Good Night / Bad Night - Pre-season game 1

[akcash]

4 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I only watched highlights, and I've seen him play before.  He has modern NFL tools.   I was surprised to hear how awful he looked, and I'm curious what that is all about.   Has he not been doing the homework?   Is the offense too complicated to learn in six months?   Has he played only in simpler offenses?   Really troubling, because I was pleased when they signed him - a guy with tools, good enough to hang around the NFL, and a friend of Josh's.  

I've watched some of his Carolina games. Imo hes better and more sure with a gameplan and knowing whose in front of him. 

[BuffaloBillyG]

39 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

If I was me and I was Brandon Beane I'd work the phones immediately trying to upgrade at backup QB. I don't think you can look at that last night and say "yea, we're good."

This maybe something to tuck away in the back of your mind...and it may be nothing at all.

 

Perhaps the new QB is just someone to look at for a PS spot. However it may also indicate that the Texans are open to moving Keenum or Davis Mills. My guess would be Mills as this would keep a seasoned vet in the QB room and not have a guy like Mills breathing down the rookies neck. Depending on if he's available and what the price is, Mills could win a game or two if needed behind this roster IMO.

Edited August 13, 2023 by BuffaloBillyG

[Rc2catch]

I did not watch the game live so thanks for the recap. Really well done. 
It’s sounding like if they call it Buffalo might actually establish a run game this year. Very encouraging news for some of the key players.  

[GunnerBill]

2 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

This maybe something to tuck away in the back of your mind...and it may be nothing at all.

 

Perhaps the new QB is just someone to look at for a PS spot. However it may also indicate that the Texans are open to moving Keenum or Davis Miles. My guess would be Miles as this would keep a seasoned vet in the QB room and not have a guy like Miles breathing down the rookies neck. Depending on if he's available and what the price is, Miles could win a game or two if needed behind this roster IMO.

 

Mills is my target. Think @Kirby Jackson was the first to mention it and it makes so much sense.

[akcash]

1 minute ago, Shaw66 said:

I don't see how they can switch at LB in mid-season.  Can't move Williams there.  The Bills aren't giving him MLB reps because he has too much to learn about how the defense works, and it's easier to work in behind Milano.   The only thing that MIGHT be possible with Williams is to move the playcalling responsibility to Milano, and then have either MIlano or Williams play the middle.   

 

I think the middle linebackers will be Dodson, Bernard, and Klein.   That's what you got.  

I said this in another post but this is kind of what I'm thinking. I think it could be Poyer or Hyde with the green dot. And saw it last night a little with Milano and Dotson kind of switching back and forth in the middle on some plays. I feel like William's and Milano are at most natural playmaking  linebackers and they're (coaches) hand will be forced at some point (an injury or a bad game, or William's keeps shining in practice). And I feel like they would just play as interchangeable LBs with Poyer or Hyde calling the plays.

[Shaw66]

4 minutes ago, akcash said:

I think at some point William's get on the field and one of the safeties is green dot. You saw it a little last night when Milano was lined up at MLB and Dotson was outside. I think at some point their hand is forced and Milano and William's are both on the field as interchangeable LBs and are our best natural playmaking LBs.

As I said, I think they're options with Williams this season will be limited, because they've chosen not to give him experience in the middle this summer.   That suggests that if he gets significant playing time this season, it will be on the outside.  Milano's not coming off the field for significant snaps, so that means he slides to the middle.   I don't know that it's possible for anyone to take over that role without real experience there.  All the reads are different.   

 

Maybe Williams is turning out to be a quick learner and what people saw yesterday was that he's now getting up to speed.   My recollection is that Milano was the same early on - he was eye-popping quick closing and tackling in the run game, and he just kept having more impact from month to month.  If that's what's happening, maybe they'll start giving him reps in the middle during the season, and even rotating him onto the field a bit.  But I'd think the only he can be a factor in the middle is to have an off-season learning the position.  

[Bubba Gump]

2 hours ago, SectionC3 said:

Kyle Allen looks to me like a guy who didn’t bother to put the time in learning the offense over the offseason.  The pick six was mutual responsibility.  Shavers should have caught it, but Kyle double clutched and threw it way too hard and wide (it doesn’t show on the TV feed, but in the stadium the whole thing looked like a disaster from double clutch to launch).  

 

Gave me bad memories of Billy Joe Hobert. Bad things man.

 

2 hours ago, AlCowlingsTaxiService said:

Great summary, especially for those of us who couldn’t watch. Did you get any impressions about Cook’s pass pro or lack thereof?

 

Actually, I don't think they threw one pass while Cook was out there.

[Shaw66]

2 minutes ago, akcash said:

I said this in another post but this is kind of what I'm thinking. I think it could be Poyer or Hyde with the green dot. And saw it last night a little with Milano and Dotson kind of switching back and forth in the middle on some plays. I feel like William's and Milano are at most natural playmaking  linebackers and they're (coaches) hand will be forced at some point (an injury or a bad game, or William's keeps shining in practice). And I feel like they would just play as interchangeable LBs with Poyer or Hyde calling the plays.

That's really interesting.   I don't know if it's really possible, but it's an intriguing thought.  I'm convinced that McBeane want fast, athletic, aggressive tacklers all over the defensive backfield, and of all the linebackers they had in camp (other than Milano) Williams already seems to be the guy who fits that model the best.  

[Royale with Cheese]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

That is very fair. Have changed the "he" to "Cyrus". I wrote most of it late last night. Apologies because that was definitely not clear.

 

 
Don’t apologize for that.  Instead, apologize for your beer…its all gross in England.

[BuffaloBillyG]

3 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

That's really interesting.   I don't know if it's really possible, but it's an intriguing thought.  I'm convinced that McBeane want fast, athletic, aggressive tacklers all over the defensive backfield, and of all the linebackers they had in camp (other than Milano) Williams already seems to be the guy who fits that model the best.  

The last Bobby Babich press conference I saw he talked directly about that. If I'm not mistaken he even mentioned needing guys with speed and play aggressive with plus athletic make up to combat the way modern NFL offenses operate, so I believe you are spot on here.

 

Also found it interesting in the same interview he mentioned that the Bills do actually have a height/weight baseline that they look for and that Williams and Bernard exceeded that.

[FireChans]

25 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Mills is my target. Think @Kirby Jackson was the first to mention it and it makes so much sense.

Mills makes too much sense in Houston unfortunately. He is a pseudo vet but still young. I don’t see him being sold unless the price is so high Houston has to saw yes, and I don’t want to trade a 4th or a 5th

[Prospector]

30 minutes ago, akcash said:

I said this in another post but this is kind of what I'm thinking. I think it could be Poyer or Hyde with the green dot. And saw it last night a little with Milano and Dotson kind of switching back and forth in the middle on some plays. I feel like William's and Milano are at most natural playmaking  linebackers and they're (coaches) hand will be forced at some point (an injury or a bad game, or William's keeps shining in practice). And I feel like they would just play as interchangeable LBs with Poyer or Hyde calling the plays.

See what happens, you use the wrong “they’re” and then it catches on and Shaw66 uses the same wrong “they’re” right after you. I had to reread both a couple times to make sense of it. They’re using their wrong there’s. 

[SoCal Deek]

I loved what I saw from Murray at RB. After a decade of watching little guys he reminded me on Antoine Smith….tall and moving straight forward. 

[GunnerBill]

15 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Mills makes too much sense in Houston unfortunately. He is a pseudo vet but still young. I don’t see him being sold unless the price is so high Houston has to saw yes, and I don’t want to trade a 4th or a 5th

 

Hmm. I suspect they want Case as the vet backup. But maybe you are right.

[34-78-83]

Good write-up Gunner, thanks!

 

I was there, not in my normal seats in 335 but down at the 100 level around the 40 yard line ( always fun to check other views in the pre-season ). Only thing I disagree on was that Elam had a bad day. He was pretty solid out there, and his flag was a bit ticky tack as you said.

 

Kyle Allen has the tools, but was not making it to 2nd and 3rd read very often.

 

Was so happy for Shakir on those 1st two tough catches, then the wind leaves his sails on the easy drop

 

Very happy with Cook and Murray and the starting O-line was solid.

 

 

[Shaw66]

39 minutes ago, Prospector said:

See what happens, you use the wrong “they’re” and then it catches on and Shaw66 uses the same wrong “they’re” right after you. I had to reread both a couple times to make sense of it. They’re using their wrong there’s. 

Well, that's neither hear nor their.  

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

The last Bobby Babich press conference I saw he talked directly about that. If I'm not mistaken he even mentioned needing guys with speed and play aggressive with plus athletic make up to combat the way modern NFL offenses operate, so I believe you are spot on here.

 

Also found it interesting in the same interview he mentioned that the Bills do actually have a height/weight baseline that they look for and that Williams and Bernard exceeded that.

I didn't listen to that presser.  Maybe I should go back to it.   Like you, I think it's interesting that Williams and Bernard are in their minds qualified to play the position in terms of size.   I think that's further evidence that the Bills have a defensive vision that's different from perhaps some, maybe even most, NFL coaches and scouts, and certainly different from the vision of the public and the sports media.  It means, as I've been saying, that they've been drafting players physically suited to play the position they envision, and that the fans here who keep complaining that McBeane have failed to get a quality middle linebacker don't understand what the team is looking for.  Those fans, and a lot of the media, are locked on the idea that there are body types for every position, with d linemen being the biggest, edge rushers and middle linebackers are next, then safeties, and then the corners who are smallest.  In fact, it seems the way McDermott and Beane are approaching it is that there really should be only slight differences in body type between the linebackers and the safeties.  

 

I would guess that, in part, that philosophy is driven by how the offenses have changed.   When the Packers ran power sweeps in the 60s, they got their guards, particularly, downfield and literally bull-dozed defenders.  You needed to have big linebackers to deal with that power.  But as the game has changed, the responsibilities of the blockers has changed.  They don't need to knock people over; they just have to get a body on the tackler and provide a screen for the running back to cut off of.  As offenses have evolved, particularly in McBeane world, your receivers are as important blockers as your linemen, and they too are just trying to screen tacklers.  The result of that evolution is that it's more important that your defenders have the speed and quickness to get to the point of attack faster than the blockers, and to use that speed and quickness to fight off blockers when they do engage.   They have to be aggressive tacklers, because they don't have the extra 30 pounds that old-style backers had, 30 pounds of muscle that was useful in dragging backs to the ground.  McBeane are trading those 30 pounds for speed and quickness so that their backers can be impactful players in the pass defense scheme, too.  

 

It also explains why Edmunds is no longer in a Bills uniform.   He was viewed as the best of all possible physical specimens to play linebacker, because he had the speed and the quickness, AND he had old-style linebacker size.   What he didn't have was the aggressiveness.   No matter how much the Bills encouraged him, he never became a fierce hitter.  He simply wasn't a formidable one-on-one fighter or, to put it another way, he didn't play with a wrestler's mentality.  We all looked at him and thought "great size."  McDermott looked at him and thought "not a fighter."  

 

Williams is encouraging.  He may not be as cerebral as Bernard, but if he can learn the positions, he's the explosive, attacking guy the Bills want. 

[HappyDays]

Thank you as usual Gunner. Your offseason content remains unparalleled. Some thoughts of my own:

 

1) In preseason you can almost read as much into who isn't used as who is used. For example Kincaid was used to the same degree as Gabe Davis which tells me the team is very comfortable with him already and he will immediately see a big role in the offense. Based on camp reports this is not a surprise, but it's still good to see confirmation.

Similarly Sherfield was off the field at the same time as the primary offensive starters so his roster spot is guaranteed.

I've seen some fan rumblings recently that Harty may not be a roster lock, however his skill set was not displayed on offense in this game which I think means he is completely safe. He has a defined role as an explosive gadget player at least and can perform that role far better than anyone else on the roster. Similar to my thoughts on Kincaid's usage in this game, I think the team is fully comfortable with what Harty can do so they are waiting to put his role on tape in games that matter.

 

2) I too was impressed by Van Demark's play. I specifically focused on him and he more than held his own. At LT I didn't see any bad reps. I lost track of him on a couple of his RT reps but the one I did see was a win for him. Maybe the Bills got lucky and found a steal here. He will be my depth player to watch over the next two games.

 

3) Color me terrified about the MLB position. I remember last year when Edmunds missed time, people said "see his replacements aren't good enough, this is proof we need to re-sign him" and my response was always "don't worry, we will find a capable replacement, Beane isn't foolish enough to let his 2022 backups take over the job in 2023." Well here we are and we have done exactly that. Our main competition Mahomes and Burrow will absolutely pick you apart in the middle of the field if you let them, and I fear that we will be totally vulnerable there. In my mind I'm scrambling for answers but there really aren't any. The defense looked BAD when Edmunds wasn't out there last year. His absence kicked off the Vikings' improbable comeback. The more I think about it the more uneasy I become.

 

4) On a night where much of the DL from the top to the bottom of the roster showed out, where was Epenesa? I don't have snap counts but I know he was out there and his name is literally missing from the box score stat sheet. I don't recall him having a single QB pressure. For someone that is exclusively a situational pass rusher and leaves you vulnerable on run downs, he needs to show more over the next two games to prove he can have a meaningful role on this defense.

 

5) On Elam's penalty, agreed that it was somewhat ticky-tacky but we are going to see officiating crews that call those, and I worry that Elam will be a total liability in those games. All along I have questioned why the coaching staff has favored the limited Dane Jackson over Elam but I'm beginning to see why. They at least know what Jackson brings to the table on a play by play basis. With Elam it is more of an adventure. I think it is Jackson's job to lose at this point and Elam will be used situationally.

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by HappyDays

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, akcash said:

I said this in another post but this is kind of what I'm thinking. I think it could be Poyer or Hyde with the green dot. And saw it last night a little with Milano and Dotson kind of switching back and forth in the middle on some plays. I feel like William's and Milano are at most natural playmaking  linebackers and they're (coaches) hand will be forced at some point (an injury or a bad game, or William's keeps shining in practice). And I feel like they would just play as interchangeable LBs with Poyer or Hyde calling the plays.

 

Williams can't get on the field until he plays the run better. Which was, as I think @Shaw66 was alluding to, what kept Milano off the field early in his rookie year. 

 

I do think ultimately Milano playing the middle and Williams as the will is a sort of post-thanksgiving, post the late bye, type move they could make if they have been struggling.

2 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

Thank you as usual Gunner. Your offseason content remains unparalleled. Some thoughts of my own:

 

1) In preseason you can almost read as much into who isn't used as who is used. For example Kincaid was used to the same degree as Gabe Davis which tells me the team is very comfortable with him already and he will immediately see a big role in the offense. Based on camp reports this is not a surprise, but it's still good to see confirmation.

Similarly Sherfield was off the field at the same time as the primary offensive starters so his roster spot is guaranteed.

I've seen some fan rumblings recently that Harty may not be a roster lock, however his skill set was not displayed on offense in this game which I think means he is completely safe. He has a defined role as an explosive gadget player at least and can perform that role far better than anyone else on the roster. Similar to my thoughts on Kincaid's usage in this game, I think the team is fully comfortable with what Harty can do so they are waiting to put his role on tape in games that matter.

 

2) I too was impressed by Van Demark's play. I specifically focused on him and he more than held his own. At LT I didn't see any bad reps. I lost track of him on a couple of his RT reps but the one I did see was a win for him. Maybe the Bills got lucky and found a steal here. He will be my depth player to watch over the next two games.

 

3) Color me terrified about the MLB position. I remember last year when  Edmunds missed time, people said "see his replacements aren't good enough, this is proof we need to re-sign him" and my response was always "don't worry, we will find a capable replacement, Beane isn't foolish enough to let his 2022 backups take over the job in 2023." Well here we are and we have done exactly that. Our main competition Mahomes and Burrow will absolutely pick you apart in the middle of the field if you let them, and I fear that we will be totally vulnerable there. In my mind I'm scrambling for answers and there really aren't any. The defense looked BAD when Edmunds wasn't out there last year. His absence kicked off the Vikings' improbable comeback. The more I think about it the more uneasy I become.

 

4) On a night where much of the DL from the top to the bottom of the roster showed out, where was Epenesa? I don't have snap counts but I know he was out there and his name is literally missing from the box score stat sheet. I don't recall him having a single QB pressure. For someone that is exclusively a situational pass rusher and leaves you vulnerable on run downs, he needs to show more over the next two games to prove he can have a meaningful role on this defense.

 

5) On Elam's penalty, agreed that it was somewhat ticky-tacky but we are going to see officiating crews that call those, and I worry that Elam will be a total liability in those games. All along I have questioned why the coaching staff has favored the limited Dane Jackson over Elam but I'm beginning to see why. They at least know what Jackson brings to the table on a play by play basis. With Elam it is more of an adventure. I think it is Jackson's job to lose at this point and Elam will be used situationally.

 

Thanks and I agree with all if this. I don't think AJE played much though..  maybe 1 and a half series. On Elam I'd be more courageous there than I think they will be. I totally agree with your take on how they likely see it. I just think if you want to knock those edges off Elam the kid has to play. He isn't learning it stood on the sideline.

[SectionC3]

2 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

If I was me and I was Brandon Beane I'd work the phones immediately trying to upgrade at backup QB. I don't think you can look at that last night and say "yea, we're good."

Player for player trade.  What’s the harm I trying? Maybe Houston wants something we’re likely to cut, anyway.  
 

I saw Keenum mentioned upthread.  Hypothetically speaking I wonder what effect, if any, trading for him would have on comp formula.  I’ve never thought of a scenario like that before.