Thurman#1

If Mrs. Lincoln had been able to get her head together, she'd say, "You know, the production wasn't the problem." Same as the defense wasn't the problem here. Sorry, you're still missing the point. Fourteen points, your two drives, is NOT a lot. It just isn't. And it was fourteen points over the whole game The absolute most elite defenses in the league allow two TD drives more than they don't. (And it's about time we quit with the "two long TD drives *****," it was one long TD drive and one medium-length drive that started in good field position at the 39, far beyond the NFL's average drive start). The Bills D allowed 248 yards. They weren't where it all went wrong. As for your little obsession with 4th quarter TDs, remind me ... do they give you ten points for 4th quarter TDs and only 4 points for them if they come earlier? Or do you get the same number of points no matter when you cross the goal line? When a TD comes is entirely irrelevant. The question is only how many were allowed. And in the case of the Jets game, they allowed one long drive, one 39-yarder and three scoring drives when the offense and STs gave the Jets the ball at the Bills 8 (TD), the Bills 46 (FG) and the Bills 32 (FG). You keep arguing that allowing two "long" drives to a rookie QB on a mediocre team rules you out. Well, I guess that means the Vikings D isn't good. They also allowed two drives of about the same lengths to Darnold and the Jets. The whole idea that there's some one thing that really good defenses never do is just stupid, but making the threshold as low as two long drives is utterly ridiculous. Excellent defense have bad games. They just don't do it very often. Look at the Ravens. Are they damn good? Of course they are and yet they allowed 36 points to the Panthers despite only one Panthers drive start in Ravens territory. Look at the Bears allowing 31 to the Dolphins and 38 to the Patriots and 30 to the Giants. Even very good units have bad days. No, the Jets game wasn't damn good. But the argument isn't about one game. It's about the season. And yes, over the season, this defense has absolutely, without question, been "damn good." Not great. But yeah, damn good.

Throw any opinion you want out there, Scott. They were nowhere near as bad as the stats made them look. The offense and STs gave up handfuls of easy points for our opponents. In the Ravens game, the defense gave up 369 yards. Forced four fumbles but got lucky and only recovered one. That ain't great, for sure, but it also doesn't suck, particularly when you look at how the Bills offense did. Now, that was some suckage. 153 total offensive yards. That leaves juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust a bit of a burden on the defense. Here's how the Bills offense performed, drive by drive: 3 plays punt 3 plays punt 3 plays punt 4 plays punt 4 plays missed field goal 3 plays INT 3 plays punt 5 plays turnover on downs 3 plays INT 3 plays punt 12 plays field goal 6 plays punt 3 plays punt Now, the Ravens offense drive by drive: Drive start BAL 20, 10 play 80 yard drive, TD (Bills D was bad) Drive start BAL 25, 3 play 1 yard drive, punt (Good) Drive start BAL 34, 10 play 66 yard drive, TD (Bad) Drive start BUF 25, 3 play -3 yard drive, FG (Excellent) Drive start BAL 30, 4 play 0 yard drive, fumble (Excellent) Drive start BAL 42, 3 play 13 yard drive, punt (Good) Drive start BUF 29, 4 play 8 yard drive, FG (Excellent) Drive start BAL 15, 9 play 85 yard drive, TD (Bad) Drive start BUF 14, 3 play 14 yard drive, TD (Not good, but certainly not the D's fault) Drive start BUF 1, 1 play 1 yard drive, TD (Not their fault) Drive start BAL 30, 3 plays, punt (Good) Drive start BAL 25, 6 plays, 16 yards, punt (Good) Drive start BAL 11,13 plays, 94 yards TD (Very Bad) Drive start BAL 10, 3 plays, 7 yards, punt (Good) That sure isn't good, but nowhere near as bad as you'd think if you just saw the score. The offense and STs let them down in every single way, including letting Baltimore keep the defense constantly on the field, grind them down and exhaust them. By far their worst game, probably, and not that horrible. And again, you guys pointing only at the few worst games. Somehow you never mention the ones that were outstanding. You make evaluations like this on the body of work of a whole season. Every team and every unit has a bad game or two or three.

I don't vote in these things, but I'd take Darnold / Rosen / Allen, maybe in that order, though I haven't watched a lot of Darnold or Rosen since they got to the NFL. I'd have to go look much closer. But I'd take a QB anyway. Before the draft, I said if I were the G-men, I'd take a QB but that I thought the other side was also very defensible, that maybe Manning could have another good year or two in him, especially if the Giants brain trust thought so. I haven't watched any Giants games closely but it looks like maybe Eli is finished. If so, I think they made a bad choice, though as you say, Barkley is a terrific player.

What are you trying to prove with the argument that Tyrod was 2-14 and Josh 0-4 when they had to throw a lot. That they both had the same problem? You throw more when you're behind. Nearly all teams except those few that manage with very little running will have that problem. When you're ahead, you run more to hold the lead. A lot of the times we've been behind this year, a lot of the reason has been INTs and horrible field position. Allen's a rookie, making rookie mistakes, where Tyrod didn't often have many turnovers. If Tyrod had been our QB this year we wouldn't have been as much behind as we often were. Part of the reason Clay didn't catch the ball was that it was a bad pass from Allen. And please with the what-ifs. Sure you can justify one of Allen's losses as not his fault. Think anyone couldn't go back and do the same for some of Tyrod's games? Again, I'm not attacking Allen or saying I want Tyrod back. I wanted him gone far before most did. But yeah, he's the guy you want if you want the best chance to win a game this year if your choices are only Tyrod and Josh. Good to talk to you, Doc.

I guess that's one way to put it, if you want to try to spin as much as you can. Yeah, there were two long yardage drives for two TDs late in the game. However, those were the only long-yardage drives for scores in the whole game. How many defenses regularly hold teams to two long scoring drives for the whole game? That's damn good. Even the elite defenses have plenty of games where they allow more than that. And one of those "long-yardage" drives started on the Jets 39. That's pretty good field position as well. And to remind you, those three other Jets scoring drives started on the Bills 8 yard-line (touchdown drive eight yards long), the Bills 46 yard-line (field goal) and the Bills 32 yard-line (field goal). So outside of those three drives, they only allowed two other scoring drives the whole game. Again, that loss was NOT the defense's fault. The reason people are referencing field position is that it was awful, was directly responsible for almost half the points scored against them, and that it is a smart sensible thing to reference in this situation. Interesting thing you mention that Colts game. 37 points allowed. Not good. But one Indy TD drive was two yards long. Remember that one, after the fumble? And another was 20 yards long. And another of the Indy TDs went all of eight yards, after an INT. Two TD drives, with a total of twenty-two yards gained by Indy. And then another drive started on the Bills 32 where the D held them to a field goal. The Chargers had drive starts the Buffalo 38 and the Buffalo 16. The Ravens had drive starts on the Buffalo 20, the Buffalo 29, the Buffalo 14 and the Buffalo fricking 1. Jeez it's depressing me to write this. Field position matters, bigtime, and this offense has been gifting opponents with some terrific drive starts all year.

Agreed that they aren't great. They're beyond good, though. Somewhere in the vicinity of very very good, IMHO. It'll be very interesting to see how good they can be if the offense and STs can be decent enough next year to leave the defense with, say, average field position and an average rather than well above-average number of drives to face.

You can still compare them. No two QBs will be in equal situations. Yes, Tyrod had a better running game and that was an advantage. Having a better defense is also an advantage, and last year's defense was pretty good but this year's is a lot better. Tyrod was simply much more knowing as far as defenses and schemes and so on. He was the QB you'd want out there if your mortgage was on the line for a win that game. You're right about Tyrod's limitations. I was no fan and have been saying he wasn't a franchise QB since lateish in Tyrod's first year after his performance took a drop and stabilized at almost exactly the level he then maintained for the rest of his time here. But limiting turnovers is huge, and especially so with a good defense. Allen's four times more likely to throw an INT (INT percentage) and Tyrod is one-and-a-half times more likely to throw a TD (TD percentage). 52.4% completions vs. 62.8% tells a major story as well. I'm thrilled they took a first round QB, but Allen is going to take time.

The luck they had last year was mostly about having a really easy schedule and the lucky fact that it was made even easier by hitting two of very few teams with winning records in the middle of long slumps, Atlanta and KC. We are worse this year on offence. A lot of it is the QB. Tyrod was simply better than what we have now. With any luck, Allen will improve enough next year so that won't be true anymore, but this year's QBs would all take a back seat to Tyrod if what you wanted was only to win a game. Thank goodness that's not all they wanted, that what they want is to develop towards a future where we can consistently compete with the best in the league. But beyond QB, losing Wood and Incognito drastically hurt the OL, opening holes on a team already packed with them. And this year's running attack is considerably worse than last year's, though Allen's scrambles twist the stats enough to make things look better than they are. McCoy 2018 4.0 YPA McCoy 2017 3.3 YPA We really are worse than we were last year. But that's how these things go in a rebuild. The question is how good we'll be next year. They'll be fairly active. But teams are only required to spend 90% of their cap room .... over a four-year period. And they've spent well over 90% every one of the past three years. They could easily leave a bunch of money unspent this year, if they don't like what they see, and spend it over the next two to three years. This year's FAs are fine in the areas you'd expect them to be buyers in ... low- to medium-priced guys who'll fill holes and aren't liabilities. This might be a year to make an exception and bring in one or two guys who're closer to the high end. But nobody should expect them to spend like a cowboy coming into town after a season on the range. It's not who they are.

Time of possession depends on many things, including number of drives, amount of time they hold on to the ball, etc. The D is tied for facing the 7th most drives, they're 2nd in the league in terms of yards allowed per drive, best in the league in fewest plays allowed per drive and 2nd in terms of time of possession allowed per drive. Fair enough, maybe, to say they're not great but they're damn good.

Good defenses have bad games. Hell, the 2000 Ravens defense allowed the Jags to score 36 on them and the Jets to put up 524 yards. The '85 Bears defense allowed the 2-14 Bucs to score 28 and the Dolphins 38, and they let the Vikes accumulate 445 yards. Am I saying the Bills defenses compare to those all-time greats? No, of course not. But you can always find a bad game or two. Saying a D didn't have a great game doesn't mean they aren't a great defense. And when a team like the Jets gets three drive starts in Buffalo territory, on the BUF 32 (field goal on a 3 yard drive), the BUF 46 (field goal on an 11 yard drive) and the BUF 8, (TD on an 8 yard drive), you can't put a lot of the blame on that defense for allowing 27 points. Not to mention that they started a 4th drive in Buffalo territory at the 45 and the Bills allowed them four yards and a punt. The defense wasn't the problem. I don't see them as the best in the league, but top five? Yeah, probably. The D has had the 30th best average position of drive start and handed back to the offense the 8th best. If you average all the drives out it doesn't mean all that much but what it means is the offense gets awful field position somewhat rarely while the defense gets it somewhat consistently. And those drive start stats (Football Outsiders) haven't even been updated to include the Jets game yet.

We are in a rebuild. And on top of that we were in desperate need of cleaning up our cap situation and accumulating enough draft capital to be sure we could bring in one of the top three QBs this year. So of course we let a bunch of guys go. That's what you do when you're forced into dumping future cap and it's what you do when you can get tradeable draft picks for the mediocre and wildly overpaid likes of Sammy with the idea of bringing in a Darnold, a Mayfield or an Allen. Hogan was let go a year before McDermott left Carolina. Matthews put up 282 yards here. Whereas this year with Carson Wentz throwing to him he's blowing the league away with 287 yards and 26.1 YPG. Who give a meh? The one guy in there who would have made a real difference was Woods, and he was let go for cap reasons. They wanted him back but couldn't afford him with the Whaley cap glut. And choosing Zay does NOT appear to be a "poor choice," by any means. We could possibly have made a better choice when you look back with hindsight, but that's true of nearly any draft decision looked back at with hindsight. You can examine the record of the best drafters ever and find hundreds of ways they could have picked better. The question is whether they picked well. While it's not certain yet, picking Zay looks to have been a pretty good decision, though we'll know more as we watch him develop.

Wins are team stats. Stafford and Rivers have been playing very well for a long time while surrounded by mediocrity. I wouldn't quite call either guy elite, But Rivers has been around the top six or so for a very long time.

And very little money. Whaley had them with a cap situation that looked like that of a team that was competing for a title and trying to make it in the last year or two of an old QB's slide into old age. And left them a lineup with a lot of holes and Tyrod Taylor as the closest thing we had to a franchise QB. So yeah, they could have brought in a good center. But that would have left them unable to bring in some of the guys that they did bring in. What Wood and Incognito leaving did absolutely hurt this FO, simply because it opened up two more big holes on a lineup that was already full of them and was on limited resources this year.

Nah. Sully was really good. Maiorana's OK, though I have never kept close track. And yeah, Sully was doom and gloom. Any sportswriter who was here during that full drought who wasn't pretty consistently writing doom and gloom was blowing smoke up the collective fan butt.

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.