Thurman#1

All too true.

You really think the Dolphins will finish with 12 wins with the Ravens, Cowboys and us on their schedule? I don't. They're a team that habitually folds near the end of the year. They could turn that around but I'd have to see it. My guess is 10 or 11 wins. They could win 12. My guess is they won't. That would leave it up to us. A realistic scenario where the Bills are 11-6, the Fins are 12-5 and the Bills make the playoffs? There are tons of them. One? Fins 12-5 Bills 11-6 Browns 11-6 Texans 10-7 Steelers 10-7 Colts 10-7 Broncos 9-6 There are also plenty where we'd lose. That's generally the way theoreticals work, but we could very easily get in. Last year in the AFC, two Wild Card winners had 10 wins and none had 11. Same the year before and that's all the experience we have with 17 game seasons. Let's say that it's not just us but the Browns also who put up 11 for the first time this year. We're still in.

Oh, please. Yeah, I get it. It hurt. An awful lot. That doesn't mean we have to pretend the sky is falling. We've won plenty of close games in the McDermott era. Lost plenty also. Three seasons where we're over .500 in games won by seven or less, three seasons below and one season even at .500. 44.19% total. And 2 - 3 in the playoffs, which is statistically insignficant and close to .500.

The defense is very good, particularly with the injuries they've suffered. Not good enough yesterday, that's for sure. But damn good under the circumstances. It's just nonsense that it all comes down to that D. The offense, though really good the last two games, should absolutely share the blame. The two missed field goals were huge in this game as well. Does the D deserve a very significant share of the blame? Absolutely. Man, that was a painful loss.

Aaah, screwed up the link. I'll post again. I did screw up the link. I have now fixed it. But again, why would I explain it? You just go there and you watch Levi explain it. He knows better than me. Or you, by the way. Here's the link. I'll fix it in my post above as well. https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2022/5/3/23055147/code-of-conduct-okay-so-now-what-levi-wallace-john-fina

Kid yourself if you want. That's your right. My take doesn't matter squat. Know whose take does matter? The guy on the field. Wallace. Him. If you don't think he knows infinitely more than you do about what happened, you are flat-out kidding yourself. Which is what seems to be happening. Laughing because you think you know way more than me because I listened to a guy who knows far far more than you do ... that ain't far from the textbook definition of kidding yourself. You say you're all ears, but clearly that's not right. If it was, you'd have already heard what Wallace said about this. He explains with great specificity right there in the podcast I linked to exactly what the communication breakdown with Poyer was. This has been posted a million times here, but here it is again: https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2022/5/3/23055147/code-of-conduct-okay-so-now-what-levi-wallace-john-fina Again, what I think doesn't matter. I wasn't reporting on my opinion. I was telling you specifically what Levi has said, with great detail, right there on video, taking responsibility for the play, and explaining why it was the fault of the communication between he and Poyer. The interview comes after he's signed with Pittsburgh. It's great. The guy was playing intramural at Alabama, walks on and makes the team. Terrific guy. But, hey, why start listening to the facts now? Instead, ignore things that don't fit your narrative as so many here consistently choose to do.

Again, McD was not the reason for that loss. There is zero reason to think so. Levi Wallace made it plain they called the right play on D, but that the communication between himself and Poyer broke down and that resulted in that big hole for Kelce. It really was a great game by Davis and of course by Allen as well. I love what Brady said here. Clearly Davis wasn't the MVP, but equally he's doing a lot that goes under the radar and Brady is pointing that out and keeping the team together by spreading the praise. Good for him

Yes. He was.

They do. You felt the need to write this, as one of millions of examples. I felt the need to write also. I really don't like the guy. I hope he doesn't win another title. I'd love that. But this seems reasonable to me. I think he liked Wilson and really thought he'd do better given time to study and develop without the pressure. I'm not sure he's wrong.

Around 65%. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-fourth-down-conversion-chart-rate-by-distance/vofkeub6xwms6imajxqkfipp 90% is a lot higher.

I don't think you can get under Kelce on that play. He's going to be about five inches above the ground, lower if you try to get under him. You can get as low, but I doubt you get under. A lot of the reason Philly's so good at this is that Kelce is really good at what needs to get done.

In key situations it really could make the difference. But yeah, you're right. We need to score, and not a little bit.

It has been stopped. "How the Detroit Lions stopped the Bears' Tush Push, and why it might matter come playoffs" https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2023/11/20/detroit-lions-stopped-chicago-bears-tush-push-play-philadelphia-eagles/71654436007/?gnt-cfr=1 The Commanders got Hurts to fumble, also. The problem is that the more you sell out and put in only huge defenders, the easier it is for Hurts to just sprint around the end instead. I'm sure they'd be perfectly happy to use that alternative if teams sold out enough.

This doesn't show PFF is questionable. Sometimes it's pretty subjective who got the tackle or sack, and whether the QB went down an inch behind the LOS or right at the LOS. If they have another opinion, it's fair enough. We should go with the official numbers, but worth looking at all of them for the sake of interest.

Not significantly. He's always been quite good.

Absolutely WAS better than we have. Almost no reason whatsoever to think he can ever reach that level again, though. He's played 66% of their defensive snaps this year. Zero forced fumbles, zero fumbles recovered, zero INTs, zero passes defensed, zero QB hits or sacks. The only impact plays that show up in the stats are his two tackles for loss. This ain't your daddy's Darius Leonard. I mean, Dorian Williams has a pass defensed, a QB hit and half Leonard's tackles on less than a third of Leonard's snaps.

I love logic like this. If we get worse, blame McDermott. Whereas if we get better, we should blame McDermott. Makes total sense as long as your guiding principle is neither logic nor a desire to win but instead just pure hatred of Sean McDermott.

Simply not right. Or rather, it's right that you're ot a front office savant. Not to mention there's no evidence, beyond the fact that people want to believe it, that Frazier was fired. Very survivable. Most particularly if they improve now. But even if they keep playing at this level, McD's most likely got at least another year because of how well this team has played before this year under him. It's not a sure thing but it's likely. The idea's dumb. If a coach that fired his unit coaches couldn't get people to take over those jobs, most of the teams in the league would not be able to get OCs or DCs. And instead, it's not a problem.

I hear you, but I would mildly disagree. This is the team for that, as long as you're doing some other things also. At times the efficient offense has worked really well here. But you need more as well. Even Brady would take deep shots sometimes when the defenses made them available. Somebody had to go. Some changes had to be made. They needed to diverge, at least a bit, from what was happening on this offense. I feel bad for Dorsey too. He's not completely to blame, but he did carry a very significant share of the blame, and he didn't appear willing to make major changes as things got worse. My guess is he learns from this and is an OC again, but five to eight years down the road with some more experience under his belt and more tricks up his sleeve.

They were not on the Dorsey sucks bandwagon, but they did consistently point out places where they thought the play calling and play design could be improved. Consistently. And especially so recently. Erik's breakdowns regularly questioned Dorsey, particularly the play designs. I mean, 8 days ago Erik put out a video titled "Is Ken Dorsey's Offensive Scheme Holding Back Josh Allen?" And his answer in the video was that his offense had some really good aspects but that it was "sort of disjointed," and that "when the coverage beater is taken away, or it's not there or Josh just skips it for whatever reason, there's nothing coming into his line of sight on a play like this." He didn't say this was true on all plays but did say it about a bunch of plays. He said, "There's not a lot of scheming going on," meaning that Dorsey wasn't scheming (much) to get guys open, and that he wanted to see more of that. There was more. He was saying that while Dorsey's offense was very efficient, that it also limited Josh. His main complaint was that Dorsey wasn't building on top of those efficient plays with possible explosives that Josh could use to make big plays. He like the basics but wanted more built over the top so that when teams adapted to the more efficient stuff and saw it a lot that they could then capitalize when the defense was moving up and when Josh wanted to take a shot. No, he wasn't saying that all the blame should be put on Dorsey. And that's smart and reasonable. Anyone saying all the blame should have been put on Dorsey was just wrong. There were plenty of execution problems as well, and Erik didn't pretend otherwise. But he was absolutely questioning elements of Dorsey's designs. Without question.

Nearly all, I'm betting. Certainly me. I watched a lot of much worse Bills teams in worse seasons.

Depends on the circumstances. That's a rule for whether a pass is caught. That one had already been caught and he'd made a football move. In any case, the ground didn't cause the fumble. One of our safeties ripped it out, unfortunately just after the receiver's arm had touched down.

That's how they're playing now. Hard to argue. Stolen wins are all right with me. The Chiefs have a couple. Losses are a ton worse than stolen wins. They might play better. But they've played pretty poorly for a while now. I'm a lot less hopeful than I was before this game.

I'm in till they're out. Most of us are, I think. But one win would not give me more than a smidge of extra hope, unless we see them start executing consistently. I'll have to see several games in a row where they actually play well in all facets.

Yeah, it was PI. A much much closer play than it seemed at first look. When it happened it looked wildly obvious. In slo-mo, Taron barely hit him before twisting his head around to pretend to look backwards for the ball. They couldn't have made a no call on it. Taron did prevent him from catching the ball and he did hit him while still looking at him while the ball was still in the air. I thought that was the game until the Football Gods leaned down, and said, "Just 'cause we like you, here's the win, Bills," and the Bills said, "Hey, thanks, but no thanks." God what a horrible horrible ending. I hear you, but realistically that was not the same Bronco team they were when they played Miami. But you're right, the Bills just didn't play well enough despite chance after chance after chance to win.