Thurman#1

That teams that platoon DLs, so they need eight real players, and have only used one 1st round pick and zero 2nds on DL, so they will need a lot of mid-priced FAs, will tend to have expensive DLs.

More of a top 10ish team than a top 2 team last year? Mmmm. Yeah, maybe 5th, 6th or 7th would be a pretty reasonable argument to make. Still very good though. And I greatly disagree about what you're saying is our ceiling. When we get our top two CBs and our top two LBs back and in shape such that they're not playing well below capacity due to injuries, this could still be a very good defense, particularly if you're looking at ceiling. Two of our top three players didn't play, and the third doesn't appear able to use his right arm much though he's in playing because he's better with one arm that his healthy replacement. And again, the opponents started three drives inside our 20 and one more on the 30 yard line. That's a massive handicap.

How many other teams are on the same kind of pace in this season when the NFL is scoring far more points and churning out far more yards than ever before? And how much more likely is that to happen when your team is scoring a ton of points and other teams fall behind?

That's number two overall. Defenses are ranked by total yards allowed, and for good reason. The defense's responsibility for total yards is around 95%. A few defenses have to defend against fewer or more drives, so that's a factor, but Whereas points allowed measures the rest of the team a great deal more. Individual drives are massively affected by drive start. That doesn't matter in terms of yards because overall average drive start is greatly similar for every team over the course of the season. But expected scoring isn't affected nearly as much by average start. Probably something on the order of 30% of the responsibility for scoring allowed rests on the offense and STs. Yards has a major effect on field position (duh), for both the offense and defense. Every drive is important, not just scoring drives. Average yards per drive is an even better look at defensive performance. This is true. He could be caught standing over a dead body holding a bloody knife and screaming, "I told you I'd kill you, and you didn't believe me. What do you think now that I stabbed you over and over again until you died?"

Blowouts are not the responsibility of the defense. Blowouts only happen when the offense doesn't score, so the offense has a great deal of the responsibility. The whole team is responsible for a blowout, and this one was even much more so than usual. The Titans had three drive starts inside the Bills 20. THREE!!! And another on the 30. The defense wasn't good. But to put all the blame on them for the blowout ... shows only that you're missing the point.

LInk? At this early stage, it's deniable. He's been playing superbly for five games, but Tyrod was terrific for five games too. Some guys regress. Some guys lose it. Sometimes teams figure guys out. It happens. On the other hand, sometimes guys become superstars. Certainly his arm talent is superstar-level. That's been clear since college. There's a lot more to the game than that though. Far too early to think we know the final verdict. It does seem to be leaning that way, though.

Yeah, he put it clearly, really made me get it more deeply than I have before.

Doh!!! Thanks for the correction, I'll go back and change the original post.

Hmm, maybe I need to go back and edit in quotation marks. I didn't do any analysis, really. Just typing. But thanks. It took me quite a while to type it all up.

Re: Tannehill's very good play: "He never leaves yards on the field, that's my thing about him, he maximizes opportunities to the maximum (sic) almost every week. And that's where he's really impressive. And last night, with that game, the stats and numbers aren't going to look like they're amazing, but as you break down the game, first off they were very fortunate to get the short field a few times. That set them up for some scoring. ... But they were going to have to throw the ball to score some touchdowns and do that. Because Buffalo was selling out to stop the run." ----------------------------- (6:20) "What you don't really realize is the Bills defense really played a little bit better than I wanted to give them credit for when I turned off the TV last night. And then when I watched the film today, I go, 'There were some things that I really liked about what they did.' " "They were put in some tough spots. They really were, by their offense and the punt return and all those type of things, but what I did like best is that they were not ... running game has been a little bit of an issue for them. They were not gashed in the running game. Now, did it compromise them in the pass game? Definitely. And am I still worried about that with Buffalo? Yes. "I mean Buffalo kind of has kind of corner dysfunction." Paul Burmeister: "Especially without White." "Right. And he's not there, it's a pretty average group, to where I worry about them. So we always talk about when a team does something elite, so it forces other teams into having to do something. And it forced Buffalo to have to put Josh Norman and Taron Johnson and those guys on islands against AJ Brown, and they're just not going to win those matchups." ------------------------- (12:10) "The Titans defensive game plan was awesome, it really was. I can't say enough about it. They played coverage the whole night. They ran exotic zone coverages. Mike Vrabel obviously had a little bead on the offense. Again, this is a New England offense. Mike Vrabel's done pretty damn good against New England so far, he's 2-0 since he's been the coach of the Tennessee Titans. And stymied their offense both times. He stymied Buffalo's offense a little last year when Buffalo went down there and won a close game. "And this is not how the Titans have been playing the first few games of the year. They've been playing a little more in-your-face, man-to-man, we're going to cover you and make you earn it. But I think he realized, "Woh, we're not going to match up with this group. We can't cover this group all over the field, with what they're doing. And not with this big sucker, 17, back there. 'Cause even if we do cover them, he buys time and people pop open and all of that. "So very impressive from that standpoint with dropping people into coverage and the illusion of blitzing." Paul Burmeister: "Which leads to that confusion that you want the quarterback to have for half a second." "Half a second! ... Teams are over-blitzing. ... I'm gonna show you teams that blitz and they get gashed and then teams that play coverage right now are proving to be the better defenses. They are." ---------------------- "Really a very interesting look inside. Around 18:00 he talks about how the fake snap counts aren't just to try to draw guys Offside, but also to get the D to show who's blitzing, so the QB can then get them in the perfect play. He said that Vrabel appeared to have coached his guys that he'd rather see them start half a second late than to flinch early and give the whole defensive plan away. "They look like it's Cover Two and they don't flinch from Cover Two. Until "set hut," and the ball is snapped. And all of a sudden then it becomes Cover Three, or it becomes man-to-man with a robber in the middle, or whatever else. That is the ***** that confuses a quarterback for a split second. "Or then the other thing we were talking about like, creative blitzes where it still ends up only being a four-man rush, where here's a nickel cover corner, where usually the nickel cover corner is told, "You're blitzing here, right?" They can't help it usually. So teh quarterback does the dummy snap count or even gets toward the end of the snap count and [the blitzer] is flinching because they can't wait to blitz. And Vrabel has told them, "Hey, you showing it and just being a split second faster is really ruining it. Don't do that. "We want to surprise them so they're not schematically capable of doing it. And they're great at telling their corners and their blitzers, "Don't even flinch. Just look at your guy, and when the ball is snapped, I don't care if you get off the ball like a split second later than the guy who's told the whole world he's coming. We want to get there because they're not schematically ready for it." "And that's how they got a lot of free runners last night on Josh Allen." --------------------------- They do a great little breakdown on what happened with the second INT also. Around 21:33. Says Butler duped him, faking a move up to cover Beasley on his break but then backs up. Says he thought Allen didn't read the body language the right way because he didn't put mustard on the throw, he thought that guy wasn't going to be there. Also went nuts about the second TD to Yeldon and what an insane throw that was for Allen And said the Titans weren't respecting Singletary, "Please, run it." Great stuff.

Yeah, because look for example at the 2018 champs, the Pats, whose defensive starters were Trey Flowers, Lawrence Guy, Malcom Brown, Dont'a Hightower, Kyle Van Nay, Elandon Roberts, Jason McCourty, Stephon Gilmore, Patrick Chung and Devin McCourty. Look at that arsenal of game-taker-overers. For their Stephon Gilmore, we've got Tre White. For their ... For their .... Give me a few hours to work this out. Yeah, because look for example at the 2018 champs, the Pats, whose defensive starters were Trey Flowers, Lawrence Guy, Malcom Brown, Dont'a Hightower, Kyle Van Nay, Elandon Roberts, Jason McCourty, Stephon Gilmore, Patrick Chung and Devin McCourty. Look at that arsenal of game-taker-overers. For their Stephon Gilmore, we've got Tre White. For their ... For their .... Give me a few hours to work this out.

So ... the time to make "aggressive money moves" is when you have $3.9 mill left on the cap this year and $1.8 mill next year with only 41 guys on the roster for that year? Yeah, right. Yeah, because look for example at the 2018 champs, the Pats, whose defensive starters were Trey Flowers, Lawrence Guy, Malcom Brown, Dont'a Hightower, Kyle Van Nay, Elandon Roberts, Jason McCourty, Stephon Gilmore, Patrick Chung and Devin McCourty. Look at that arsenal of game-taker-overers. For their Stephon Gilmore, we've got Tre White. For their ... For their .... Give me a few hours to work this out.

Yes, elite is a relative term. But top ten is certainly not elite. Top ten is somewhere on the order of "very good." Is Matthew Stafford elite? He's top ten. But he's not elite. Jared Goff is playing like a top ten QB this year. He's not elite by any definition. Elite in football is generally considred top three to five. Is Dak Prescott elite? Please. But he's top ten, though I hate to say that about any Cowboy. And yes they "will almost certainly improve your chances," that's not what "need" means. A much better 2nd CB, a real big nickel, a real space-eating nose tackle would all almost certainly improve our chances. We had elite or near-elite defenses the last couple of years. And we certainly didn't have an elite pass-rusher. Again, it would be lovely to have one, but it's unlikely to happen, and it's not a need. A want? Fair enough but that's unlikely.

Yeah, we need them because look at how the last ten Super Bowl winners have them. "Elite," as you went out of your way to say. Oh, wait, slmost none of them do. Frank Clark is very fine, but he's not elite. The Pats never have one. The 2017 Eagles? Nope. You do find one with the 2015 Broncos, but that's the only one. We don't need one. It would certainly be great if we could get one, but you don't need one to win a Super Bowl, you just don't. Please. Neither of these guys is elite. Nor can we afford one next year.

Yup. Correct.

No. That's one of several things. But if what made him special was his legs than he'd have been excellent the last two years when he had his best weapon. He wasn't. He was below average.

Yes.

Looked to me more like we needed better blocking in front of him. Not that this was a good game for anybody wearing Bills colors, but Singletary wasn't the problem.

What I read into your comments was your actual words. If you don't want to have people "reading way too much" into your comments, don't say stuff like: You sure don't believe it, so saying it like that makes it look like you're saying that's being said by others, which is a straw man. And yes, he's gotten way too much abuse here over his time here, far more than he ever deserved. Bills fans tend to find whipping boys and pile on. He's been one. He took a pay cut of $1.75 mill from his $50 mill contract ... in exchange for a longer guarantee. I thought your question was rhetorical since the answer was so obvious. Both sides got something from that.

IMO, injuries are killing us. Milano and White are two of our best three on defense, and losing the top two CBs hurts a lot. But if we look like that consistently, we'll have to think about applying those terms.

They did run on us last year as well. "Us." Meaning the team. What Star did was his job, very well. You can't expect him to pressure the QB. He can't. And you also can't expect him to affect plays in which he isn't in. He, and all the DLs, platoon, generally playing between 40 - 60% of the snaps. Blaming (or praising) any one player for our success/failure against the run overall doesn't make much sense, especially as the Bills themselves seem to be saying that a lot of the problem has been run fits. But as for eating double teams and space, Star did it very well, though there definitely were a few bad plays as well. Not that many, though.

That's an awesome straw man argument. Could you show us all the posts saying "he is the best player on the D"? I'll take any posts from this year or any year he was on the Bills.

Not especially. It's Star who has been the big missing piece. Phillips was below average against the run, and a few flash plays against the pass but not much impact otherwise. The guy has two sacks and one QB hit this year. In five games, that's not a lot of hits.. That's the way he was with us too. Few hits and pressure, converting the ones he did have at a higher than normal rate into sacks. So he had a huge effect on the plays he got sacks (obviously) but didn't effect many other plays at all. That's not what you pay big money for.

While the deflected INT can't be blamed all on Allen, the bad throw was absolutely a contributing factor. Roberts still should've caught it, but a better pass and he likely does. Both share the blame there. Agree that Allen is the silver lining, so far. It seems, though, as if teams have figured out one thing, that they need to play deep and not allow the long balls, that they are going to try to force Josh and the offense to play small-ball, which requires consistency. Today, that consistency just wasn't there. This is how teams will play us, IMO. How will we respond?

I thought he was over the line, but it wasn't anywhere near a full yard. It was a matter of inches. The announcer mis-spoke, saying the LOS was the 8. It wasn't. It was about three inches short of the 7. As I say, I thought it was a penalty, and that it should've been reversed, but it was very close. Bottom line for me was that we lost by a huge margin. The reffing was pretty much beside the point. The Bills performed far far worse than the refs did. The whole team played crappy. At least the defense had three starters out, two of whom are among the three most important players.