he's going to be asked about this happening on his former team and he chose to use it as another example of why he's happy to be playing for the Bengals, a team with an owner so cheap that he refuses to hire a GM or any other player personnel staffers.

The problem is that offensive line play is the weakness of many NFL teams and good offensive linemen are pretty rare. A compounding problem is that due to the proliferation of spread offenses, college offensive linemen are becoming harder to evaluate because they are rarely asked to hold a block.

The man is from Iowa. They take bathe in ranch dressing there...

I don’t disagree in principle, but this draft is a weak QB draft. If the Bills get the #1 a QB would be a criminal reach.

The kid could be a bust, but his attitude is too good for him to be Ryan Leaf and his work ethic is to good for him to be Jamarcus Russell. Most guys bust because of a combination of an entitled attitude and a lack of skills. There are of course exceptions, including a few recent ones for the Bills but I expect Josh Allen to take the opportunity that he has been given and to run with it.

Then good thing that we held on to our #1 for next year. It could be a high pick.

My wife works tonight (nurse), but my kids have practice from 7-8:30. I’m thinking about dropping them off early and coming home to watch and then going back out to get them. But knowing my luck, the Bills pick will happen when I am going back to get them.

This is real too.