Big Turk

I'm guessing the winner of this game has upper 20s to low 30s.

Cue Austin Johnson who very well might be the best interior defender against screens in the NFL. Who would have thought? 2 INTs in 3 weeks on RB screens ties him with Sauce Gardner for career INTs 🤣🤣

Seemed to me they were basking in their glow of winning the AFC East the week before and were very unfocused.

McD values reliability and confidence you will be in the right position and do your job properly in each play more than anything. His whole defense is predicated on 11 guys all working in sync properly and all doing what they are supposed to do more than most defenses do. Cole Bishop learned first hand after his gaffe against Houston led to the Nico Collins long TD and he hasn't be seen from again except in mop up duty. No it's not. 2nd tie breaker is conference record. And even if that was true, if we beat the Jets the best the Steelers could do would be to tie us since they already lost to the Colts and we would be 4-1 with our only loss being to the Ravens.

Maybe, but that says more about them than it does about him.

Think it was a combination of it not being very successful when they tried and getting behind early. That combined with Allen dicing them up and having almost no pressure when he dropped back meant it didn't make much sense to go away from passing.

Boo...

To me that game was more about many of the players on D all having one of their worst games of the season at the same time. You are going to have games like that every year. No way around it. It happened on offense against Houston. The key is how do they respond after it. That's what is important. Strength of Victory is the 4th tiebreaker. Much better chance Bills win a tie at the end by Conference Record which is the 2nd tie breaker or Record vs. Common Opponents with is the 3rd tie breaker. 1st tie breaker is head to head which obviously doesn't apply since we haven't played them.

I think it's too much of a generality to say the DL is ineffective. We have seen games where they played very well...against KC for instance and pretty much wrecked Mahomes pocket all game and made him uncomfortable. I would say it's more that they succeed against certain types of OLines better than they do against others...

They were a modified screen tho which goes much better with the way Allen typically handles screens. Typical screens rely on the QB fading back and allowing the rushing defenders towards him. Allen doesn't have the patience for that and usually unloads too early which kills the play. These screens looked similar to our WR screens in that the ball was thrown almost immediately similar to how they throw a WR screen but instead to an RB out of the backfield with the OLine pulling ahead of it. They were brilliantly executed, especially the 2nd one where he faked to Shakir on one side and then immediately turned and went to Johnson who has nothing but daylight in front of him. That reminded me of the old Patriot double screen with Brady. I believe it has more to do with how they ran the screen...they were more of an immediate WR type screen than the typical draw the defense towards the QB and lob it over their head screen.

We clocked the Dolphins in their first meeting at home. This wasn't true earlier in his career when he had more defensive talent. We used to make very good offenses look like trash routinely. See the Ravens game in 2019.

I don't think it will be as high scoring as people think and I also think our D plays their best game of the year. They were embarrassed on National TV last week, they don't want that to happen again.

Nope. They lost to the Colts. The Bills will be 4-1 versus common opponents as long as we beat the Jets. Even if they beat the Ravens they would have the same common opponent record. But Common Opponents is the 3rd tie breaker. Conference record is the 2nd.

No it's not actually. I explained it better in one of the above posts. Essentially all things being equal it will be very hard for the Steelers to eclipse us if we both go 3-1 and our loss is to the Lions. If the Steelers lose to anyone other than Philly as one of those losses we would have the 2 seed due to better conference record. If the Steelers lose to Philly, then we go to the 4th tie breaker because conference record and common games would be the same. I don't know how strength of victory would shake out but I would guess Steelers would have that edge based on who they play coming up

It's attributing to other Bills players being injured far more. Add Douglas to the long list of players Rapp has taken out from friendly fire. Don't think I have ever seen anything like it in all my years watching football. A player who is directly responsible for injuring so many of his teammates from reckless and often times completely unnecessary hits. Although he has played very well this year, Bills may think it's not worth the added injuries he keeps adding every year he has been here and move on.

Williams is the most sure tackling LB we have had in a long time tho... That's not nothing.

The players are fully behind it because it ends up adding more zero's to their bank accounts in the end.

Who cares what his grade is after 2 games, one of them being in the snow where it's almost impossible to get anything meaningful from it? If you are wanting an answer to this question it won't likely be known until next year at the earliest.

In what universe would someone think that a player who hasn't played in almost 2 years simply steps back in and resumes playing as if nothing happened? It's mind boggling that anyone could actually think this is possible. Believing what happens on Madden is real life is definitely a major problem these days. This topic makes no sense on its face because nobody can know until he gets enough games played under his belt.

See my post above. First tie break with them would be conference record and then if tied common games. I break down both scenarios in that post, but effectively we would have a very good chance to win both those tie tie-breakers. Their schedule is brutal the last 4 games, our is about as easy as you could get after Detroit.

Yes. Only within the division. Otherwise it's conference record as the first tie break, then common games.

No the first tie break among teams not playing each other and not in the same division is record within the conference. Then it goes to record in common games. If Bills lose to the Lions then win out, our conference record will be 10-2. Steelers would have to lose to the Eagles and then win the other 3 games to match that at 10-2. If their one loss is to an AFC team then we get the 2 seed in this scenario since their conference record would be 9-3. Let's assume conference record is the same and it goes to common games. Currently Steelers have a 2-1 record in common games with us beating the Ravens and Jets and losing to the Colts. If we beat the Jets again and the Steelers lose to either the Chiefs or Ravens we would then have that tiebreaker as well since we would have a 4-1 record with our only loss being to the Ravens and they would at best be 3-2.

Steelers schedule is brutal. I can't see them doing any better than 2-2. Eagles, Chiefs, Ravens and Bengals.

Maybe but that alone can't be responsible for going from 0 star recruit to best player ever.

It's always fascinating to me how scouting is such an imperfect science. Allen was a 0 star recruit and might be the best football player of all time. How could so many scouts and talent evaluators get it so wrong?