Thurman#1

It's deniable. I'm denying it here. Were they beaten physically? Yeah, they were. Not buying the intimidated thing, though. The Bills at the time said they just didn't have the energy, the juice. That's what it looked like to me, a team that was emotionally exhausted. I didn't see a bit of intimidation there, myself. I think they played tougher more physical teams last year without being intimidated, the Titans, the Ravens, ... . Why would the Bengals be special? They're a good team but no more physically intimidating than most others in the league.

In the sense that anyone receiving a salary is one, and especially getting paid to guess likely sports outcomes, then yeah, I guess so. He doesn't pretend he's seen the guy in person. He hears what's publicly available about the guy and uses professional knowledge to produce an informed guess, a guess that's more informed than that of anyone else who doesn't have first-hand knowledge of the specifics of the case. Nothing wrong with what he does. The medical info is indeed protected. He's not unprotecting it in any way. Nor could he since he doesn't have access. I don't see it as any problem. Probably a million people guess at these outcomes, including some in this thread. He only guesses with much more direct experience in similar situations.

If we did that, we'd be getting a coach who would have won a championship with Allen if he were younger. And giving up a coach who stands a very good chance of winning one as he moves forward. We shouldn't consider it, nor will we. If I'm Kraft, I send Belichick to Washington. Not if he were younger, but now? Yeah.

Our #2 receiver has 50 yards less and 2 TDs more than DaVonte, Philly's #2 receiver. Gabe also has 140 more yards and four more TDs than Deebo, SF's #2. If those two teams have a really good WR2 as you say, then our 2 is producing right with them or out-producing them. Beane and McD have more to prove. So do the GM/coaches of both those teams, who with Roseman as the exception, have also not GM'd and head-coached their way to Super Bowl victories. And Roseman's SB win came in his 8th year as GM. Our guys still have a couple of years to catch up. No reason to think Beane and McD aren't great. Very very few teams have had as much consistent high-level results the past few years as we have. And it's nonsense that if you want to have a good DL you "have to develop at least some of your own reserve DLs." No, you don't. That is one of several ways to be successful. If you want to have a really good DL and be DL-centric, what you have to do is have a really good DL and be DL-centric. How you do it doesn't matter. There's no requirement that it has to be done the Badol way. It just has to get done. You cite the 9ers. Where are all the DLs they drafted lower and developed? Their top 8 are Chase Young, Arik Armstead, Javon Hargrove, Nick Bosa, Clelin Ferrell, Kevin Givens, Javon Kinlaw and Randy Gregory. The only one of those guys who they didn't draft in the top two rounds or acquire from other teams is Kevin Givens, a lower-level platoon guy. Is he any better than Harrison Phillips, who the Bills drafted late and developed?

A good week, yes. Fournette an upgrade to Murray, not so much, IMO. He'll be a very good depth guy with occasional use, I think. A solid pickup without much downside. Love Rasul and Linval and think they're great moves.

Yeah, freeing up the backers is the huge part of this. He used to be considered the strongest guy in the league. A bit older now. Seems like a really good move, and I look forward to seeing how that works out. Never been a pass rusher like DaQuan was, and I don't see that starting now.

Good point. Milano's never been outgoing.

There's word that DaQuan could be back, at least for the playoffs. "I'm gonna trust our friend Kyle Trimble, who talked about the potential to come back, and tweets directly from the man himself, DaQuan Jones. I trust that DaQuan Jones is going to be back for the playoffs and ready to play. There are multiple examples of 1-tech big defensive tackles having these type of strains being able to come back in the time frame to be there." 24:30 (And Tompsett had Rasul as a close second-best choice at CB, so he knew whereof he spoke.) Haven't heard the same for Milano. Generally, a lack of moves can just as easily mean a lack of trade options that make sense to us, though.

Collinsworth is excellent. Why wouldn't you say a lot of good things about Mahomes?

Why would anyone think Shakir, a 5th rounder who's still early in his second year, is at his ceiling? It's possible. But it's more likely he's got plenty space left before he reaches his ceiling.

Knox's contract is for $13M a year, not $17M. And that's a big deal, the difference between Knox being the 9th highest paid TE in terms of AAV at $13M, vs. the #1 highest, Waller at $17M. I also think last game showed that 11 personnel is the way to go ... against some teams, and at some times. I think there will be plenty of room for 12 personnel going forward after Knox is healthy. But fair enough that it may happen less than they appear to have planned. The Bucs are mostly a man-to-man team. Things might look very different against different defenses.

The headline is actually "How Ken Dorsey Got Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills Offense on Track & Defensive Standouts". Trust you to totally change change the emphasis to your own obsession. He certainly did like what Allen did, no question. And for good reason. But he complimented the whole team, in depth. He asks how the Bills found the rhythm and gets into what Dorsey did and what changes they made that was what Marino started with. Mentions more tempo, more 11 personnel making it more into a space game, at least against this opponent. Mentioned going back to a lot of their core concepts. I don't think he even mentioned Allen through the first 6:30, and that was just one sentence. Allen wasn't mentioned again in the first ten minutes. Second mention was around 10:10, and it was again just a sentence. The headline here was the changes the Bills made to make the offense go better. "He just got back to basics: tempo, spread, 11 personnel, mesh, tackle wraps, RPOs, play action, and that allowed Josh Allen to play really good football." After that sentence, at 11:02, he gets into how well Allen played.

This!!!! At first I couldn't believe the no-call, then on the third replay I saw what happened. Good no-call. Wasnt clear at all. Half the motion was him trying just to grab the helmet, and whoever was giving the impetus at that point, it was a very soft swing with little impact.

IMO it would be a pretty reasonable prediction if you change "best" to top 3 or 4.

Um, yeah, it's very true that we don't really know where guys were for sure or where they would have been drafted. But there's no particular reason to think Elam would have fallen far. He was #29 on PFF's big board. TheAthletic do a consensus Big Board each year combining the Big Boards of 82 top evaluators, which generally does better than nearly all individual experts. https://theathletic.com/3262402/2022/04/26/nfl-draft-consensus-big-board/ Elam was listed 30th. This doesn't prove he wouldn't have made it into the 3rd round. It does make it as likely as it could be that he would not have.

This. It ain't written yet. He could still be really good in Buffalo. Or not. Remember last year and last off-season, when Bernard was a massive miss? And when Epenesa was a bust. Anyone with any kind of memory for the overstatements, oversimplifications and early conclusions on here could go on and on and on. And on. Makes you more likely to be wrong. That's the reason. I see the wink, but ...

Don't think that was criticism of Dorsey, particularly. Just a suggestion, particularly after seeing him showing pain during this game. We saw the camera close-ups of Josh's reaction. The coaches were likely looking elsewhere, without closeups, and have direct access to Josh himself and to the doctors. It was and is a reasonable opinion. I don't necessarily see criticism, though.

Um, yeah, the fact that you didn't seem to understand that an average is just an average is what I was pointing out. Sorry I didn't put it in a way you would understand. Oh, and you're right that nobody gets 7.7 per catch in the stats. Completely irrelevant, but definitely correct. But no, a lack of YAC is absolutely NOT the reason Beasley stopped being so productive. The idea's dumb, because it's basically untrue. Just check Pro Football Reference. His YAC/Reception was 4.9 in his 2019, 4.3 in 2020 and 3.7 in 2021. That means about a yard per reception difference between his best years here and the year he dropped off so much. The problem was YBC/R (Yards Before Catch Per Reception). That was 6.7 in 2019, 7.5 in 2020 and 4.7 in 2021. That was where the dropoff was for Beasley. To get him open Josh had to throw sooner and mostly on zone downs, and he became much easier for defenses to predict and defense. Kincaid has had seven games as a pro. He has gotten open against man and zone. He shows every sign of being an excellent possession receiver. In his last two games he averaged 9.5 and 9.4 YPC (and a catch rate of 100%). He's improving weekly. He's getting open. There's no reason to think he won't be that guy.

His name is Kincaid. And yes he is going to change that getting just 8 yards per reception. Most third downs are for less than 8, and those that aren't aren't can be made by slightly longer catches. This might seem amazing, but just about half his catches are for more than his average. Mind blown, right? And no, that's not why they had to move on from Beasley. Beasley stopped being able to beat man-to-man.

Politeness requires a link. Diggs has done a million interviews over the years, and google doesn't know them apart. Nor do we if we haven't heard the interview. And many times over the years people have said, "Player X said Y," and when you read the interview, he didn't say Y at all, he said A or B or C. Many many many times. If we get the link we can see what he said and his own words.

He didn't like a lot of things (says Morse played much worse than usual, that Torrance was bad, Spencer Brown allowed two big pressures and Gabe Davis also, that James Cook was "a disaster in pass protection,") etc. He had plenty more criticism of others, as well. So he certainly did not blame it all on Josh by any means. But ... "As I watched this offensive tape, it became very clear to me that Josh Allen really struggled in this game. And I know that nobody ever wants to hear that Josh Allen played poorly, and I'm sure that lots of you are going to yell at me for saying that Josh played poorly, but he did. "Could things have been better around him? Absolutely. Could Ken Dorsey have been a little better in this game? Absolutely. "But I thought the top reason for how the offense performed against New England was the play of Josh Allen. "Let me give you some themes from what I observed, and I think that as more people study the tape, you're going to see a lot of what I'm sharing here being echoed throughout those who watch film. I thought his processing and decision-making was really off in this game. He had some very frustrating turndowns, especially under pressure. And I thought his whole mental approach was very poor with protections and how he set protections, working away from where the protections were set, not necessarily feeling or sensing or seeing or reacting to pressure schemes correctly based on what New England was giving him. "I thought his tempo was poor. He didn't get through progressions with enough urgency, especially when New England either had pressure or had very obvious route combinations leveraged and his eyes needed to be in different places. He was late to process pressure, I mean they're sending extra guys and it's not affecting the way that he's attacking the play. I thought his trigger was incredibly slow. Once again his average time to throw over 3.15 seconds. That's going to put a lot of stress on your offensive line. And I have plenty of criticism for those guys, but I mean Mac Jones got the ball out in 2.2 seconds, literally a full second quicker. The amount of stress that puts on the offensive line compared to what Josh did is really different. "He absolutely had some accuracy lapses, right? The two misfires to Stefon Diggs, the deep shot, then the outbreaking pattern, missed them. Josh has to get back to taking profits and playing smart football. His average depth of target against New England was 10.6. "There were issues with Josh Allen not getting the team out of bad run looks. Another situation where they're trying to run the ball to a side of the formation where there's four Patriots players for two Bills offensive linemen to block; you can't run the play. "Not making correct decisions on run-pass options. I mean, honestly minus the quantity of turnovers, I felt a lot of things about Josh Allen that I did in that Jets game in Week One. Thought he was chasing some plays and just not doing the smart correct thing with any level of consistency that's needed to win a football game. "And I'm not talking about Josh Allen not being Josh Allen. that's not what I'm saying. But within the context of a football game, there are certain times where you just need to take the profit, you need to go to the smart place with the football. And Josh Allen didn't do that. "Now, I'm confident this analysis is going to be met with some resistance, some anger at me for daring to say that Josh Allen played poorly, and not pointing enough fingers at Ken Dorsey or enough fingers at being able to trust the offensive line, or weapons or whatever you want to point at. "I watched that game, I studied it in depth, the biggest problem on the offense was 17. ... Josh Allen is not perfect, he has bad games and this was absolutely one of them. Missed so many opportunities. And he did some good, there's no doubt. I enjoyed the three touchdown drives in the second half. I did a lot of what he did to get the team in scoring position in the first half. "But I'm left thinking a whole lot more about the plays he didn't make, about the plays that were left on the field, about the times he could have done the smart correct thing with the football and just mentally was not sharp in this game: decision-making issues, protection issues, just issues galore. "You need more out of Josh Allen. And I know that's hard to say based on what he's given you. "But when you look at this game, and that's what I'm talking about, this game, this loss to the Patriots, I thought the biggest problem with the offense was the quarterback." ... "He refused to throw hot on several occasions during obvious pressure looks. He didn't have the team sliding in the right direction, just too many miscues. He has to manage that better, both the pre-snap and the post-snap part of pressure, and Josh just played poorly." Joe had plenty to say about the defense too. As usual, he gets into a ton of detail.

Nah. It's win a Super Bowl or try again next year. In any case, they sure didn't look capable of that this week. It's been three weeks since they looked like a good team. Some teams that look this bad at some point for a few games win Super Bowls. But plenty don't. They'll have to play much better if they're to be considered contenders.

Don't know where it can be easily quantified, without massive amounts of play-by-play work anyway, but it was visible, and not just to the naked eye. When you go to New Gen Stats and look at the pass distribution charts of opposing QBs against the Bills there just were very few passes thrown against the Bills to the middle between about 6 or 7 yards out to about 20. That pattern lasted throughout the Edmunds years. Compared to other teams a lot fewer. I looked at a ton of those from about 2019 to 2021. It was there. It was easy to see. As an example of one of these charts if you haven't seen them before, here is Trevor Lawrence's chart from two weeks ago against us: https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/single/pass/team/2023/5/trevor-lawrence/LAW514099

Don't see it. Maybe a year or two down the road. Losing DaQuan in particular will make it tougher. He was playing at a level this year we haven't seen from a DT in a long time. And that makes it much easier on the LBs. But the young guys really are playing well so far. Remember when they - in particular Bernard - were both huge draft mistakes according to many on these boards?

That's nonsense that Davis is only going long, just nonsense. Fair enough that there are some routes he doesn't have much success at, particularly the short routes requiring quickness. But he does have a lot of success at various intermediate and deep routes. And Davis very much does keep the chains moving. More than 70% of his catches are firsts. The fact that many of them are not just first downs but firsts with some added yardage beyond the sticks isn't a bad thing by any standard. As for the continuity receiver, how much clearer could it be that that's what they drafted Kincaid for? He might not turn out to be that guy, but it's way way way too early to say that and there's no question that they Bills brought him in to fill that role. If the Chiefs had wanted a true #1, they had a way to do that. Could've kept Tyreek, but ... they didn't. For obvious reasons. Yeah, the Chiefs are looking to improve, given the right fit and the right contract, but the guys they are bringing in are not contenders for #1 status. Yeah, sorry, I was still editing. I hadn't meant to imply disagreement. You can see I changed things. Couldn't agree much more.