Thurman#1

I don't agree. I've seen a pretty fair amount of games turn at halftime after early domination. I think if you go back and look at it, you will think of a bunch yourself. This wasn't so much Billsy, IMO as it was a team - the offense in particular - just not being good enough. I agree it's on nearly everyone, though. I just never saw this team as a top five or six group. In talent, I thought they were just about where they ended up, maybe 10th to 12th in the league, damn good on defense and sputtery and inconsistent on offense. I was really hopeful about this game. But I didn't think they had a chance at being competitive for a title this year. They just aren't there yet.

Again, if you go exactly by the rulebook, there's holding every play and pass interference on most if not all pass plays. The rulebook is applied with discretion. IMO this has happened a dozen times this year, minimum, and each time was treated as giving it up, and nobody said a word. I'm not willing to go looking through the whole year for it, about a minor argument. And this is a minor argument. And you'd have to look because when it's happened before, the ref simply grabbed the ball, blew the whistle and marched the ball to the 25 and nobody said a damn thing. I could be wrong, but I know that early in the year several times I thought, "Isn't that a live ball?" And it never was. And so I got it that the refs weren't enforcing that rule very strictly. The thing that made this play different is that the ref dodged the ball. The Bills saw that and kept running. That's what they're taught, I think is if you're not sure keep running till you hear whistles. If the refs are going to make this call, do it early in the year so everyone knows you're serious. The last thing you do is not apply it during the season and then during the playoff suddenly break the trend and apply it. He tossed the ball to the ref and walked away. No way this could have been a fake. If a fake happened, yeah, I suspect at that point the refs would call it by the book and if no whistle was blown at any point, the defenses would keep running. But the play would've been called based on whether the whistle was blown.

What killed me was the play before, 2nd and 9, where Allen had Beasley wide open but threw it short and didn't give him a chance at it. Beasley was on the 39 and had a great chance to probably make the first down if the ball hits him in stride. He could at least have made the 35 or so even if the defender makes a great play to prevent the first down, making it 3rd and maybe two. And I don't think that defender makes the play. He was well inside of Beasley. That would probably have been the ballgame. Anyway, I just went back and listened and Pereira didn't say that was a bogus call. Didn't say anything like that, actually. The only comment by anybody on whether it was a deserved call was when someone said, "Think it might be an illegal blindside block, a lineman is coming back towards that goal line, initiating force with the shoulder." I thought it was Pereira, but whoever it was, it wasn't Booger or Tessitore. At least on the broadcast, that was all that was said about it.

Yeah? Giving yourself up is in the rulebook, so your assertion is questionable. But say you're right ... by rule there's holding and pass interference on every single play. The rules are selectively enforced, and that's a good thing. My impression is we've seen that kind of thing before this season and the refs just normally accept it. I guess I could be wrong about that, but guys are routinely so very casual about this that I just don't think it's exceptional.

While I do agree with several points in the article, particularly the clock management at the end of the half when they call a run with 30 seconds left and certainly going for it on 4th and 27, I don't think it's wrong to run Gore. We constantly hear on here how they pass too much, and how they need to run more to take the burden off Allen. And then when they do that and it doesn't work you hear the opposite. And then we hear others saying we run too much and need to put it in Allen's hands ... but when they do that and it doesn't work, then again it was a bad play call. As long as they pass sometimes with Gore in there so it isn't a giveaway that when he's in there it means a run is coming, I don't mind them running him sometimes. Make a hole and he does the job. He does need to work on clock management. I'd expect him to realize that in his review of the game. I hope we'll see some changes. But this isn't a dynamic offense - it doesn't have the personnel or the experience just yet - and that's going to come out sometimes.

... is that you just don't get it.

No, it was hard to understand because no quotation marks were used, but everything from "Morse has named us," and on down was the (perhaps overcaffeinated or just plain hyper) Hapless. But hey, of course he's a bit giddy. Me too, I'm going nuts. This year is the first since 2004 when the Bills looked like they had a chance not just to make the playoffs but to make a real impact there. In 2017, I thought it was a really nice feel-good story about Kyle but it was obvious that teams would be thrilled if seeds lined up so that they played the Bills. I didn't think for a minute that they were a good enough team to do any real damage there. This year just feels different. I don't see them making the Super Bowl. They're just not good enough. But they're legitimately good.

Looked to me less like simplifying and more like finding the group of guys that had the best synchronicity and talent level, and that at the same time stressed the defense more by giving them less time.

The Ravens, maybe? I know, I know, the reference is not just asking who's the best team in football. But what is it exactly? The most dangerous wild card team? Most dangerous team to play wild card weekend? Assuming it's wild card teams only, I agree with the folks above picking Tennessee. I think teams would rather see the Bills coming than either the Titans or Seattle. And would probably rather see the Eagles (throwing them in even though they're not wild cards) or Texans than us. IMO next year's going to be our year.

There are no football-related reasons. If an owner didn't want to spend the money on players at all ... just wanted to put it as a profit to the team, he could just not roll over the money. I believe it's been done but it's extremely infrequent. If you want to be as competitive as possible, you always roll it over. Fans get it and don't appreciate what it means.

No. If signed this year, the signing bonus would be paid this year. That changes how the amortization works. The first fraction would be paid this year if signed this year. That means that the year the last fraction is paid would be a year earlier. It also changes leverage. Depending on how well a player is playing next year - or even how he plays in the playoff game(s) - he might easily feel more or less pressure to sign a contract at that time than he does now. So the contract's terms could change between now and next year, particularly if they wait till during the season to sign a re-negotiation. Yup. Good point.

LInk? Is this the one you mean? https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28387743/source-texans-start-aj-mccarron-deshaun-watson-backup

I disagree, though I think you're right that losing Norman had more of an impact than they hoped it would. But losing Norman didn't send them from 6th to 21st in defense the next year and 6th to 26th in points allowed. It was a lot more than Norman's absence.

Please. Khalil Mack makes $23.5 mill / year over his contract. Tre's terrific and deserves a lot of money, but pass rushers get the biggest money for good reason. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/average/ Xavien Howard is the top CB, and he's #54 in the league, with 21 defenders above him, most but not all of whom are pass rushers.

It's only a first step. But it's a good one. It still begs the question of whether winning is possible there under that owner. Maybe not. Yeah, maybe. Though IMO Daboll will have to have another good year for teams to entirely buy in on him.

Agreed that 17 points is not horrible. That's very fair. You're going to get fewer chances against NE. But when you get those chances, you still have to hit them, or rather a large percentage of them. Josh had plays here that he just botched, and particularly early in the game. That's not acceptable just because it's the Patriots. The two plays where Knox was open for potential TDs ... oh, man did that hurt.

Nonsense. Yeah, coaching requires a ton more knowledge. But Joe isn't doing what coaches do. He's not calling plays and attempting to fool defensive coordinators. He's just looking at what happened with the benefit of hindsight. What he has set himself the task to do doesn't require absolute genius. What happened is right on the screen, and you can watch it again and again looking at what each player did. It just isn't as difficult as people want to pretend it is. The tough part of what Joe does game after game after game is that it takes massive amounts of time to look at each player on each play. That's the hardest part of what Joe does, and I respect the commitment it takes to do that. No, you can't understand absolutely everything you see. And no, you won't know as much as the coaches do about what happened. But there's a reason that teams put interns on film study of other teams. You can understand the great majority of what goes on in the great majority of plays. It's hindsight, with video. It's not blind sudoku.

Oh, man, I should've checked the original quote first thing. It's nonsense. The OP links to an article by a guy named Bryan DeArdo, which then talks about another article by Michael Silver. But there's no link. I should've noticed that before. When you go to the Silver article, it's obvious how DeArdo messed up. Here's "Multiple sources expect there to be a shakeup on McVay's coaching staff, perhaps including veteran defensive coordinator Wade Phillips. There could also be significant turnover in the personnel department. As for the roster, Gurley's high salary and declining production may make him a cap casualty, and other key players could be traded or released as the organization builds around Goff on offense and star defensive tackle Aaron Donald on defense. " That's the opposite of saying Donald is on the block. My bad for not checking. Everyone should do that when an article quotes another article. Go to the source article and see if it really says what the secondary source tells you it did. Here it does not. Right, if you think Phillip Rivers isn't a great QB. And if a person thought that, it would make that person look extremely dopey. Rivers will be a Hall of Famer, and for good reason. 20% of your cap? So, you don't want to spend $40 mill a year on an LT or a DT? Well, I have to say, I'm with you on that. And again, yes, you're right that "Many of the best LTs and DTs to play the game don't have rings." To repeat, the same can be said for every single position on the field, including QB. That argument has no force. Plenty of good LTs and DTs get stuck on bad teams with bad front offices and don't win titles. Same with good QBs, good WRs, good pass rushers, good ... well, good everything. Dan fricking Marino didn't win a championship, and it wasn't because QB isn't important. Jim Kelly, Warren Moon, Rivers, Fouts, Kenny Anderson, Matt Ryan, Stafford, Carson Palmer, Andrew Luck, and on and on.

That doesn't make sense. Same is true of every position in football, including quarterback. Did getting Philip Rivers win the Chargers a championship? LT isn't overrated, nor is DT. Yes we've had good ones without winning championships, but there is no correlation there.

Did the Steelers and the Pats bring in a lot of "personalities" in their coaches' third year? Or was it only after they'd thoroughly remade the locker room in the image of their system that they brought in those types of guys?

The Rams aren't letting him go. That is an absolute impossibility. If they trade him, Spotrac lists his dead cap at $41 mill. Some bit of that would be paid for by the team that picked him up, but a minimum of $32 mill dead cap would be on the Rams. As for the Bills, they've got their 3-tech in Oliver, and much cheaper for the next four years. It just wouldn't make sense.

Of course they might kick him to the curb in year five. It really is simple. It'll depend on his play. There absolutely is two more years to prove himself with growth if they think he's got to show more. "What more does he have to demonstrate?" you ask. Jeez, everything, or at least the important things. Our offense has been poor and a lot of that rests on Allen. He's got to show he's a franchise QB and he hasn't done that yet. He is improving, though. IMO the signs are good. But he is by no means a top QB at this time. He's a guy who's shown that he maybe has a possibility of being a top QB with time.

It might. Here's a quick start. There are several sites that look at drops and they tell somewhat different stories because drops are a somewhat subjective thing. Here's one: http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/tmleaders.asp?range=NFL&rank=232&type=Receiving They list the Bills as having the 3rd highest total of drops in the league!!!!!!!!!!!!! 22 drops. League average is about 17. That means the Bills have dropped around five more passes than average. If you added in five completions to Josh's stats, his completion percentage would go up to 59.8%, soaring all the way up from 32nd to 31st.

After the bye? That's 10 games. In order: The #32 defence The #9 defence The #25 defence The #20 defence The #32 defence again The #10 defence The #11 defence The #5 defence The #4 defence The #1 defence That is indeed a nasty late schedule, but you can't leave out the easy ones without looking like you've got an agenda. That averages out to a defence ranked 14.9th.

That is indeed the most important stat, 10-5. But it is NOT a quarterback stat. It's a team stat. That stat is officially named "Team Record in Games Started By This Quarterback (Regular Season)". TEAM wins. The way to evaluate Josh Allen is to look at how well he does QB stuff. Not to evaluate him based on how well the defense is playing or whether or not or field goal kicker is making his kicks.