Thurman#1

49 - 50 yards in the air, and about 54 yards run by Owens. So most of it was not in the air. He threw it from 3-4 yards deep in the end zone and Owens caught it on the Bills 46. 49 yards in the air, maybe 50 if you want to give it the benefit of the doubt. 98 yards from scrimmage. 54 yards running. Most of it was not in the air. And Owens caught it at waist height. Was it an excellent throw? Yeah, certainly. But he had to put a lot of air under it to get it that far. In any case, Fitz did not have a very strong arm. He was a good man and a gutsy smart QB but he did not have a strong arm for an NFL QB.

Everyone should have "forgotten we have no run game." It was never true and it's even less so now as they seem to have remembered to use it and improved it. Daboll's been excellent, and they seem to have hit a groove now. The coaching has been very good here and continues to be so. Which is why people are sniffing around these guys. My one concern is that they can now interview guys early, even in playoff teams, and that could lead to divided attention. It'll be interesting to see how that all plays out. Change can be good? Yeah, I'm with you there. It'll depend on who we get, obviously, but the third-rounders would certainly help over the next couple of years.

When we see who plays next week, and how well they play, it'll be worth talking about.

A lot of people seem to feel that way. Thing is, the people who matter don't. They love the guy. There are always money issues, and it could certainly affect things. But as things stand, there's probably a 70 - 90% chance they re-sign him, somewhere in that area. He's the captain. They love him. They already picked up his option for $12.6M a year in a year when they are absolutely cash-strapped ($9M available in 2022 as of now, #26 in the league, but ). That's around how much he's likely to get, maybe $1 or $2M more, and they already made it clear they value him at least for the $12.6. For off-ball LBs $2M more would put him in the top four of average salary. That ought to be plenty and they might easily get him a bit cheaper as a home-town discount like the one Milano gave them. Anything could happen, he could demand the absolute top dollar he could get, or he could have issues with a new DL if Leslie leaves. But the likely outcome is that he'll be here long term. As an MLB.

That Wyatt Teller wasn't the Wyatt Teller he became. At the time he wasn't as good as those guys they kept. And even pro evaluators will make mistakes in predicting the future. Everyone does. Plenty of them, really. But how many other Wyatt Tellers have we cut or let go out of the many dozens cut each year? Could Antonio Williams be one of those moves that look bad at some point in the future? Sure. But with what we've seen so far, he wasn't as good in pass pro as they expect from a Bills RB. I did like the way he ran in the limited times we saw him last year. But that's not everything for a back. Guys do change, but they have a lot more info than we do.

You could definitely be right about Beasley getting his snaps back, but there's no question that he isn't nearly as effective against man coverage this year as he has been in the past. IMO that doesn't look like it's coming back. I think we'll see McK trend up. We'll see. Maybe I think so because I hope so. McD has showed a habit of being very slow to make changes away from experienced players during the year.

Yup. Exactly right. There are nuts on here constantly criticizing Beane and McDermott, when they're 22-9 this year and last. Many of them are not trolling, they genuinely believe this stuff. Of course people will criticise a coach who's 16-15 over the same span, particularly a 68 year-old. Is he losing it a bit? To some degree, probably he is. How much? Hard to say, but of course they're gonna start wondering.

It's more impressive than you make it sound there, what Belichick did. Brady right from year one was better than people were giving him credit for. But he wasn't what we now think of as Tom Brady till year six, and they won SBs when he was nowhere near what Allen is right now. And you can blame Belichick for those bad years in Cleveland but they are just as legitimately blamed on QBs who weren't even capable game managers and poor GMsmanship there. Brady was the bigger piece of those 6 Lombardis, IMO, but Belichick is partially responsible for turning him into the HOFer he clearly is. I expect the Pats in the third and fourth year of what is essentially in large part a rebuild to field a consistently competitive, good team, but maybe never win another Lombardi under Belichick, unless Jones improves a lot more than I expect him to.

Yup. It's normal. And particularly because it does indeed revive the was it Brady or Belichick thing. People, reasonably, wonder if he can do it without Tom. It's way too early to say he can't, but being put under the microscope? Reasonable. Nobody's saying he's going to be fired. Just that he deserves closer scrutiny. Hard to argue that. It's also the way their wins and losses lined up this year. They looked pretty bad early, and then really good as the season got down to brass tacks. It raised their expectations too much. This fan base - me too - are probably too excited after this win. They're too depressed. Makes sense. This was a huge game for both groups, and both knew it. Pats fans thought, "Hey, we're Buffalo's rivals again." This crushed that narrative. They're rightfully down.

Yeah, I'd hate to see that.

Ryan's had a terrific career and he's still a fine player. His team's bad. If the Bills play well, they'll win. That's what to be afraid of, the Bills not playing their best. A one-score game isn't the same as a game that will be decided by luck. Good teams will genuinely win more of their one-score games, and bad ones will lose more. There's more luck involved than there is in large variance wins, but it's not luck that the Falcons won a lot of them any more than it is that the Bills lost a lot of them this year. Both were a result of performance, with a bit of luck thrown in. But here's who they beat for those seven wins: NYG NYJ Fins Saints Jags Panthers Lions

What a hilarious joke. Know who else took a DT with their first pick in the draft at some point not too far back? A lot of the league, including the last five Super Bowl champs. And it could be more. I only went back five years of champions. And saying STs are "things that don't matter" says a lot more about you not getting it than McDermott.

IMO we should expect a lot more balance this time, and running to set up the pass.

Injuries and Covid outs should have more to do with what we go with than scheme, as things are. If everyone was healthy, McDermott and Frazier know better than us how to run their defense.

And yet more complete balderdash. How do people read the Athletic? Most of them can't. Because they haven't subscribed. Most of the people in the world can search for Joe's content and click and click and click, millions of times if they feel like wasting their time that way, and they won't be able to get through and read the article. In other words, the Athletic refuses clicks. It's their business strategy. Until you've paid. Businesses that depend on clicks are thrilled to let you through, as the more clicks they get the more money they make. They don't turn down clicks the way that pay sites do. TheAthletic writers get paid based on how good the editors feel they are at getting people to subscribe and stay subscribed (which is they every article has a chance for every reader to rate it right at the finish. Sites that allow free access are going for clicks, some more than others. The Athletic's business model is simply different. It is not based on clicks, it is based on subscriptions. As for the stuff you bolded, it does an excellent job of pointing out what you are just not getting here. There's a name for people that watch and give their opinion. Hundreds of them, really. Bystanders. Blatherers. Observers. Gasbags, windbags and blowhards. Posters. Talkers. Fans. The thing that separates an analyst is right there in the word. Analysts analyze. And Joe watches tape and analyzes an awful lot more than you do. Or me. Or nearly all of us here. People pay money for Joe's analysis. Does anyone pay for your opinions or mine? Doesn't mean you have to agree with the guy, but he puts in a ton of work and thought, and he is good enough at it to get paid. And again, you're completely misled about the All-22. There are indeed a few subtleties and bits that are unclear. Most of what happens is really clear. The things we see on film are exactly and precisely the reality of what a player sees. There is a difference in angle of perspective, but other than that, it's the same. Clearer, in fact, because players are playing on the same level surface and may block each other, whereas cameras filming from above are blocked much much less. All you have to do is watch a bit of active film analysis like Cover One. They'll point out what they can't be sure of, but most of it's obvious.

"Pure conjecture"? That's utter nonsense. If it were true, teams wouldn't bother wasting time by watching film on the teams they're playing next week. Why bother with "pure conjecture"? The obvious answer is of course that it's anything but pure conjecture. Most of it is pretty obvious. It's not hard to see what a guy is trying to do. That's why they show instant replay. It is instantly helpful in understanding what happened, and careful tape study is much more so. Are there bits and pieces we can't fully understand? Sure. That's why Joe for one, and really everyone in the media doing much tape analysis, points out the limitations. But anyone can see with a bit of work most of what goes on any given play ... after the fact. It's not just football, it's life. When you go back and look at what happened you can learn a ton and understand most of what happened. There'll be a few things that aren't clear or easily subject to analysis. But most of it you can understand just fine.

We weren't a rival through the drought. The win-loss record against them shows that. But any Pats fan with half a brain knows that now we are. After last year, they're in denial if they say we aren't. But I don't agree with the last sentence of your fifth paragraph. If we beat them 30x in a row, they won't be a rival, they'll be a punching bag.

Wrong in several ways. He doesn't write articles for clicks. He's on a pay site. You don't get to read him unless you pay. Clicks don't matter to the Athletic. Subscriptions do. He absolutely does make known what his criteria and his method is, every week, in every All-22 article. It's at the bottom in the section called "How the Standards work." And he does freely acknowledge that he doesn't know the play calls or full responsibilities He certainly is a real analyst. Analysts watch and analyze, and it's fair to expect them to analyze deeply and painstakingly. That's what he does. And Joe does more than watch the All-22 and have an opinion. He watches and grades every player. He watches far more in depth than people on this board like you and me. It's still fair enough to disagree with him, of course. But Joe works at it and spends an amount of time watching and breaking down tape that puts to shame nearly all fans, though there are a small handful of folks on here that might watch as much or even more. Thoughtful response, with tons of evidence. Just as much meat as your first post on the subject.

Yeah, what a surprise - to some - that a player might influence other plays than the ones on which he made the tackle. Joe has Hughes as his 12th highest rated player on the Bills for the year. So it ain't like he loves him some Jerry. It's like he's grading him reasonably well, which is what pretty much everyone says. He is dropping off with age, but still playing pretty well. You act like Joe is the only one saying Hughes is having a pretty good year, though not a great one. He's not. Cover one says the same thing, so does everyone, really.

If I remember correctly, his ribs've been injured since the last day of October. That's a long time to have it still affecting his performance. He hasn't been beating man-to-man lately. I didn't notice whether that was a problem early in the year, but it's been so for a lot of the season. I'm starting to wonder if it's age as opposed to injury. We'll see.

I'd rather have Sanders (if healthy and ready) in. He gets more separation. That's the most important thing. Davis is a better blocker and maybe a better guy in scramble drill. The fact he's a better blocker has led teams to think he's committed blocking at times he's only feinting. IMO this won't continue as much once teams see it on film, and they've already got a couple of examples. Davis really has done better than expected and continues improving. He's a great-looking piece to have going forward.

Everywhere I can find it says, "won't be tested regularly" or "won't get tested weekly." Haven't yet seen, "won't be tested."

They don't totally prevent it, of course. But vaccines absolutely reduce the likelihood that you will catch it. They provide some protection against infection as well as against more serious cases. Nobody reputable has said that Omicron totally bypasses vaccines. Nobody. Effectiveness definitely will drop. There's zero evidence effectiveness will disappear. As I understand it, the new protocols go into effect after the Sunday the 19th games.

House, you're better than this. They're very likely to re-sign him, and he's a major part of why this defense is very very good. The problem has been inconsistency, on both sides, but more the offense. Penalties too. The stats show we had a lot last year too, but last year they seemed to convert 1st and 20s without breaking a sweat. This year not so much. Agreed, about a complete game. They've only had one or two, against tomato cans.

Plus it's a bit easier to surprise people with stuff like that when your run game is really working, as it clearly was today. And as for no creativity in those earlier games, I think that's mostly confirmation bias. We lost, so we remember things as bad. The first play in the red zone at Tampa had Allen in shotgun with McKenzie to his left, Knox comes in motion right.turns around and sprints left. At the snap, McKenzie sprints right in front of Allen, Allen fakes to him. Two WRs on the left side pin block in, the way the Pats did so successfully against us. Looks set to be a successful run, everyone blocked, but Davis' pin block isn't quite quick or strong enough, so Dawkins has to help him a bit, leaving Dawkins' man free to set the edge and destroy what looks at first like a nice play getting Allen to the edge. Interesting, unusual, but not executed well. Same drive, their first red zone drive, the third drive, (2Q, 13:36) the one that ended in a field goal, on 3rd and goal, they get Davis really free in the back of the end zone but Josh throws over his head and out of the end zone. Should've been a score. Bad execution. It's not that they weren't creative. They got a guy open in the end zone. They just didn't connect. On their first TD, Allen's 18 yard run, the QB draw was executed just perfectly, a really smart call they weren't expecting. Beautifully blocked, beautifully schemed. People tend to think like this ... it worked, so the players were fantastic, or it didn't work, so it was Daboll's fault if it wasn't some trickeration, and if it was he should've gone with something more basic because they were moving the ball with more standard passes and runs, so why change.