WhitewalkerInPhilly

As to our gameplan, well, I want to see how Darnold does in week 3, but right now it seems like the best answer there is to keep applying interior pressure. With Bell, they would need to be aggressive at the line, but I trust our secondary to keep pace with their receivers. From the Jets fans, their secondary is attrocious. I suspect that they will be putting extra coverage on Beasley, so I would challenge them on the edges early. We saw in week 1 that Allen can change plays at the line to take advantage of John Brown and the cushion he gets.

Geez, they are a cocky bunch. I think they clearly have not been paying attention to what Allen has done this offseason (for the most part, there are surprisingly a few sharp posters) and they seem to think that if they "keep Allen in the pocket" it's an easy win. I'll be honest, now that sports betting is legal near me, I think I have to lay money on the Bills in week 1.

I've been fooled before. Repeatedly. And yes, I know it's only preseason. But honestly, they've looked pretty darn potent in preseason. And it's not about how many points they scored, or breaking down Allen's completion percentage, but we've honestly seen a lot out of our young players. Allen has looked sharper and more decisive, and the worst thing that anyone could say about his performance Week 2 was that he could have finessed a completion to Beasley more so that Beasley could have had a nice run after catch instead of a 4 yard pickup on first down. The O-line, for the most part, has looked considerably improved and Dawkins and Ford are more than holding their own. Ford in particular looks like he has enormous value in being able to swing between tackle and guard. Beasley looks like a genius find, and even when teams scheme to stop him, that should really open up the rest of the offense. Singletary has stood out even in a crowded running back group. Ed Oliver is getting double teamed and is still making plays, and you can see Edmunds hitting the hole at just the right time. Tre White and Wallace looks like a corner tandem for years to come. The team is young, and looks like it can stay that way for a long time.

Even if he does, I suspect that Feliciano is still the week 1 starter. After multiple weeks of training camp and preseason, and still not being ready I am sure that McD would want to give multiple weeks to make sure that he is in sync with the other members of the line and fully at game speed Though for what it's worth, if Morse is in a non-contact uniform, that means that he is in stage 4 of the protocol, where stage 5 is full release for contact..

Give us those Astro Notes you bastards!!!

This looks like what we hope Josh Allen's bread and butter will be all year. Beasly has this little turn of the shoulder as he is starting to get open and it Josh can reliably hit it (which he seems able to do,) it should mean reliably getting those 5-8 positive plays that force a defense to condense in that part of the field and leave receivers on the outside (like Brown and Foster) tons of room to work.

That's kinda my bone to pick with this bit of media buzz in his favor. I'm not saying he did a *bad* job with Tannehill and Cutler, but I marvel at the idea that someone, Mr. Turnover Sam Darnold is suddenly going to turn into the second coming of Tom Brady.

I mean, I'm not complaining about that. In fact, I think it will lead to the Jets falling well short of expectations, which would be good for us. I just get really annoyed at the fellating that national media guys have started on because it's a NY team and they got one flashy offensive free agent

Yeah, Gase pisses me off. He's being hailed as this masterful QB whisperer, but we saw what he did in his time with Miami. Let's not pretend that Tannehill and Cutler were complete trash. In fact, I remember some eager champing at the bit to trade for Cutler in the late stages of Marrone era. And with the way that the Dolphins front office threw around money on free agents, it's not as if they were trying to do it on the cheap. He's not a terrible coach scheme-wise, but he clearly lost the locker room last year. The Jets were 4-12 last year, and for good reason (and not just Darnold being a rookie) Yeah, they picked up an excellent running back, but I honestly don't see the talent to derserve the kind of hype they are getting.

You know what changes the expectations as to the number of wins? Exceeding them. The Bills make the playoffs, we get to rub it in

Media has rarely looked foolish over the last 20 years by dumping on the Bills. As such, it's easy to have a talking point on how they expect the Bills to be between 4 and 8 wins, as they have been very often right. They have two winning seasons in the last ten years, right? Until the Bills are able to make the playoffs with some regularity, it's going to be an easy narrative to spin. Add on the fact that Josh Allen has also been an easy target to bash, talking heads don't really have to go that far.

Agreed. Things south of South Street are heavily residential which puts the sports complex area in a zone of it's own. And I'll tell people, even in an area that mostly does it right there are still issues. When the Eagles played Sunday Night Football to open the season traffic started getting backed up at 4 PM. There has been standstill traffic on the bridges for Phillies games. And that's with a subway line that runs to the stadiums from a central public transit hub. (FYI if you are in the city for a game that's what I recommend) My only thing to add is that it would be possible to make money tailgating of they chose to monetize it.

The Eagles are kinda my backup team (my wife roots for them as hard as I root for the Bills) so watching the mess Jerry Jones keeps putting himself into is a delight. The problem isn't just that $40 million is a gross overpayment for Dak, it's that the two players who are necessary to make Dak look serviceable are also looking for big paydays and have earned them. Amari Cooper has been fantastic in his first contract and Elliot is arguably the best RB in the league right now. Without them, Dak is...Andy Dalton

In all fairness, Allen is probably never going have Brady like accuracy. But while some people are freaking out, I would like to point out: 1) We are talking about the first *preseason* game. 2) Daboll clearly went out of his way to try to work on the passing game. I think the first 8 straight plays were passes, for a team whose construction is best designed to be a balanced attack. I don't think it's a coincidence that the offense opened up once there were a few runs to let the play action work. 3) Smaller sample size skews data. This is why when you have a WR or RB in for a trick play and they throw one pass for a TD why they aren't considered elite in spite of a perfect QBR. Allen is a dropped Zay Jones pass away from 64% completion rate (and possibly a touchdown pass) instead of the lamented "He had 54%!!!!!"

Honestly, I thought Allen had a really good outing last night. Yes, he had one bad, unforgivable throw, but for the most part I was very pleased at what I saw. I didn't see Allen forcing it into risky spots. He was able to take what the defense would give him, such as hitting Beasley for solid yardage after that penalty. He noticed a coverage breakdown for a huge chunk play. He noticed the huge cushion John Brown was being given and changed the play at the line to take advantage of the mismatch and pick up a first down....and that was why Allen took so many low percentage shots downfield early. Doing that opens up the middle of the field and makes people play with a cushion that makes things happen. All in all, while he didn't look like an MVP I honestly see a lot of progress and he looks miles ahead of where he was before. So I am a little surprised to hear the tale of the tape being "Josh Allen had an up and down night"

It's preseason, and we benched Shady. We are built to run first, this is trying to stretch what we can do

I won't say that it was an easy catch. But an elite WR makes that catch and makes it look easy. Above average WRs make that catch. That tells you what you need to know about Zay. Serious contributors on elite teams make that play, and he just is not that. He might hang around, but he is clearly not worth re-signing.

Oh yes, but I can immediately hear the cries of "he'll never do that again" or "he used up all his gas" Granted, I am not the biggest fan of overpaying a running back on the wrong side of 30, and I suspect that Beane isn't going to overpay to keep Shady. I think that, all things being equal, he would prefer to go back to Philly so I have a sneaking suspicion that this is the last year of Shady being in a Bills uniform.

For some people 2000 yards wouldn't be enough.

I sincerely hope so. He often bounces back from down years and he has abundant motivation to play his heart out. Right now, he is likely playing for the last contract of his career. I am sure he would love to go home to Philadelphia, but to get one last payday, he is going to have to show that he hasn't slown down.

Which is the point of practice, right? At this time of the year the simple installation of the system is done. Now is the perfect time to practice things that have given Allen problems in the past. And they are trying to hard code in that running is the last ditch option

Regarding people freaking out with Morse, I was under the impression that concussion recovery time was within a few weeks. Am I missing something?

I don't think anyone here talking about parking and traffic flow issues is saying it because they hate the idea of having a stadium closer to the city. Personally, I would love it if between canalside and three sports complexes we make it a place to be 12 months out of the year. The problem is that it's the one with the most logistical issues (traffic among them), infrastructure (power grid, plumbing, road construction, land issues (possible public domain or the city ceding land) before we even get to the part where most major league teams ask the city to kick in for the stadium. That's a hard sell to the state government. Now, if Paladino has a group of investors lined up and champing at the bit to fork over money, hey, great for him. But knowing him, he's looking for a pump and dump payday to drive up his real estate value, sell, and flounce away as other people have to make what he sold a reality.

Fully agree. I would honestly think that the necessary infrastructure upgrades would probably be a bigger return on investment than the stadium itself. But that's not something the Pegulas or the NFL can or should pony up for. That means requiring the state or county to likely sink hundreds of millions of dollars never mind the other issues that go into stadium wrangling. In a perfect world, that would be the best option. We are not in a perfect world. Unless Poloncarz is bringing in investors that would handle all stadium costs themselves he should shut up.

Does anyone here really think that Allen is going to be a fully polished player by the end of year two? I say this as a fan of his and I honestly think we've seen improvement this training camp, but I don't think we are going to see his best this year.