2020 Our Year For Sure

Best wishes, Bill.

Two things... That throw to Chandler down the sideline against Baltimore That throw to Stevie against Tampa Come on EJ!

It's speculative to attribute a transaction to one person in the Bills organization. We currently have an odd structure wherein the coach and GM both report directly to the Owner, putting the two of them on even ground. I personally tend to associate Whaley with the draft and the coaches with some of the FA/trade moves, but again, it's all speculation. Unlike most teams the Bills do not seem to have one man with the authority to make any personnel decision he wants. Meanwhie it was reported by Peter King that Greg Roman asked for two things when he came aboard- Percy Harvin and Matt Cassel. I don't buy the 'rogue' narrative one bit because, under the current structure, I don't envision Terry Pegula allowing Whaley to make moves without at least making Ryan aware of them first. To me it looks like they decided EJ was better than Cassel, or about the same, or at least close enough that it was worth adding the draft pick. Just pointing out that it's never fact that Whaley made a given move when the coach has just as much power within the organization as he does.

I look at this game as playing with house money in a sense- not a must-win game but a huge opportunity. If you look at the schedule and count up some possible/likely wins, you might look at Miami, NYJ, Jags, Texans, Washington, Philly and that gets us to 9 wins. The 10th could be this game OR Cowboys at home OR @ Chiefs OR a sweep of the Jets OR a win at New England*. It sure would be nice to beat Cincy, generate confidence and create margin for error but it's not something we absolutely must do right now. I want to see Shady 100% so he can help us win the above games. If he really is good to go and there isn't much chance of a re-injury then sure, go ahead and free McCoy. Just be smart about it.

Might have something to do with our leading the league in sacks last year while Dallas was 28th. Heavy lies the crown...

What about Ron Brooks to safety?

Garrison Sanborn, noted mohel

Why all the hate for this guy? Is he not a decent blocker?

IMO the pass coverage thing with the DL has been overblown. I imagine that's something the coaches do to go against tendency so the QB & OL can't be sure who is rushing on a given snap, and not something that's called very often. I think the larger problem Dareus was eluding to was stacking and playing 2-gap rather than exploding through the gaps at the snap. From what my untrained eye saw, it seemed we let the DL loose against Tennessee. edit sorry to go off topic

Hughes is doing the 'chip n rush' bit that we've been hearing about this year?

There are always gonna be injuries, no excuse. The other team has em too. If these guys come back and then Glenn and Incognito both go down, we can't evaluate the offense all season? I can already see the posts 'pretty tough to throw when you're lying on your back' etc. Just wait for next year, we'll keep the whole offense healthy for sure... Offense hasn't been bad overall but to beat good teams they'll need to do more than they've done the past two weeks.

Thanks for your input fellas

Good points. Let's see if we're able to run into crowded boxes on first down with this O-line. Couldn't do it against the Giants' no-name defensive front. I may be overreacting to that game. To be clear, I didn't advocate throwing 45 times a game. I want to go spread because I want to throw more on 1st down and I actually think we'd run it better.

You seem to be advocating putting Marshall Faulk in a power scheme and Jerome Bettis in a spread offense. When you spread the field in a shotgun it creates a ton of space for a guy like McCoy to pick his own hole, evade one or two tacklers and get off to the races. It also makes the OL's job easier. The Jets offensive line is better equipped to run block in a crowded box than ours is. And power run plays with guards pulling work best with a back who can put his nose down and churn out the extra 2, 3, 4 yards on the end of the run. McCoy is not happy with following the play for 5-6 yards. He'd rather bounce outside and try for the big play, even if it means getting 2 instead of 5. At least I tried, and if I keep trying, I'll pop one eventually, is the mentality. Best off putting him in space and working with him rather than against him. And we have more difficult matchups at WR/TE than the Jets do. This makes our spread formation more effective than theirs. I get that we're trying to run to stay out of third and long but it's had the opposite effect many times, especially against the Giants. Because we can't run block when good defenses play run. Maybe getting into third and short could be accomplished more regularly by using the strength of the roster, the weapons, rather than the weakness of the roster, the O-line. Just one fool's opinion- your perspective is most welcome.

He can if there's a hole, he was our only good back last year. Not the type of dude to create for himself though.

Tyrod didn't have a good half but we didn't make it any easier on him with all the 3rd and longs. Give him a chance and throw it more on 1st down, too many weapons to be depending on our O-line so much. Easy, still gotta increase my eye speed. yes sir! thanks. Go Bills

If I had credibility do you think I'd stay in New Jersey?

I don't think we should do it on every down and burn our massive power run playbook. I do think the spread should be our base offense. I even think we'd run the ball a lot better for three reasons -the offensive line won't see loaded boxes. less bodies to block = making the job of our offense's weakest unit easier. -McCoy is put in his element. More space and more shotgun means he can do what he does best, pick his own hole and make people miss so he can make BIG plays for us, which he always insists on attempting anyway. Make our HB's style work with our scheme rather than against it. -Spreading the defense allows Taylor to get more easy yards with his legs. The read options and other designed runs become less predictable because we're in that set all the time. The defense has to chase all our weapons around and there's more space for him to scramble. The reason to alter our philosophy is that in a power run scheme its imperative you have a strong run blocking O-line, and we don't. I'd like to use our weapons to thin out the box, make life easier on the line and give McCoy room to play HIS game. What about the games we lost? Why did we have 13 points after 3 quarters against NE*, and why did we score three touchdowns in the 4th quarter once we were absolutely forced to open the offense up? Why did we score only 10 points against the Giants along with multiple turnovers? and a lead back who had 18 carries for 40 or 45 yards? Pretty numbers are great. I'm more interested in winning every game that we can, not just the ones against poorly-coached, soft defenses. Please don't get me wrong Hondo, I am not saying Roman has been terrible. Even if he doesn't change a thing he's a serious upgrade over Marrone/Hackett. But to suggest our offense couldn't have performed better in the first halves of our losses is folly. Also I used to say the same thing about Dick Jauron- 'how can you possibly think you know defense better than someone who has coached it at the highest level for xx years.' Roman is a better coach than Jauron but nobody is perfect. Again not saying he's been bad, but I believe there are changes that could be made to be better (and more consistent week to week).

We scored 10 points against the Giants. We had 2 first downs at halftime along with at least 5-6 three and outs. We were sacked eight(?) times. Our running game was abysmal. Against NE* we had 13 points at halftime, 7 of which came on the opening drive when Tyrod was something like 5 of 5 with 80 yards. Frankly I don't put any stock into your comparison to another league in anoth3r time. It seems that when we lose its because we waste the first half failing to run the ball on early downs, then we open the offense up and have success in the 2nd half, too late. This offense seems built for the spread in every position group.

I thought throwing (even short) on first down could've helped against the NYG. We kept running our way into third and longs, on which Tyrod had no chance, partially because we couldn't protect and partially because we didn't get him in rhythm. I believe we had 5 or 6 three and outs in that first half.

Something I've been telling anyone who will listen in person is I believe Chan Gailey is a good offensive coordinator but a mismatch for the Jets personnel. NYJ have a limited quarterback, a big bruising HB who I love in Ivory, a pretty good offensive line, a blocking TE, and big physical wide receivers. This is a team built for run sets and power plays, and then to work the passing game off of the run via play action. In other words, a team built for Greg Roman. Instead, Gailey is lining up in the spread, which doesn't suit their halfback's style and doesn't take advantage of their O-line, and Fitz has thrown too many passes in some games. Contrast this with the Bills. An explosive quarterback with both arm and legs. A ridiculously shifty, but smaller HB. Athletic matchup nightmare TE. Two quick matchup nightmare WRs in Watkins and Harvin, and another strong all around receiver in Woods. Could the Bills make better use of all these weapons by lining up in the spread more? Giving McCoy more space to shake n bake with, giving Taylor more room to move as well, and using our strong athleticism as the engine of the offense. It seems like instead, we're trying to force our O-line to be the engine. I offer no stats but we seem to be running the ball on 1st down quite a bit. In this league, in order to be a team that lines up in run sets and runs first to set up the pass, you will need to run successfully at times even when the defense lines up to stop the run. We don't have the offensive line G-Ro had out in the bay, yet we seem to be proceeding as if we do. Against soft defenses like the Colts and Dolphins it's one thing- against active defenses like NE* and the Giants we wasted the whole 1st half failing to run, put ourselves in a hole, then opened it up and started scoring too little too late. Power running just doesn't seem to make the offense's greatest strengths the focal point of the attack. I say spread the D out, use to the fullest our athleticism at WR/TE and give Taylor and McCoy more room to operate in the run game. This de-emphasizes our mediocre-to-crappy offensive line while emphasizing our superior players at other positions. Really I want to hear your thoughts though. Go Bills.

Agreed. Roman spent a number of years collecting plays that utilize an athletic TE and we're reaping the benefits.

Aye, I forgot which thread this is. And of course we weren't 100% healthy in our wins, nobody ever is.

This just comes off like lip service to appease the masses after people were unhappy with his lack of accountability after the game. Why in the world would it take him another day to realize penalties are bad? Refs have always sucked. Remember when Andre Reed got a 15 yard penalty for standing up? Cost us a playoff game for crying out loud. Still burns up my stomach when I think about that chickensh*t call.

So we're only good when 100% healthy? In other words, never. I sure hope this isn't the case.