Thurman#1

Interesting. Thanks. I knew he was doing well, it's interesting to hear they think it's that well.

I feel like I've seen it pretty often. A reasonable move as long as the next few yards are not important, and in this case they weren't. I wouldn't consider it so much a savvy play as just a way to cut down on wear and tear. He's a crucial part of our offense. Makes sense.

They did a couple of years ago after the season and he's gotten better, though still not great. His first two years he was 1 for 10. Last year 2 for 5 which is pretty close to average. (Last year 37% of all NFL challenges succeeded). This year 0 for 2 so far, which is bad but also incomplete and probably statistically insignificant with too small a sample.

Davis had no way to know. He wasn't looking at his foot or anywhere close, and even if he was he couldn't have seen underneath the foot to see exactly which part of his foot had been down. About all he could've said was, "Maybe. If I was out it wasn't by much, but dunno, really."

This. Live, it looked like he was out. Nobody questioned it till after they'd lost the chance.

I went to college in that area. Long time ago. Used to get the Bills games usually. Pretty much never been back, though. Good luck.

No, that was not a pre-COVID change. They announced it on April 1st, well about a week after the Olympics had been cancelled because of COVID worries, and three days after the stimulus bill was signed into law.

LBs play better when the system around them is working. Everybody does, really. Our defensive system has been limping into some kind of shape the past three weeks or so.

Some of them do. Others don't. I'm not referring to you, Major, but it cracks me up how some people operate here. They set a bar and when the bar is topped, there's an excuse why that doesn't count. This was absolutely a signature win. But though Seattle was thought of by pretty much everyone as a top three team and by many as the best in football, for some it won't count. You'll ask them why and they'll throw nonsense up in the air in vast dustclouds, but the real answer deep in their hearts is that the Bills only beat a team that was so bad that they could be beaten by the Buffalo Bills, and therefore couldn't have been much good. Yes, that's circular logic and logically eliminates the possibility of a signature win. But it's what's in their hearts.

We rushed four and disguised coverages a lot today.

Totally disagree. They've lost in big games before. They've never played scared. They've played conservative a few times. Never scared.

IMO, this is such a tiny deal. One half of a sentence in a long article. And it didn't even say early in the game, he could've meant early in the week. It's not an especially well-written sentence, but it's a miniscule bit of the article.

An "admitted Bills hater"? Um, no he is not.

That's really not true. Top QBs like the rest, like all humans really, have ups and downs. Look at Mahomes against the Raiders this year. He barely got above 50%, and that is not the Mahomes we're used to seeing. It's not that top QBs don't need excuses. It's that top QBs, top players, top performers in anything, don't use excuses. And Josh Allen hasn't. Doesn't mean we can't look at the ups and downs and speculate what's behind them. It's a good point that the weather's been bad. I really hadn't put that together. But it's true. Having said that, the weather IMO isn't the main part of the problem, though it surely had some effect. The main problem is simply that in the cycle of football when you're doing well, people will defense you differently till you prove you can hande it. They're doing that to Allen and he's still playing very well but short passes don't look as transcendently awesome as what he was able to do against the defenses he faced the first four weeks. One of Allen's problems has been consistency. Teams are going to force him to try to maintain drives through a lot of plays, and to be successful at that, he'll need consistency at a very high level.

If you want to focus on that, you also have to point out that we also played the Chiefs and Titans, two of the absolute best in the league. Overall, our schedule has been tougher than average. The defense hasn't been especially good this year. If what we're doing is working in one area, that's great, let's look at that, without forgetting the areas where things aren't going so well. That's just not true, turnovers aren't all that matter. Rushed throws that fall incomplete matter plenty too. Open receivers the QB didn't have time to see or hit matter. Pressures are excellent, they lower lower the effectiveness of the QB and the whole passing game. Sacks are better, they lower effectiveness even more, but pressures are good.

Quick reminder, despite a ton of crucial injuries, we're 6-2 halfway through the season. The progression you speak of is absolutely happening.

Hue Jackson has been a head coach two full years and parts of two more. The first was the 2011 Raiders, where he helmed for eight games. Then two and a half with the Browns where reaching the playoffs was a distant crazy dream for this term, winning three games in two and a half years. I'm not sure who you were thinking of. Did you mean Marvin Lewis? He was 0-7 in the playoffs, I believe, but that was over 16 seasons as heac coach. There's no comparison with Lewis or with Jackson.

"Only" 89%? Are we losing touch with the fact that 89% is extremely high?

How he sounds in press conference is right up there with the amount of dust on the stadium seats in terms of impact on the game and discussion-worthiness. He's fine and the Bills haven't played passive. They're 6-2 and wouldn't be if they'd played passive. Next time you might take up the brand name of the headsets and the effect that has on the team's mindset.

I'm not clear what a "secret MVP" is. If it's about the same as an MVP, I'd disagree strongly. But he really has been an excellent pickup. He's done a fine job and you're right, he doesn't get mentioned, for all the right reasons.

I'm arguing one play because they started talking about it and went on and on and on. I didn't bring it up. There are other plays where it looks like he made mistakes or couldn't hold up his end. When people mention them, I don't argue. But a play like that where it's obviously not his fault, yeah, I like to point out bad arguments when I find them. And I've never argued that his play has regressed. It has. I've said again and again that the question isn't whether he's regressed, it's why. He has an injury, Lotulelei is gone and the whole system just isn't working right now. That's to blame for an awful lot of it, I believe. Not all, I don't think. But likely a lot.

According to Jeremiah Sirles on the Shout podcast, Sirles always liked to take on one guy as a project when he comes to a team and be that guy's mentor. And for Sirles that guy was Boettger. And one of the things Sirles told him was that if he was multiple, they wouldn't be able to bring themselves to cut him. Boettger took that to heart and now can play all five of the OL positions. That's why Sirles says Boettger is around ... because he worked like crazy and learned all five.

Better isn't the only thing that's part of the equation. There's expense, there's scheme fit, there's position fit, there's culture fit, and more. His last contract was $9.5 mill for a year and he drastically underperformed. He still could easily get a contract that might be too high. So if they feel that scheme fit, position fit and culture fit (for a guy who didn't show up to camp till ten days late without any clear reason) all work, there will still be financial issue. My bet is that this is unlikely. We'll see. And you're not better than Klein, dude, and I say that without knowing you. Not that I don't want a replacement for Klein out there. I do. But not if it's you. More, I"m not saying that as an insult to you. I don't want me out there either.

Yup. And Seattle is generally ranked around 3rd or 4th best in the league, us being so close says good things about what people around the league think of the Bills. Despite the pissing and moaning here, generally we're considered a good team, top ten and it's been a very significant time since we were considered a top ten team after eight games.

Sorry. The perils of posting while exhausted. Don't know what I was thinking. I apologize for the tone as well. Clearly I need to stop posting and get to sleep.