Thurman#1

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.

Yup. Insane defense, particularly that year. McMahon was one of those very very few Trent Dilfer types that win a Super Bowl despite being a real game manager type about once a decade or so.

Yup. That's how I've watched the games for years now here in Japan. The games are archived, so you can watch them anytime later (1:00 games in the Japan time zone start at 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m. after daylight savings starts). You get all-22 view of every play. It's expensive but very very worth it.

Yeah, because McMahon was such a great QB. I mean, he had 15 TDs that year and 11 INTs. 56.9% completions. 82.6 passer rating. Guy was Josh Allen before Josh himself. Sorry for the sarcasm. Looked like you probably had a bit of sarcasm in there as well. No reason to think da Bears would have scored 41 points if he'd been there. I mean, it's not impossible, but it's not like a guy, McMahon, who averaged 184 passing yards and less than a touchdown per game that year, was likely to explode that day. Chicago actually got more than their average number of yards and passing TDs that day. The problem was 3 TDs, and one of those was thrown by McMahon before he came out after throwing six passes for 0 TDs, one INT, two sacks and 42 yards. The reason that Bears team was terrific was the defense, which didn't play that well that game. Miami scored 38 points that game and nobody else scored more than 28 against them that year. Hell, including the Fins, only three teams reached 20 points against them that year. The Fins simply did a terrific job that day. Can we say the Bears would have done better if they hadn't had a key injury? Yeah, maybe, better, but 17 points better? Same with us yesterday, we'd have done better w/out so many injuries. Except we had way more injuries yesterday, particularly including heat problems, than the Bears did back then. Our Miami game this week was historic in terms of injury, one of the larger numbers anyone will ever see.

Yes, both teams played in it, but one team was in blue shirts soaking up the sun and one was in white. One was on a bench in the shade, the other in the sun. And one was acclimated to WNY temp and climate and the other to Florida. There are some major differences there. And Barley is right, only one team per year does NOT spend the next year obsessing on whatever it was that cost them the Lombardi. Every team has that one or two losses they think made the difference, even the 18-1 Pats, though for them that one loss was the actual Super Bowl game. My guess is that this won't be that game for us, anymore than the first Pats game last year, at the Ralph with the insane wind, is the one we focused on last year.

Some catches were easy. Some weren't. He's made some very nice catches while here, as this shows: The Bills also love that he's a terrific pass blocker. I'd like to see Cooke too. All of them, really, but the OL has not been providing opportunities so far this year.

You asked a question. I answered it, as did several others here. And then you revealed your unwillingness to listen to answers. This is a hate thread whose title should be something more like, "Wah, wah, I don't like Zach Moss." Fine, whatever. You want to explain away the facts that don't fit your position. Again, whatever. You won't understand the world as well as people who try to look at all the available information, but that's your privilege.

People who ignore information are genuinely stupid. Particularly when that information that has a very real effect on the question you're looking at. Injuries do. And you have to ignore reality to say that Moss has regressed every year. A guy who is running at a 6.0 YPC pace right now behind an OL that is not blocking the run well is not suffering from regression. You're acting as if your opinion is a fact here. And it's not even a particularly good opinion in this case. He does offer something Singletary doesn't. Power in short yardage situations. The fact you don't see it says more about you than about Moss. You don't like him? Fine, whatever. We all like and dislike different players for different reasons. But that doesn't mean ignoring a lot of things about him makes any sense.

Singletary is a very good back. Not elite, or close. But very solid. The guy has put up 4.7 YPC despite running behind OLs with issues for a lot of his time here. When the OL came around late last year Singletary was able to show himself as the very good back that he is. And you're right about the OL. This is a new scheme and the OL had very little time to gel this preseason with injuries. Joe B. took a look at yards before contact for Bills RBs this year and found they're getting hit very very early. The OL is having problems. Hopefully things will get better as the year proceeds.

He was injured last year. And if you take away the best 10% or so of their runs, nearly every RB will have much worse stats. You don't take away his best run. You look at what he's done. All of it. And the Peterman comparison is genuinely stupid. Moss has already had one good year and now a start of another one.

It's called ignorance that as a coach you have extra information and you use it? Um, no. It's called ignorance if you don't have that information and think you know more than the people who do have it. He's more of a hammer and a short yardage back than Singletary. And three turnovers over three years isn't statistically significant with his volume. They think you're wrong. So do I. And it doesn't really make sense that he hasn't added any contributions. He managed 4.3 YPC as a rookie. That shows a guy who can contribute. So does 78 yards in 13 attempts this year.

By doing well in year one, fighting through an injury last year and by winning the coaches' confidence. The long run yesterday can't have hurt. And the blame yesterday should be spread around. The coaches get their share but most was on flukes, horrendous weather and injuries. The players get some but that happens in situations that abnormal and unhealthy. The coaches get a bit but their share yesterday was not that large.

You're kidding, right? They did prepare, but there just isn't much you can do. Two separate readings of 120 and 123 were recorded on the field that I've seen, 123 on the broadcast and 120 from Dan on BillsPlus. And we were wearing blue and the bench was in the sun.

Yup. Three new OLs including Doyle at guard, where he had never played a snap.

It was just turning from 0:10 to 0:09 when he went down. He got his knee off the ground at 0:08. He ran towards the middle of the field and at 0:05, he threw it to the ref. At 0:04, the ref had it, but he was about halfway between the numbers and the hashes., and the Bills were still moving and couldn't know where to line up since the ball was still in the ref's hand. He moved quickly through a group of players and put it down at 0:01. Just not enough time. Sometimes 0:09 is enough, but McKenzie was way over by the sidelines and had a crowd to get through. Yeah, that was a killer.

Saw on Buffalo Plus that thermometers on the field were reading 120. That's insane!! But yeah, players gotta execute. This was a team loss. Plenty of blame to go around and a bunch of very weird bounces and such besides.