Thurman#1

I thought it was interesting seeing the Pats "spinning into eight man coverage," initially confounding Josh, but seeing Kincaid quickly figure out how he can be QB-friendly in that situation. (13:00) Interesting also seeing (4:45) where he makes a case that Josh took the lower-percentage shot giving Coleman a contested catch shot where the CB has him partly stacked and Josh doesn't give him a back-shoulder ball. Eric argues that a shorter pass to Kincaid would probably have made the 1st.

While I agree with much of this, there certainly are other ways to run better routes than to "get quicker feet to run sharper routes." You can adjust mechanics, you can adjust timing on cuts, you can learn to gently and imperceptibly push off or do a better job of boxing out ... there are a ton of ways to get better at this. It's not clear what will happen. Certainly it's correct that he might pretty much stay the same guy. Or stay the same guy in terms of separation but win more contested catches as he seemed to do in camp. Or get better at separation. We'll have to see. You're right that some guys improve a ton, and some guys just don't. Yeah, I'd certainly agree, but an extension could be worked out so as to make things easier to swallow for the Bills. I'm sure Knox is aware that many think he is overpaid. I'm hopeful they can find a way to come together. I like how he's looked this year and I like how the multiple TE offenses have looked as well. I'm hoping we start to see even more variations and tendency breakers come out of those formations, as well as just the effects of the extra beef.

Well, if I'm a Keon Truther, what are you? A Keon liar? I wouldn't have used that word if it weren't the opposite of what you used. I don't think of you as a liar, so you know, but I don't appreciate what you called me either. So, if I went back on your posts about Keon, none would mention Thomas or McConkey? If so, you're a bit unusual for folks with your point of view. Do I agree he has failed to meet expect expectations? Not particularly. I think having expectations this early is fairly unreasonable. Has he met my hopes? No. But he was injured last year, and still had a pretty solid year for a rookie. And we're only on week five of his second year. By the end of the year he might easily be having a great year. Or not. Too small a sample. No, he has neither met nor disappointed expectations yet. Too early to know, reasonably, so early in his second year while they work out what they are on offense after spending most of his rookie year unable to squeeze with one hand.

Human beings are imperfect? Wait, this is a shock. Just kidding. Sure, I'm willing to agree that refs make mistakes. That some of those mistakes change football games. And that the cumulative effect of those mistakes will favor some teams and hurt others. Disagree that the Chiefs game was one of those. They had a huge call against them too last night. If you're talking about the Bills, the calls I saw were mostly justified. I thought there should have been a P.I. call against the Pats late when that guy came through Shakir. But it was a damn close play. I didn't think the refs were anywhere near as big a factor as the turnovers and bad plays we made, particularly on offense. What's nuts is the "It's a conspiracy" deal. Which people appear to say all the time with a completely straight face.

Collinsworth is very intelligent. And has access to all of the work on tendencies work that PFF does on our team and all of them as he's part-owner of the company. What Collinsworth said that was interesting and useful was the stuff about running 70% of the time when you were under center and passing 70% of the time when in shotgun. That's not calling the plays, dude. It's sharing a tendency, a statistic. The Bills have undoubtedly known that tendency themselves. And the offense has been WILDLY successful despite it. The Pats took advantage. So at this point the Bills now have to make themselves a bit more unpredictable. On the other hand, that was far from the main problem. Much bigger was what they did with their pass coverages. They were doing some really nice schematic things to confuse Allen. They threw in some really complex stuff. That was confusing Josh, slowing his processing down. Now teams have an idea, from watching the tape, about what we tend to do. Equally, though, we now have some tape on what the Pats did and what teams are likely to try to slow Josh down. We will use that tape just as defenses are using ours.

While it's true, it's true of every team. Every team does things differently. The ones that are successful put out a lot of stuff on tape. Eventually good teams figure it out. This is true of EVERY TEAM. EVERY TIME. What then comes about is whether the team can adapt to the tactics that are successful against them. The Bills have been through this dozens of times. They've been pretty damn successful adapting, though at times it took them some time (going from Dorsey to Brady took some time, for instance). But successful. I think they'll adapt. No way to be sure till it happens. But that's the likelihood.

Interesting video from Kincaid's use against the Pats.

Well above Brian Thomas Jr. isn't he? And Ladd McConkey? Two guys picked well above him in the same draft that many here wanted. How come the outrage is only for Keon? Not calling you out specifically on that, Kirby. But usually those two are mentioned whenever we start to hear about Keon, but now, crickets. In any case, yards per route run is likely to be lower when you're in an everybody eats offense and you get a bunch of snaps, right? We don't need to continue to attack him. Guy is a second year man. He's been solid, with the game's best player as his QB in an everybody eats offense. Yards per route run will not make players in an everybody eats offense look good, with the exception of guys who are getting less snaps, as Kincaid is, 49% as opposed to Keon, who is well above 70%.

No, no, you're missing the narrative. What it is, the NFL hates the Bills and loves the Chiefs. So, what you're saying there doesn't fit the narrative and is therefore impossible. Bad things happen. Including bad calls. To everyone. The best teams just outplay the other team and don't even let it get close. This Chiefs team is not the same one we've seen.

Damn shame about them Chiefs. Lost another game and all. 2 - 3. Golly. Time for all the excuses? How the refs did it all? It ain't the refs, it's that the Chiefs aren't as good as they used to be. And it wasn't the refs for the Bills either. They had an awful game. Nah. Benford's a sensational player. But that's not the way he's playing right now. I hope he's recovering from some minor injury or something because he's showing serious regression.

Good band!!!

Yeah, um, Sal doesn't do that. Links? Quotations?

The Pats were 3/9 in converting 3rd downs. We looked bad against the pass this weekend. But for most of the season we've been very good, actually. We were #1 in the league against the pass after week four. That's a bit deceptive, but it does make the point. But yeah, Poyer and Hyde were even more valuable than they seemed at the time. We're trying to switch from mostly zone to being able to do both this year. It was always likely to have hiccups. Couldn't agree more about hemming in Maye. The Bills are usually really good at this. They were awful yesterday. The defense allowed 23 points. In a game where the Pats started one drive at the Buffalo 11 yard line. More, the first half defense was really good. But they were bad in the 2nd. But the defense was certainly not the main problem. Might feel that way, but it's not true. They were great (though not against the Chiefs) all the way up to probably 2023. Poyer and Hyde aging out hurt desperately. #1 defense in 2021 #2 defense in 2022 #4 defense in 2023. #11 last year, a major dropoff

So sorry to hear that. Dogs are the best. Condolences, friend.

Also, third and three at the Pats ten. Zone read to Ty Johnson, Allen keeps the ball, which was the wrong read. Ty Johnson would probably have scored. Allen almost always makes the right decision there. He didn't that time. (Thanks to Joe Marino for these two.) Yeesh!! That was the play he was stopped and flipped to Shakir for the loss. Plus Shakir's offensive pass interference call that changed it from third and one to second and 13 inside the Pats 10. Man! Plus, eleven fricking penalties enforced. Eleven!!!! Awful.

Would've worked out if they'd stopped them there. The first two made sense, but they made the first down. I assume that the one after that came because in some way we needed it to communicate or Sean saw something he didn't like. That third one didn't make sense in terms of trying to get us another chance.

Come on. They were damn good in the first half. Not in the second, unfortunately. After the break, Maye really had his way. Just a bad game.

We won't convince you? Fair enough. That this narrative makes sense? Not nearly so much.

Well, yeah, you stare a guy down and he'll draw coverage. But if Josh looks off and then back, man, Samuel has a huge honey hole there after he flattens the route, and Shakir was coming across the middle to #0's zone to force him to keep short. Fair point maybe about making #0 declare earlier, but this play could have worked if Josh had sat in the very clear pocket.

Every team labors to move the ball sometimes. Fact is we move the ball and score a ton. I would love it if teams sold out against the run. Josh would eat them up alive, even with this group of pass catchers. I think this does give teams a template, but that it won't be that easy to implement. Just get Josh to fumble off a TE who is in motion. Then have him throw a bad INT and get Shakir to do a poor job on coming towards the ball. Make sure to have Curtis Samuel fumble and recover it on the Bills 10. The defense held them to an FG, but that won't happen often if we keep giving teams the ball on the 10. Have two CBs as good as the Pats do. Have the Bills commit 11 penalties that get accepted. ELEVEN!!!!!!! IMO we will see that this was a bad game. They happen. And we will do better again very soon. That could be wrong. We'll see.

Three turnovers. Infinitely more about bad play than about being a bad offense. Still, should they be looking to see if they can improve at reasonable value? Of course they should. Not sure Shadeed is the answer, or that there will be a reasonable move that will have a ton of impact. But we should be looking.

Yeah, losses are tough, especially to the Pats. But this is still pretty nuts. We haven't lost the one seed yet. Nor do we have any clear idea whatsoever whether or not we will.

Here is a list of all of the defenses in NFL history that did not allow opponents to go on long drives, consume clock, keeping yardage down and keeping the QB on the bench: 1. Null None. All of them do this. Every one. The Bills defense isn't great. Far from it. But it's also not as awful as many on here would have it. If you can find stats ranking how many long drives defenses allow, it might well be worth talking about. But with no particular way of quantifying this, it's really more of a way of saying that you don't like it. They do need to improve the D. But the problem was mostly the offense last night.

Yeah, I got what you're saying. And again, there simply isn't a lot of reason to think so other than wanting to believe it. Again, Mahomes himself said he improved a ton. And got specific about what he learned. Well, college just isn't even close to enough evidence to say he would have been fine without that extra year. He was raw. Certainly talented also, a wildly talented arm. But very raw. His mechanics were inconsistent, and yes, that did include his footwork. His decision-making also was inconsistent. That was sort of the magic word for Mahomes, inconsistent. But not after that year of QB camp with Reid and Alex Smith. He learned a ton from Smith and Reid that year, it went very far beyond mechanics into understanding of game management and the willingness to stop constantly looking for the long ball and run the offense. So you're wrong about his footwork. He'd already changed it before his pro day. Just listen to the Mayock link I put at the bottom of this post. And no, they did a whole ton more than changing delivery his first year. He got an absolute ton of mental work, work in reading defenses work in learning the playbook that freshman year. Reid had him 10 yards behind Alex Smith doing mental reps every single one of Smith's training camp 11 on 11s. "He's got a great arm, big balls and he's mobile. He is going to drive his head coach crazy for the first couple of years and there is no getting around that. If it clicks for him and he's coachable, I think he could become a special quarterback." - NFC executive https://www.nfl.com/prospects/patrick-mahomes/32004d41-4840-1939-e4c1-bb89191b4e71 Again, it's very very clear that he'd changed his footwork and mechanics after college. Just listen to this from Mayock at his pro day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX22m9txxUM No particular reason to think we can be sure he'd have been fine without that year, not beyond wanting to believe it.

You don't. More, the defense is 17th in points allowed and at least before week 5 they were 9th in yards allowed. Using "can't stop a nosebleed" to refer to a team that is 9th ... well, it's just ridiculous. But even if it wasn't so silly ... no, you just don't, not with a team that was 4 - 0 when you wrote this. And the three offensive turnovers were the reason we lost even though the defense didn't play great either.