Thurman#1

Um, Zach Moss' "sub 2 YPC" is 5.3. Is 5.3 less than 2 these days?

This is a very very fine defense, but no, they aren't the kind of defense the Ravens had the Trent Dilfer year. Opposing teams scored 18 TDs that year against the Ravens. 18 TDs in 16 games, and two of those were pick sixes. That's an average of one offensive TD scored by Ravens opponents per game. The Bills have allowed seven TDs in four games, all scored by the opposing offenses. The 2000 Ravens defense allowed 10.3 PPG, the best in the history of 16 game seasons. The Bills 14.5 PPG is still damn good, but doesn't compare. Those Ravens put up an insane record of 23 INTs and 26 fumbles recovered by the defense. That's 49 turnovers in 16 games, 3.1 per game. Way way way too early to assume the Bills D should be mentioned in the same breath as those guys.

He's had 139 snaps, which is 64% of all of our offensive snaps. That's not what anyone should call decreased playing time. Especially as he had 60% last year.

Being a scumbag has not been shown to provide any immunity against CTE. Here's the facts: We don't know. Either way. Anyone who says they know, either way, is only showing that they don't know the difference between facts and opinions.

Dude, don't drink and post. Go sleep it off, you'll be fine in a few hours.

I don't think we do know that. It's a guess. It certainly looked that way, but injuries aren't as easy to diagnose as we'd like to think they are. Doctors make mistakes, some injuries have similar symptoms. It's just not as clear as all that. If they did somehow cheat his way through that, the team is sick. There's an unaffiliated Neurotrama consultant in the medical tent. I suppose it's possible they could get to the guy somehow but more likely is just that he didn't show the symptoms in the locker room. Will he have effects? No way to know. No way to do anything but guess, really, and why do that?

How light or heavy the boxes are isn't the issue. It's irrelevant. The question is how long it takes before the backs are hit. Last year through the first 2/3rds of the year, they put up extremely low yards before contact figures. Then when Bates was put in and the line came together the same backs abruptly changed to some of the league's better figures for the same stat. The problem wasn't the RBs. And it still isn't. As Joe B. put it after his all-22 study this week: "The Bills did away with their ground game up until garbage time in Week 2 against the Titans, and the initial inclination is to blame the running backs. But when you analyze the full scope of the ground game against the Dolphins, Devin Singletary, Zack Moss and James Cook really didn’t stand a chance. "The key focus is on yards before contact. The Bills had one breakout play when Moss busted off a 43-yard run where he was untouched until driven out of bounds. It’s a great run, but it’s like hosting a party and keeping everyone confined to one spotless room when the rest of the house is in complete shambles. On the other 13 carries combined, the three Bills running backs had a total of one yard before contact. That’s an average runway of 0.08 yards before contact per rush. The backs were set up to fail. To advance the point, here is a look at each of the 14 running plays involving the running backs and how they all broke down." https://theathletic.com/3638288/2022/09/28/bills-all-22-film-review-dolphins/

The thing about close games absolutely is a fluke. The year before that they were terrific, 4-1, something like that. It's statistically typical to have that number go up and down season to season by quite a bit. The sample size is so small that often happens.

I totally agree that they have to get things together on the OL. But I have a lot of sympathy for them with how very little time they had in training camp playing together as a unit. With injuries and problems, there was very little time to gel They will need more time to get it together. If they manage to do that. It's not a given. Not only were there three backups, but two of them were playing out of position.

Singletary is a very very good pass blocker. Not that he's perfect. He might have made a mistake there. Or not. You can't tell because whoever made that clip totally edited out the early part of the play where Singletary was making the decision. Based on that clip, no way to know whether he was to blame for that. Could've been. Just that there simply isn't enough evidence there in that clip to even begin to tell on that play. Ah, you can see it all on this clip. Thanks, GoBills404, for posting one that actually tells the story. Yeah, that was a nice deceptive formation for Miami. They lined up all on the line and the LG and LT were facing a 4-on-2. As it's snapped, one of the defenders slips around the center to attack the other side of the line, leaving a 3-on-2. There's a guy coming unblocked between Dawkins and Saffold who Singletary has to account for and that guy comes forward two or three steps and pulls up. The instant he does that, Motor switches to trying to block the guy who has totally beaten Dawkins, but he's too late. That one's on Dawkins, but when they rush so many guys, you have to get it out quick. Allen could have stepped up one step and avoided that guy. It's not like he'd have escaped everything if he'd done so, but he'd have gained just enough time to bring that arm forward. Almost, but not quite.

We don't have a TE out there anywhere close to all the time. When we do defenses often bring a safety down towards the box and it becomes an eight man box. No. It isn't Allen.

Even with seven in the box, seven outnumbers five, even if you throw in a fullback blocking or a WR in motion hitting someone. That's just the way it is. That's why running plays are schemed to create one specific hole rather than four or five. Very little blame goes to Josh, IMO.

Yes, this.

I think he had two or three genuinely bad plays, but overall the secondary was surprisingly solid. But a few bad plays that turned into big plays can - I would think - mess up a grade pretty good. For who was playing, I was really happy with the pass defense overall. But those two plays .... yikes. Still, the guy has played 265 career defensive snaps. He needs playing time but shows every sign of being able to handle it and improve as he gets more snaps.

The problem with the run game is the OL. Even Saquon wouldn't be consistently good behind this group the way they're playing now. And if they get better, the RB room now is good enough to play quite well, witness the last third of the season last year. Saquon's a great player again, that's good to see. But they wouldn't be able to sign him to a new contract after the season, so this year they'll need to give their current RBs plenty of chances to improve, to help them decide what to do with Singletary in the off-season and Moss the year after. In any case, the G-Men have $56M under the cap next year. Now that Saquon is back and still 25 years old, the Giants are very likely to want to keep him. The Bills on the other hand are already $7M over the cap next year according to Spotrac, with a number of important guys still to sign. Not to normal people, no. But confirmation bias is a deeply powerful handicap to clear thinking. When you're already convinced of something, plenty of clear and logical evidence it's wrong won't convince you. Singletary was 6th in the league last year at Broken + Missed Tackles Forced %, with 11.2%. Only Javonte Williams, Rhamondre Stevenson, James Conner, Michael Carter and D'Onta Foreman were better. https://www.fantasypros.com/2022/07/rb-broken-plus-missed-tackles-forced-percentage-analysis-2022-fantasy-football-javonte-williams-elijah-mitchell-ezekiel-elliott/ And Singletary is killing it again this year in forcing broken and missed tackles. https://www.rotoballer.com/2022-running-back-stat-busts-missed-tackles-forced/995609 But when you have an idea absolutely planted in your brain you don't let facts get in the way of things. Looking at what some people get from that clip where the guy is deliberately slowing himself running down the line to set the edge should make the same point. But for some, it won't. Nothing will. Some people pick a hill to die on and never notice that it's actually a valley.