thebandit27

Not really...the game against Miami is really the only game in which they've been dominated in the trenches. The success against Buffalo's defense has largely come with creating confusion in the secondary.

Two QBs that are capable of creating exciting, big-play offense. Two defenses that are talented and boisterous. Two of the best big-play WRs in the game (Watkins and Baldwin). Probably made loads of sense at the time.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. This has been my biggest beef with Rex's system. Add to it the fact that a heady QB like Brady will pick up on your adjustments and use them against you, and it's a recipe for a disaster whenever any one thing goes wrong.

I feel like I've read this somewhere before

Basically, yes. I condone consumption of certain zero-calorie liquids like black coffee and tea, but nothing beyond that.

I run a supplement company, and I can promise you that you don't need pills or supplements to do a cleanse. Cleanses that feature supplements or goofy stuff in general are useless. The point is to get your body back to homeostasis, but there's no magic to that. You can easily accomplish the same feat by fasting for 48 hours and drinking 12-16 glasses of water each day during the fast. I'll never trash anyone else's business, but the idea of a cleanse is superfluous.

Actually Rex's typical Cover-6 works well against NE when he can disguise it as Cover 1 or Cover 3...the problem I saw is that NE's motion and shifting to empty lead to predictable checks by the defense that allowed him to more easily identify the coverages.

He's had 2 bad games. He's allowed a total of 1 TD against him all year. He's not a "big reason"...he's part of the problem.

Wait, was it offered?

I know it looks that way, but looks--in this case--are deceiving. I posted the coverage, which started as a Cloud call. When White clears the backfield, they checked RAT (which is man coverage in the secondary with the LBs dropping into the medium zones). It was actually Blanton, not Meeks, and he didn't bite on anything. He was in man coverage on Edelman; it looks like he's doubling him because Zach's zone drop takes him into the path of Edelman's inside shoulder, but there's a reason that Zach stays square to the QB and doesn't chase Edelman outside. Blanton had his responsibilities correct--actually, everyone did. Bad protocol to check to man there--blame goes to the coaches.

He also explained that he meant "football character" IIRC

Punctuation...and facts...both good things. Just thought I'd offer that.

By virtue of position alone, he'll get one of the top 5 non-QB contracts in upcoming FA. I'm not 100% sold that they'll get a 3rd though...he could end up out-earned on an AAV basis by any of Cousins (if he leaves DC), Ware, Trumaine Johnson, JPP, and maybe even Eric Berry. If 4 of those guys out-earn him, we could be looking at a 4th anyway. Just some food for thought.

He has been terrible in two games. He's been very good in 6 games. Granted, that's not good enough to get paid what he wants to get paid, but let's be accurate about what he's done on the field.

13th--gotta look at points/game because other teams have played only 7 games.

Perhaps, but only if he abandoned his responsibility on the play. The safety that I think you're referring to is Blanton, but as soon as the check happens, his responsibility is man coverage on Edelman. It looks like Preston has man coverage on Edelman, but that's only because his zone drop requires him to cover the middle hook route--Blanton actually has Edelman, which is why he drove to the outside shoulder when Edelman broke his route outside.

Well, if we look at indicators that are a bit more telling than simple yards per game... 13th in the NFL in points per game allowed 9th in takeaways 1st in sacks

I believe it's simply snap-to-release time, so yeah, I'm sure his scrambling effects it to a degree. That's one reason that I like to cross-reference it with QB hits, because scrambling can buy time, but it often results in a higher number of QB hits. That's why guys like Wilson and Newton are always near the top of the most-hit QBs (though Wilson's injury has actually limited his QB hits a bit this year because he hasn't moved around anywhere near as much). I agree on the second statement.

Good topic. My initial impulse was to say that they don't pursue the strategy, but a second thought says that yes, indeed, they do. Just looking at Whaley's tenure, you have guys like: Kiko Alonso (arrested in college) Duke Williams (arrested in college) Sammy Watkins (arrested in college) Cyrus Kouandjio (injury) Seantrel Henderson (arrested in college) Ronald Darby (implicated as part of the Jameis Winston investigation) Karlos Williams (arrested in college) Shaq Lawson (injury) Adolphus Washington (arrested in college) And those are just the drafted players. As to whether or not they should, well, I tend to ignore the arbitrage side of things and focus more on positional value and football character. I think you need to get yourself comfortable with (a) how much a guy loves the game, and (b) if he's an upstanding enough citizen to stay out of serious trouble. For me, arrests that involve violent tendencies are a major red flag, because those are the incidents that can make a guy unavailable for long periods of time (again, setting my moral compass aside).

Actually, it is an advantage in terms of buying time for the WRs. I just meant that, despite how good a scrambler Tyrod is, the fact that he can hold the ball as long as he does means the OL is doing their job. Despite playing in front of the QB that holds the ball longer than any other, they've only allowed 40 QB hits for the season, which ranks 14th in the NFL (and 10 of the teams that have allowed fewer hits have also played 1 fewer game).

http://www.scout.com/nfl/bills/story/1671762-tyrod-taylor-had-most-time-to-pass-in-nfl Can't find the tweet, but he's last in the NFL again so far in 2016. He's taking longer to release the ball than any other player in the NFL. Let that sink in before you criticize the OL's pass protection.

It wasn't a poor example...it was a perfect example. Bad pre-snap read, bad post-snap read. There's no reason for you to take it personally (twice). It's a big part, yeah. It's the kind of thing that Roman was eager to limit last year. I know that most QB coaches want the QB to pare down his options to a 3-route read pre-snap; I wonder if (a) Tyrod is being coached to pare down to 2, and/or (b) he's struggling to recognize which 1 or 2 routes should be eliminated based on the defensive look.

And then they make the same !@#$ing check later in the game?!?!?!?!? https://twitter.com/Cover1Bills/status/793488896034217985

No...this was a preseason game.

Huh? He was great on Sunday. Don't let the "NT" label fool you--he's got freedom to make plays in this defense.