Thurman#1

Kiko played OK, but he simply wasn't fast enough to catch Allen as a spy. Which is weird because Kiko's strength has been quickness. Allen really does seem to play faster than he ever timed. Yup, this is the best guess as to what he'll see next and the steps he has to take.

Star is playing like a $10 mill player. It's generally much more about money than anything else. But while the Bills will absolutely fill a bunch of holes at FA, the OP shouldn't expect so many big ticket guys. This is a conservative FO. They come from a team with a conservative FO and they've already announced that they want to build through the draft and fill holes with FA. Hope he won't be too disappointed if the FAs they bring in are nearly all low- to medium-priced guys.

I'm no cricket and I'm going to continue to give the correct answer. It's too early to say, and that will be true for quite a while now. Judging only by what we've seen so far, Allen has absolutely been better overall but Rosen has passed about as well with arguably an even weaker OL and offensive personnel overall. Allen has better momentum since he came back from his time on the bench. But neither one has passed well with consistency. But the bottom line is that it is simply too early. OP, thanks for posting that. It was fun to watch.

He's not right. As a quick example, in 2006 (earliest year I could find stats extremely quickly) there were 11.8 penalties accepted per game, while this year so far 13.2. That's not some huge rise. The problem for Bills fans is that we're the second most-penalized team so it seems that way to us. And we've been among the most-penalized for years.

What poor choices (plural) did they make about receivers? The problem wasn't scouting. It was that they committed very very few resources (draft picks and cap money) to receivers this year. We had far too many holes to fill, and there were always going to be areas neglected, it was just which areas. The choice to pick Zay was the only one where we committed real resources to WR and it appears to be starting to work out pretty well. The Benjamin trade was the only poor choice. Other than that they've brought in veteran minimum kinds of guys or taken very cheap fliers on guys who haven't worked out. Not a lot of fliers do work out. It's not like guys like Dez were going to come here this year, especially for peanuts. The Bills tried to get John Brown but couldn't get him. What WR would come to a team with our QB room on a prove-it deal?

Bills 4-8 during a rebuild Jagz 4-9 during a year when they were supposed to compete for a championship How are they doing better?

Sure, the QBs get their share of the blame. But so do the recievers. And the "fact" that our rookie holds onto the ball longer than any QB in the league has zero relevance to this discussion. Same with Peterman's QB rating. Peterman threw plenty of good passes too, and a couple of the INTs Peterman threw were on the receivers, passes that should've been caught but were instead tapped up in the air for defensive tip drill practice. You're right that the OL has also had problems. No question. And that Zay averages 38 yards a game, but that has come up a ton lately as his light has come on, and plenty of those low figures goes to the receivers also. And you're right that Tyrod was the major factor in Clay's lack of productivity back then. I watched a ton of All-22 and Clay seemed to be open every play he went out, and yet was thrown to only rarely. Where are all the plays where Clay is open and not getting thrown to or getting throw to poorly? I ask that hoping you'll answer me. I haven't watched all the All-22 stuff this year, not even most of it. Give me some plays to go look at. I have Game Pass, I'll gladly go look at any plays you point out though. 29 is young to slow up. I have always liked Clay. I think he was overpaid but a good player. If he has been good this year, I'd love to know about it. What plays should I look at? There was plenty of blame to go around and certainly Allen's throw on the play comes in for some serious blame. Nobody was within twenty yards and he underthrew him drastically. Clay alone absolutely did NOT lose the game for us.

Back when Tyrod was QB, Clay was consistently open over the middle and deep but Tyrod didn't often go there. Now they've got a guy who can go there and Clay doesn't seem to have the same speed anymore. It's a shame.

Yeah, this. Maybe a few trolls and nuts but it's a rare point of view, as it should be. Me, I'm somewhere between mildly and fairly optimistic. He's got a long way to go, a long way, but he's headed in the right direction with some momentum.

Hapless, just watched this several times in slo-mo on GamePass. It's a double move, and Allen starts the play looking to the left to draw the safety away from Foster. Foster hits the second move at the Bills 47, with the CB having turned his hips outside. At that instant, Foster knows he's going to be wide open. The one deep safety is responding to Allen's eyes and is heading to to the left side of the field and even though right now the CB is a couple of yards deeper than Foster, Foster has faked him out of his jock. Nobody's going to catch him and he knows it. The CB actually stumbles and puts his hand on the ground. Foster knows he has him beat with nobody to worry about. He looks back at the Bills 48 or so. Allen moves his front foot right to line up with Foster as Foster crosses the 50. He's still looking down the field to make sure he doesn't trip over the CB, whose leg is actually right in front of Foster. Foster clears the CB at the 48 and immediately looks back. Allen has started his passing motion. He has hopped off his back foot forward to gather momentum and his arm starts the motion as Foster is at the 46. This is a perfectly timed play. Receivers have to adjust to bombs, as the QB should ideally throw it longer or shorter or left or right to lead him away from defenders and make the catch easier depending where the defenders are. The instant Foster has his line, Allen knows it and starts to throw. I just quickly found a bomb from Fitzy to DeSean Jackson. 37 yards in the air and he turns his head after 12 yards. There's a deep center safety and so he decides he has to veer outside a bit and the instant he makes that decision he's turning his head. Jackson runs quite a bit more than half the route with his head turned. This is the way these things usually go if the CB is beat early. The receiver has to adjust to the QB's throw but also wants to let the QB know where he's going by pointing to it. So he wants to give the QB as large a time and space window to throw into as possible depending on the defense's response. Sometimes the QB throws late. Other times on time. Other times maybe early. The receiver's job is to be prepared for any of these if at all possible. When he looks back, it's generally called "making yourself available" to the QB. If you're not looking, the QB can't know if you'll see the ball. On most plays you want to make yourself available as soon as you know what's happening and think you're open. Precise timing routes can be exceptions. But a ball going 60 yards in the air isn't a precise timing route. It's got to be two people working in sync as best they can and that involves the reciever making himself available and making it easier to adjust to the ball. The receiver wants to turn and look as soon as he can. There are exceptions but this isn't one. It was just a slight overthrow. Hopefully as they get more used to each other, there will be fewer of these, but every QB makes them sometimes.

Not quite sure what you're watching. Murphy's been fine when healthy. You say "a lot of these guys they brought in ... they are now having severe buyers remorse on." Who, other than Benjamin? Ivory? Barkley? McKenzie? Poyer and Hyde? Lotulelei? They're paying Clay too much but they aren't the FO that paid far too much for him. Their pickups have mostly been OK, though they've taken some low-priced fliers on guys that haven't worked out, like Pryor and Boldin, but there's nothing wrong with trying in situations like this. They've made some mistakes ... everyone does. But overall, understanding that this was a rebuild, they've done fine so far. Still a lot to prove, but they've done well while still cleaning up the salary cap. 3 TDs in his last three games? I wouldn't have used those words, myself, but they're not all that far off the mark. He's playing well recently, with a revolving cast at QB and as a 2nd year man who was injured for a lot of camp.

Boldin retired. And they didn't lose a dollar on him. No fault falls on the Bills for that evaluation.

Keeping Benjamin would have meant one more loss of a free agent. Cutting him lowers the number for FAs lost. Also, fifth year option contracts are guaranteed, or at least they are if the guy is still on the roster when the league year starts, and that was months ago. So we don't save any money by cutting him. His salary will still be paid and will go into our official dead cap totals ($68 mill now, Holy Cow!!). So there's a disadvantage to cutting him and no advantage in terms of saved money. What this seems to mean is that they just did not want the guy on this roster. They wanted to get rid of him badly. Very interesting. It sends a message to the locker room, but more, it simply gets Benjamin himself out.

I hear your frustration and the hate for the Pats. But me, I think teams should treat the next game as their Super Bowl. Every week. And that this Bills team should be judged by their improvement and development.

You're right about the eighties. My mistake, I meant the era you referred to, the Butler years, which was the second most recent time they were in serious cap difficulties. Unfortunately, Whaley managed it again. But no, they didn't have $30 mill last offseason, at least not till they did some real cutting to start to dig their way out from under. They went into the offseason with around $16 mill under the cap, which made them 26th or 27th in the league. Only after they cut Tyrod and a few others did they make $30 mill available to themselves, at the cost of a lot of dead money. And no, you don't "need to spend 90% of their cap room over a 3 year period," as you claim. You have to spend 89% over a four year period. And since we have been close to the cap by the end of seasons for years now, this will put very little pressure on us. And even if you did underspend for four years, you don't lose anything except giving back money to the NFLPA. Nobody's forced to spend nutsily to avoid the salary cap floor by these rules. Certainly not from one year of having $40 or $50 mill left over under the cap if that's how they decide to go. And yeah, they could have signed anyone last year ... if they had been willing to dig themselves even further into cap hell. Sure, guys with huge credit card debt can nearly always get a new card or two and dig themselves deeper. It's spectacularly stupid, but possible. Same here. Sure, they could have dove deeper into the crap, but it would've been dumb. Not to mention mistimed. You don't spend a ton on FAs when you're doing a near-complete rebuild. And yeah, back in the 90s the Bills pushed cap debt forward every year ... which is why they then had one of the NFL's all time worst cap situations and were forced to do a massive roster dump leading into the Whitey years. Oh, and speaking of the Whitey years, 2001 to 2005, where are all these high-priced FAs you're claiming he brought in? Your thing about "five years of no cap room," is just ridiculous and off-point. Nobody said it was supposed to last five years, unless maybe you did. Their roster purge got them back in decent cap shape in a couple of years, which is what tends to happen. But they had a 3-win, and 8-win and a 6-win season as a result of having to dump so many players. You rebuild. It's immensely painful and gets the whiners moaning and pissing for two or three years and then if the FO is capable things can get better.

Nonsense. Those teams were just as conservative before they were playing good QBs big money. It's their extremely long-term strategy. The Steelers were doing it back as far as Slash and Neil O'Donnell, Bubby Brister and Mark Malone. The Pats were doing it during Brady's early years when he was unbelievably cheap as a 6th rounder. And the Packers only had Rodgers on a rookie contract for a year or two after he started playing they didn't do anything of that type to help him out in that window. Calling those teams conservative is right smack on the money. Baltimore was conservative far before Flacco was a glint in their eye. The Bills went after Mack? Khalil Mack? Where's the evidence that was anything but due diligence? And yeah, a top tier receiver would help Josh's development. And bringing in another top-tier receiver would've helped Cam Newton early too. But they didn't do that. They brought in receivers by drafting them. It's what they do, as they're conservative. And that bunch of Bills FAs aren't "motley" at all. There are a bunch of lower-priced guys on there but anyone calling a list with Kyle Williams, Jordan Phillips, Lorax, Eddie Yarbrough, and Levi Wallace on it "motley" has some kind of agenda. Yeah, there are some guys on it that will be cheap and some that maybe won't be re-signed but they could easily spend a very decent chunk of change on re-signing the ones they want.

The difference being Mahomes has run 51 times in 12 games this year, which is 4.25 runs per game, while Allen has 57 rushes in 9 appearance that really amount to about eight total games as he played a bit less than a half in game one and a bit more than a half against Houston before the injury. That averages out to 7.1 runs per game. That's why nobody complains that Mahomes needs to run less but they do say it about Allen. Outside of this week's game where he had 9, Mahomes has had one game of 6 and nothing else more than 5. While Allen has had games of 9 and 13 rushes (the last two games) and another earlier game of 10 and another yet of 8. He's tough and capable. I love it, but it's not great long-term strategy. We need to get a line in front of him, five capable guys, and he needs to work more on understanding defenses and getting it out quick.

Perhaps the reason most QB injuries happen in the pocket is that even running QBs spend far more time there than anywhere else. The question is whether injuries per run are more than injuries per play in the pocket. I've never seen a study on that nor do I expect to, but I think it's likely that there are more injuries per run, mitigated by plays where the QB slides or runs out of bounds. But that can't be done every time. And while it's great that he rushed for 95+ in two straight games, it's something that won't mean much unless he develops his pocket passing. If he does, having the ability to run is a terrific alternative defense stressor. On a steady diet of runs, put me down among those who believe it's more dangerous. Tyrod was a terrific running QB too. But not a franchise guy. Running needs to be an optional extra. Not buying that he isn't vulnerable to injury either. Plenty of Josh-sized players get injured every week. He might be a bit harder to injure, but he's not proof against them.

Come on, man, there's a lot more positive out there than negative. You're hearing only the negative. And you're saying Tyrod, Flutie and Fitz were NOT criticized? Seriously? Good grief, I was here and while they got some good reviews too, there was plenty of criticism. Yeah, um, no. Seriously. This whole post except the last sentence.

Yup, the eighties were the last time this franchise was in legitimate cap difficulties ... Except of course the ones we just finally squirmed our way out of, with Whaley spending like a team in a Super Bowl window on a team that was mediocre at best. Next year we'll finally be able to stop worrying about that. But don't expect them to change who they are. "Because we have it" is no reason to spend all the money you have. They are a conservative FO. Might as well get used to it. They make a non-conservative move every once in a great while, but this is who they are. It's what they learned in Carolina, and it's what virtually all the teams that are consistent competitors for titles do. And since being a consistent competitor for titles is their express goal, building through the draft and filling in with non-premium FAs is what you ought to expect. Oh, and after three years under contract, teams can work new contracts, so they will be able to start working out newies for McDermott's first draft right after next year. Not to mention guys like Jordan Phillips, Kyle Williams, Lorax, Groy and Mills (as depth, hopefully), Derek Anderson (as QB mentor), Logan Thomas, Sirles, Eddie Yarbrough, McKenzie, Foster and Levi Wallace who are not signed as yet for next year. Or even Benjamin, though they might easily decide any contract is too much for the guy, even though his price will surely have dropped. They absolutely won't sign all of them but are likely to sign a bunch and could sign guys they want for the long term to front-loaded contracts that will be spend a lot of salary next year and not so much down the road to keep the cap in good shape. They could also use that money to extend guys like Hughes

Fair enough. But the year we brought in Lofton, was it Kelly's second year in the league? Was the offense one of the worst in the league the year before? Or had they gone 12-4 the year before they brought in Lofton? (hint: the answer to this last one is "yes.") Also, the Bills didn't trade for Lofton, they picked him up as an FA, and an FA who wasn't getting a lot of demand.

Ah, I was just coming back to say that, as it popped into my head. The thing about that that makes it reasonable is that he's very young, much younger than Julio. That one might actually work out. I hope not, as I hate Jerry Jones and anything connected with him.

I see. Fair enough. IMHO it will happen again sometime. I just hope it's not us who do it.

We gave up two firsts and more for the pick to select Watkins. I certainly agree with you that it's a bad idea, but that doesn't mean there won't be teams that will do it. But this is a conservative FO, thank goodness. I just can't see them doing this.

He'll be 30 in February. How often have they or the Panthers where they learned their trade brought in one of the top two or three FAs (or expensive trades) of the year? Over 30? While trading away a high pick (from guys who have sworn they will build through the draft)? Standard (and reasonable) wisdom says you can trade away high pick for a QB but you're generally giving away too much at other positions. 100 : 1 shot, is my guess. More, why would the Falcons let him go? Ryan's 33. They don't have time to take a few seasons to get things together. They need to work at winning right now.