Thurman#1

I don't think it matters. He was just fine early in the game before he "got into rhythm" with a lot of work. If they go that way, fine, but IMO not a big deal either way. They've always gone with the hot hand, and that's what they did here.

They're cheaters, but they cheat intelligently. Hiding a positive so that the guy can mix with his teammates and infect others ... not actually a positive for the team. They cheat in ways that will help the team, not hurt it.

Ed and Star are both fine. Ed is considerably better than that. We're built for cold weather OK, but not great. Not every cold weather team is run-based. Allen can pass really well in cold weather. And we ARE stopping the run pretty well overall. Not consistently? Yeah, fair enough, but it's not just that teams can kill us on the ground when they want. It's here and there we allow big plays. Look at how well we stopped the run in the second half against the Bucs. The offensive run game not hitting on four cylinders? Yeah, again, fair enough. Need to work on the OL in the offseason. They will. Not good enough to win in the postseason this year? I'm beginning to think so. They could prove us wrong, but it does begin to look that way. They just don't seem able to play consistently.

Yeah, they'd probably be top three in the league in yards, points and DVOA. Oh, wait, they are. That should prolly tell us something. But for many, it won't.

Excellent in coverage. Excellent in getting fast to the edge on run downs. Has problems occasionally with run fits and needs to work on this but overall very solid in the run game. Yup, there are people out there who don't see it. Still true. It's not a coincidence that he's a captain, that they love him, that he's out there on every play they can possibly get him out there for, that he's a two-time Pro Bowler. Nor that the chances on him being re-signed - while it money is always a huge factor - are probably in the range of 70% - 90%.

Steak is the worst food anyone can eat. It tastes like death. It's poison and will kill you in two minutes flat, drop you like an ax to the forehead. Change my mind. Correct answer: Why would I bother trying?

You ought to find a team that agrees with your opinions. You're likely to be able to continue your bellyaching for years and years. After you find a team that agrees to follow, you might want to try to find Pro Bowl voters who agree with you. And pundits. Anyone, really. That's not to say he didn't have a few bad plays tonight, dammit. But the whole defense had a bunch of bad plays, and it's as much that they were up against an extremely good offense as it is that they played badly sometimes. Which they did. He absolutely is an impact LB. Just not the kind you like. Certainly not perfect. Certainly needs work. But nobody's perfect and everybody needs work. Yup, big contract offers, very likely including the Bills. And any GM that makes decisions based on whether some bizarre elements of their fan base are displaying weird opinions should be and likely will be sitting with those fans before long, to paraphrase Marv.

It wouldn't hurt back shoulder throws it would pretty much eliminate them. Any time a receiver tried to slow down and go back for the ball the DBs would be coached to keep running and run them over.

You don't have to be tall to be a goal line threat. You just don't. It's an asset. But there are other ways to get the job done down there. With separation, for one. Yup. Teams have adapted and we haven't adapted to their adaptations.

This has been discussed here again and again, most recently within the last week. And no. It would make zero sense. Below zero, it would be directly against their interests. They have a golden goose that could keep paying them hundreds of millions of dollars for decades. Risking that to crank up viewership for a bigger payday that would amount to maybe a 2- 4% increase would be completely and totally bonkers, finanacially. And you can say a lot of things that aren't very nice about NFL owners, but financially they're a pretty acute group. Precisely.

[Word Only Answer] Laudable.

Physical toughness doesn't appear to be the issue. It's mostly just not making mistakes, particularly in this last game. Stop with the penalties and execute. The Bills mostly held the Pats down on the ground. But on a few plays a mistake or two is made and it all turns into a big play. It's not a non-issue; this is football. But it's not the biggest problem. That appears to be execution, mistakes and inconsistency.

Too young. What a shame.

The draft is one way to bring in guys. There actually are other ways. They didn't draft Diggs. Yet he appeared here ... somehow, magically. It's almost as if trades and free agency were ways to acquire people outside the draft. And building a championship team by getting an excellent defense and a great QB and then hoping the QB makes those around him better is a fairly common, very legitimate way of doing it.

Yeah, I think that's a case of confirmation bias on your part. You want change, so you see this very bland statement as proof you're right, when there's zero reason really to think it means what you want it to mean. Not that I'm saying there won't be change. Nor am I saying these exact changes won't happen. Just that what he said there doesn't even mildly indicate it. It certainly says there'll be change. It's extremely unclear that the change will be the ones you're reading this as a signal for.

That was certainly part of it.

I totally disagree. They had to worry about it, but they were ready for the run. Most everyone in the box. But the pull and pin blocking scheme really worked well, with N'Keal Harry seeming to catch Epenesa from the side, allowing their LT to go after our CB and catch him from the side also. It reminded me of the trap blocking we saw last week work so well against us. They had a man on a man with Dotson most able to choose where he was going to meet his blocker, the FB. He's got to try to take the outside gap, but to also squeeze the inside gap small as he can while still handling outside. Another step inside forces the FB to take the same step to meet him. He ends up leaving a massive hole inside instead of trying to squeeze it a bit. That was going to be a first down once Dotson left him that wide a hole, and Hyde, the only unblocked man, totally ran himself outside of the play, probably from the up guys and particularly Dotson making it hard to know early in the play what was going to happen.

It's not an epic fail by any means on offense. But yeah, wildly inconsistent. I think we have to start wondering how they're going to improve the WR room next year, and whether they need another TE. Diggs is sensational, but after that we're not seeing any real game breakers. As for Teller, I don't think it's a mystery. It's one of those things that happen sometimes. Sometimes guys who have looked decent for a while hit a tipping point and improve a lot. That's what happened with Teller, it's pretty clear. Thing is, it's only on a small percentage of guys who are decent for a while that it happens. And it's not really predictable until it happens. The OL needs a bunch of work obviously, but how much? Will Dawkins be back to his normal pre-Covid excellent self next year? Or is this a permanent thing? Daryl Williams was very good last year and much less so this year. Why? Will he be better again? From the outside, there's no way to know how much of this is repairable.

You're proud? Really? I don't know what to say to that. You may be the only one. I doubt you'll find a single Bill proud of the team's performance here. They're not closing the curtain on the season. Nor should they. But that was an awful thing to watch, and I'm sure it felt just as bad to play in. Close but no cigar is not a team motto that will see a lot of play in ad campaigns, and for good reason. They need to cut the inconsistency and they need to play better. Pronto.

Sure, they had a chance to win. Having had a chance to win, that's what the losers talk about. It doesn't matter. We had plenty of teams in the drought that were always in games with a chance to win.

I love positivity as much as the next guy, but ... Who cares? Really? They do, for one group. Did they look happy in their post-game interviews? They're not out of it. That's a good thing. But history shows it's not easy to turn it off and on at will. It doesn't generally work that way. Unless they start playing like a serious contender, they're unlikely to be one. They've got a little time, but they're already losing the week off, home games, etc. That hurts. They care, and so should we.

Yeah, correct. Teams have good and bad years, it's what happens. Of course, that doesn't mean we should all say, "So everything's fine, they can just keep going status quo, everything's fine." There are problems and they need to be working on them and working hard. But they will.

Aaaargh! This hurts so damn much, all this truth. Gyaaaah! This too!

Ouch. Ow, dammit.

Whether a fumble is lost or not - that is, who picks it up after it hits the ground - generally comes down to luck, unless it's a guy fumbling it right out of bounds or something. Fumbles lost isn't the key metric for figuring a guy's risk. It's just plain fumbles. McKenzie this year has returned 17 punts, though he's fielded more than that, and 22 KRs. That's 39 kicks returned and 3 fumbles. That just isn't good. I hope they can figure something out with him, but this is a huge problem. It's close to a 10% rate.