Hapless Bills Fan
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Posts posted by Hapless Bills Fan
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Walsh, et al. scripted the first 15+ plays to get a read on the defense and probe what they were doing. I'm not as concerned with that as I am with their inability to do the base Rex needs, i.e. run consistently. And that's partly on the backs playing yesterday and the OL failing to get push. In the latter case, it's not like Tennessee's defensive front were a dominating trio.
Well, I need the all-22 to be sure, but it looked to me as though Titans were stacking the box quite a bit early on, daring Tyrod to beat them passing. But yeah, if we intend to "impose our will" on opponents and run down their throats, Memo To G-Ro: Isn't working.
The problem I see, is, it almost looks to me as though not just the plays, butTaylor's throws are scripted for him in the first 3, maybe 4, series. He waits for deeper passes to develop, overlooking short stuff. It's one thing to script the plays, but is Taylor overlooking the easy throws on purpose, or is Roman dictating the receiver? By the end of the 2nd Q and into the 3rd, Taylor was hitting the short stuff. If he simply doesn't see it in the 1st Q and start of the 2nd Q, how does his field sense and vision magically improve after 10-12 plays?
He was repeatedly double-teamed. Harvin had a horrible game.
Harvin was double-teamed quite a bit. It also seemed like there was some miscommunication between Taylor and Harvin - Harvin ran a different route than Taylor expected a couple times. For example, look at the 4th pass of the 1st Q. The pass was way off of Harvin, way too far off for simple inaccuracy. Harvin simply wasn't where Taylor expected thim to be, and Taylor was damned lucky it wasn't picked.
Why do NFL players refuse to wrap anybody up anymore?
All you see are guys putting a shoulder into the runner and trying to knock him down. That fails to work a lot and it also results in lots of injuries. I'd like to see form tackling return to football.
Amen to this! One thing I liked last year and actually, in the Colts game now that I think of it - was the clean hard tackling, proper wrap and tackle. It seems to be a point that is not being coached hard this year.
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Another case of guy playing because his old coach -- Roman -- is comfortable with him? He is just a terrible RB -- as was A-Train when he played for Jauron's Bills (3.27 yards per carry in 143 lead-footed carries over 2 seasons). He has 15 carries for 19 yards, and appears to run a 5.4 40. Plus he's 28 - I don't know what that is in RB dog years, but it's a lot. What did Bryce Brown do to get exiled from the team?
Brown?
1) fail to develop ball security as coached by his boss (RB coach Anthony Lynn)
2) fail to play special teams
I don't think Dixon is playing because Roman is comfortable with him. I think he's playing because all the guys ahead of him on the depth chart are hurt, and he performs 1) & 2) above.
Ha - maybe you're right. Seriously, though, why didn't they go after him instead of Herron? Herron had a bad fumble yesterday too, although the Bills recovered it.
Yes, I noticed neither Herron nor Moore were "all that" with ball security. But Lynn probably still has hope he can coach Herron up on that point.
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Speak for yourself. I agree with him. Tyrod made 4 good plays. Lots of bad decisions and bad throws. We can make excuses for him all day long, but the truth is, he is very limited. The Bills are lucky to escape with that win. It was nice to see Tyrod make the plays necessary to win the game but that type of performance overall is not going to win many games.
I was all set to agree with you over a more moderate post you made. Taylor left opportunities and missed some passes he should have hit. He is still "feeling" pressure and not stepping up into the pocket at times when he should vs. running into a sack. The bad offensive performance 1st 3Q is not all on him, but he needs to improve to become a legit NFL starter. I believe that.
But when you join beating the "4 good plays" drum, I got to ask: Which were they? I count 4 runs for significant gains (>half a down), a pass reception, and 11/20 completed passes (1 completion and 2 incompletion "no play" due to penalty)
Can you help me understand which of those were not "good plays" and shouldn't count to Taylor's credit?
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I think that poor offensive line play and mediocre play calling led to the crap product the first 40 minutes of football. I am impressed that as poorly as both side looked in the first half, that it remained well within reach at 3-0... Hope they open the playbook up a little more and don't play so conservative
Indeed. I don't remember where I posted it (probably a sign I'm posting too much) but I have wondered if Roman is scripting his 1st 10-12 plays. If he is, he may need to re-write his script a bit, or be persuaded to shorten it some.
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You're so desperate for Tyrod to be "The Guy" that you aren't being objective.
You're looking at those 4 great plays, and using them to white wash the rest of his, rapidly becoming consistently, terrible performance.
If not for a great route adjustment by Hogan on the long pass setting up the TD, we'd have lost this game 13-7.
Was it that one play that makes us "not know our ass from a football"? Or was there something else outside of his 4 (count them: 4) nice plays that does it?
I'll wait. You go ahead and get on with your bad self anointing him the next Jim Kelly.
If we're talking "not objective", wouldn't you have to qualify yourself and talk about being your being "desperate" for Taylor to be "horrible"?
Watch other games closely. Annointed "great" and "good" QB are helped by route adjustments and diving and leaping catches all the time. In fact, on successful long passes, it happens more often than not. A good to great NFL-quality WR helps his QB by doing this. (then there's Dalton and AJ Green, but that's another story) It doesn't make the QB "horrible" or disqualify the passing play from being a genuine contribution to winning the game, to most people anyway. Nor does missing some passes and plays that should have been there disqualify every completion a QB does make as "horrible".
That said, I thought the long pass to Hogan was a rope, and Hogan's TD reception was off-target and saved by a damn good WR I'm glad we have on the team.
I don't think your insistence that whatever 4 plays you're cherry-picking (the runs? the pass reception from Hogan? the Hogan TD pass? I'm really unclear) were the only plays that weren't "horrible" by Taylor impresses most with your logic, nor does tossing in the "straw man" about "the next Jim Kelly" No one has attempted to argue that Taylor = Kelly.
In a nutshell, he had a break from reality and said it wasn't a horse-collar.
Maybe he was having a flashback to getting called for a horse-collar himself in his ST days? I dunno, but that is a break from reality indeed.
It was a horse-collar, and borderline "unnecessary roughness" as well IMO.
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No, he didn't. He was the anchor around this offense that, once again, did not cross the 50 yard line until late in the game, and continued their habit of 3 and outs. He, once again, couldn't get past his first read; and was made ineffective by being forced to his left. He, once again, ran himself into multiple sacks. He put us in position to lose this game.
He was bailed out by an absolutely superlative defensive performance which held the Titans to 13 points at home.
He made 4 absolutely incredible individual plays, which I will not take away from him; but that was the extent of it.
You cannot trade 52 minutes of horrible for 4 great plays late in the game and expect to win in the NFL.
If he keeps this up, we're in for a very long year.
Tyrod is what he is: an exciting QB that keeps you on the edge of your seat. He makes enough big plays that he keeps you wondering, but his game is very limited, and it's beginning to show. He has no pocket presence. He's a run first, one read and go guy. He's inaccurate.
The D was stout, I give them mad props for endurance. I can not call it a "superlative performance" because while we did have 3 consecutive O 3-and-outs in the 1st half before a single 1st down, they let the Titans convert again and again on 3rd and long. They caught fire and stiffened after Tyrod's 4th Q heroics and that won us the game. I give them mad props for that too. But sorry, when you let the other team march down the field and convert 3-8, 3-9, 3-11, 1-20, 1-25, falls a little bit short of superlative dontcha think?
Likewise, to say Tyrod played horribly except for 4 "incredible" plays late in the game is biased at best. For starters, I'm not sure which 4 plays you're talking about? His 4 runs in the 4th? The pass he caught? The rope to Hogan right after the horse collar? The TD pass to Hogan? Just there would be at least 6, and then there were some nice passes to Goodwin and Dixon. The man had 14 completions I believe, if you consider the passes that were negated by penalty. Were those completions all horrible?
This was Taylor's worst game as a passer so far, 59% completions. Absolutely he missed some throws he should have had, and when the all-22 comes out I'll undoubtedly see some open guys he missed. Absolutely he moved himself into a couple of sacks. But to put the offense's impotent 1st 3Q all on Taylor's "horrible" play IMO misses the point in a couple of ways:
1. Our QB was supposed to be the "game manager" of a "ground and pound" offense, at least that's how I saw it billed pre-season. Mmmm, about that. Leaving Taylor out of it, I count 20 rushing attempts. At least 9 of those gained <2 yds. Is that all on Taylor's "horrible" play, or is some of that on the OL at times and the RB (missing holes) at times?
2. If anyone was expecting Taylor to "anchor" the franchise's offense at this point (including Roman and Ryan), they need to reassess. This is the 5th game he's started. Does anyone seriously think there's no difference between watching it on film, and seeing it unfold live? Yes, he'll have a learning curve. And he needs a little more help from someone (RBs, OL, playcalling) to help him over it.
TT did not have a great game at all. But big time players make big time plays. They make TDs when you need them. The Bills OL was awful. The running game was non existent. There isn't a team in the league that can really withstand their first two RBs out and have a good run game.
There probably is such a team, KtD. But it's not ours. Two kind of teams:
1) teams that run because the opponent fears the pass. Those teams have QBs named Brady Brees and Rodgers, and pretty much, yeah, they can lose their top 2 RBs and keep truckin'
2) teams that run to set up the pass. That's what we're supposed to be - a team with top talent at RB and designed to "impose our will" with the run so that we can have some success passing.
And yeah, teams of the 2nd kind will see the run game fall off a cliff if the RB talent declines.
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One thing about TT's play today. he made zero stupid mistakes.
the starters dating back at least a long time rarely could pull off a turnaround like that.
he seems too thrive in the 4 th quarter when the stakes are high.
Taylor played well in the 4th quarter, no question. That was a Taylor-made win.
I need the all 22 to see for sure but he had at least one pass that a Titan is hitting the Juggs machine all week, thinking he should have caught. That was better-hands-on-it away from a stupid mistake.
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And by the way Steve tasker is dead to me. His blathering about the horse collar exposes him for the jackass he is any more.
I missed this. Had a school event with my kid, watched the game after the fact in the condensed version. What did Tasker have to say?
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I'm watching the Dallas-Patriot game, and the Cowboys are really giving Tom Brady fits while hitting him a bunch. Makes me wonder why the Bills played the scheme they played against Brady
Are you talking about the "fits" that led to a 30-6 victory with Brady* throwing 74% completions and 2 TD?
I'm a big Whaley fan but both of the moves made this week backfired. Cundiff was awful as was Denarius Moore, even though he made some yards on returns. I also thought he should have kept Bryce Brown over Boobie who is simply not a reliable RB.
Hmm, well, there were 3 moves this week, correct? Dan Herron, Cundiff, and Moore. I'm not gonna second-guess Whaley on Cundiff. I expect he's not the one they were trying to bring in, and I expect Ryan was agitating for someone to come in. Moore's fumble was bad, but I thought he had some good returns and while our running game sucked, Herron was the only back who broke 3 ypa. I call him a good signing
The Bills should just bite the bullet and cut Dixon. He is not a NFL Starting RB. Even Bryce Brown will be a better runner.
I'm not getting the logic here. Dixon isn't on the team to be an NFL starting RB. He's on the team to be the 3rd string RB and play ST. So why would you cut him for not being something he's not supposed to be, when the guys ahead of him are injured? He ran tough today - did you see that stiff-arm? and made a decent catch. Cierre Wood, on the other hand, I'd like to see more from him if he's staying.
Bryce Brown has talent as a runner. No one doubts Bryce Brown's running ability. The doubts are around ball security and lack of ST play, which the 3rd RB must contribute
If I'm B Brown, I'm asking for a crash course in ST. I mean, he's a big, fast, strong guy who could do what the other guys do, right? If that's what it takes to get a shot at hanging on in the league a few more years, I'm all over it! (Oh,and maybe hang on to the ball a little tighter.)
I'm sure Bryce Brown had it explained to him that he needed to work on his ST chops, just as he was coached to improve his ball security. The writing on the wall says the coaches weren't happy with his receptiveness to coaching on either point. So yes, if you or I were Bryce Brown that's what we'd do, but Bryce Brown has his own ideas evidently.
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Two receivers that many wanted to cut in the preseason, Hogan and Gilmore, played very well today. Oh, I forgot that Hogan's not a burner and can't help us much.
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I'm all for seeing an in season battle/rotation with Kujo. As much as I am pulling for Henderson to be successful, he looked terrible today
Ditto, and search the scrap heap/practice squads around the league for other possibilities at RT if Kujo doesn't cut it. Henderson was a freakin' turnstile today.
Henderson slipped to the 7th round due to concerns about his work ethic (and multiple failed drug tests due to weed). IMHO getting benched for Kujo in OTA lit a fire under his butt, but now that the job is his, he doesn't seem interested in putting in the extra work and study to nail it down and step up to the next level.
Tackling should get better if they aren't on the field so much
So freakin' tackle, get the stop on 3rd down, and get off the field!
Yes, the O went 3-and-out. A 3-and-out by the O should not constitute a license by the D to hand out 1st downs.
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This game was a lot like Minnesota last year. Really sloppy ball, but a huge conversion and then a clutch deep catch by Hogan led us to take the lead.
They are not letting Tyrod take off early in the game. We don't want him to get hurt, I get that, but we just need maybe one good run from him to keep the pass rush honest until we really need him to run wild.
Is it just me, or does anyone else have the impression that Roman is scripting the first 10-12 plays from scrimmage?
The problem with scripting like that is, if you script 12 plays and we get 3 or 4 3-and-outs, it takes the entire first half to run through the script. But I don't have any other explanation for why the Bills are such a slow-start team on offense the last few weeks. Obviously, if Roman can make adjustments and we're then successful, Just Win Baby, all is forgiven. I'd like to see a faster start though.
Thank God for whatever conditioning program our D puts in. They're in good shape, obviously.
Good win on a less than stellar input by almost everyone today.
Go Bills, and Go Bill!
Got to disagree. When it was 0-3 at the half, and our D had spent almost the entire half on the field and only given up 3, I got to say they played tough when it counted.
Gilmore was outstanding. The Cold Front (K Williams, M Williams, Dareus) showed up today. Schmidt deserves a "golden leg" trophy or something. Woods brought the nasty on some blocks. Hogan was also outstanding.
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Fells didn't make the trip to Buffalo.
He also appears to have caught it during his foot surgery, outside the locker room.
Where did you get the "during his foot surgery" bit, Tom? What I saw is on NFL
"The situation arose, the source said, when Fells suffered a toe injury, then an ankle injury. To treat it, Fells was given a cortisone shot. After a week of ankle and foot pain, Fells' wife took him to the emergency room on Oct. 2 with a 104-degree temperature. There, they found his ankle was infected with MRSA, a dangerous staph infection that is resistant to many antibiotics."
The cortisone shot and the infection seem to have preceded the surgery? And cortisone shots to treat injury are often given by team doctors, at the facility.
What concerns me is that the Giants and their equipment arrived at RWS as or before Fells was diagnosed with MRSA, but after the MRSA-infected Fells had spent a week presumably attending meetings and possibly working out and receiving treatment at their facility. As we know, the peak danger time for spreading an infection is while the person is infected, but doesn't know it yet and thus isn't isolated. Then we depend upon how good routine infection-control practices actually are, and generally speaking in most hospitals they kind of suck - I don't know about NFL locker rooms.
"Giants tight end Daniel Fells’s MRSA infection is so serious that he could have to have his foot amputated.
The infection could turn out to be career-ending."
Someone needs an editor.
Anyway, pretty unusual even for MRSA, which is treatable. He need to be in the hyperbaric chamber.
It sounds unusual in that a source quoted by NFL.com reports it resulted from a cortisone injection. Normally MRSA is a skin infection, and treatable, but if somehow it got directly injected (or spread by injection) into toe and ankle joints that would be a different, and much more difficult, situation to treat.
It does sound as though a hyperbaric, hyperoxic chamber would be potentially useful adjunct therapy.
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I couldn't believe they didn't throw the challenge flag. For all Rex's talk, he hasn't impressed me at all yet
I hate NFL rules as to what plays are challengeable worse than I hate NFL rules about practice squad eligibility.
That said, I don't believe that play was challengable. So whether or not you are impressed by Rex should not be affected by his failure to flow a challenge flag on a non-challengable play.
I personally was not impressed when Rex challenged the play where Tyrod Taylor was ruled OOB before he threw the ball away - that was not challengeable. I thought it was, but I'm not an NFL head coach and Rex has a responsibility to know the rules way better than I do.
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Geez. At least he's getting the best of care. Being a Bills-centric bastard, I focused on this:
"As a team, the Giants have also reacted, working with infectious disease specialists earlier in the week, and these experts defined protocols to follow in consultation with Duke Infection Control Outreach Network and others locally. Their locker room, training rooms and meetings rooms were scrubbed and sanitized and players were briefed on precautions and how to prevent the spread of MRSA. Meanwhile, Fells remains away from the team, waging his own fight."
I hope the Bills scrubbed and santized their own guest locker facilities and have their own infection control procedures in place because that stuff travels much more easily than it leaves. Although it sounds like the doc injecting the cortisone into Fell's foot has a lot to answer for.
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Frankly, sports fans, he used a certain word that's a no-no with <referees>.
He sang "three blind mice" to them?
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Great article, Thanks! Classy guy, hope he heals up and continues to play well and the Seattle Seahawks (no longer called Seasnakes by me from respect for FredEx) turn it on so he has a chance for playoffs and championships with them.
By the way, got in a little dig at Whaley. I guess nothing new there, but more specific from what I recall-- e.g., assured him he was safe after hurting his hamstring only to cut him a few weeks later.
Well, yeah, but c'mon Freddy. You tell the GM that you want to play injured to secure your roster spot at the expense of potential effectiveness during the season, what do you think he's going to say? "You better run boy, Damn Straight you're on the bubble!" or "Don't worry, just rest and heal up". The other part of it is, even truthful management can only speak the truth as they know it today. Injuries across the roster may have caused them to shift the roster makeup they originally planned on. The play of the RBs they brought in may have changed their ideas.
Anyway, hopefully Freddy has moved on.
Great article by just a class act and a warrior. Miss ya Fred! I understand the front office letting him go, I think with Karlos and Shady they felt Fred's role would be so diminished he wouldn't be happy. I also think they wanted a younger guy in that 3rd role.
However, I would rather they been open to Fred about staying at a reduced role and renegotiating his contract. He deserved to have that choice.
That's assuming the cut was about $$ rather than roster numbers.
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Chuck Pagano: Matt Hasselbeck was 'literally on his deathbed' and still delivered a win http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000553069/article/chuck-pagano-hasselbeck-was-literally-on-his-deathbed?campaign=Twitter_atn …
Oh, now, come on. I believe that he may have been severely dehydrated with a stomach bug or something, and he probably wished he would die during the worst of it, but there's a long way between "wishing you were dead" and "literally on his deathbed".
Maybe things have become more humane in the medical profession, but it used to be that there was no extra staffing for interns and residents who had flu, and minimal for nurses and technicians. If you didn't work, someone else had to come in on their day off (often after working 36 hrs straight). So everyone would work when they had flu and take turns giving each other IV fluids in between seeing patients. It's amazing what rehydration will do for how you feel.
After the game when he was being interviewed, Hasselbeck clearly had left it all on the field. He had tears in his eyes, and when asked why said "I don't know...I got nothing left".
I think that was a remarkable performance for a 40 year old guy recovering from flu, but let's not Jump the Shark here, Pagano.
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last count I heard as the game was winding down last night ... Houston had 13 flags for 125 yards
#Rogue Refs
It's not the flags that bother me. It's the timing of some of them. Essentially I felt as though the refs handed Indy a TD with a couple of ticky-tack calls.
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After seeing Sammy's comments I think we will get either him OR Goodwin, with Goodwin more likely
Personally I would like them to be cautious with Sammy and bring him back healthy and not prone to re-injury. Same for McCoy.
Will Goodwin be as fast in a flak jacket? He really ought to wear rib protection - we know durn well any time he's tackled the opposition will be digging into his ribs, even if they don't go into him helmet first and just take the chance the Zebras miss it or ignore it.
no I was wrong - as mentioned above if he's a healthy scratch that is ok I guess. Haden wasn't - he didn't play because he was hurt - and the league no likey. Guess they needed him to be questionable. But probable means 25% chance of not playing right so why the issue? Who knows but guessing it had to go with fantasy and betting.
The whole injury report, as I understand it, was set up to support betting. But you're absolutely right, probable means 25% chance of not playing so where's the Beef?
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great question considering the Browns are being investigated by the NFL for listing Haden as probable and then shelving him. So I would say Goodwin being inactive is highly unlikely. They also need Gragg.
Now this I don't understand. Whether a player is injured or not is one thing. Whether a player is a scratch or not on gameday really should be something else, not? Anyone can be a healthy scratch, any week. In addition, someone can be listed as "probable" on Friday, aggravate the injury on Saturday, and be scratched on Sunday.
What exactly is the NFL investigating here? Unless the Browns were super-stupid and pretty much admitted "we listed him as probable but the truth is he wrapped himself in dacron batting and jogged around the perimeter of the practice field, so he's out"?
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There is absolutely no animosity on my part. I just don't agree with your views on the zone blitz, the imagined lack of pressure (we are still a top ten team in that stat even with QBs getting rid of the ball so quickly), and the idea that this defense has regressed when a closer look reveals it is slightly worse than last years in terms of gross yards after four games, but better in terms of yards per pass against, QB rating against, rush yards per carry. I mention those three because they are much more important metrics to measure a team's defensive performance.
The defensive stat that is most tightly correlated to winning is points scored against. How are we doing there vs. last year?
I think the usefulness of QB rating (QBR and rating) has been beaten to death elsewhere. I'll just comment that it turns out overall yards given up is not particularly correlated to winning (either way - lots of yds or little). Two of the statistics you cite are examples of why: If teams are discovering that the Bills are suceptible to short quick passes, then our YPP statistic would be lower, but that would reflect the strategy employed by our opponents, rather than improvement in D. Likewise, we might have a great rush yards per carry stat, but if it reflects the fact that teams are finding us porous against the short quick pass, does that really mean too much?
As far as concern or lack of concern for what Dareus or other players say, sure, we'll wait and see. What else can we do?
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That pick was so Hoyer
He has a little Matt Simms in him, it seems
Better for Houston as Hoyer looks to have the hot hand. Mallett looking grumpy on the sidelines.
I would have said "petulant". He needs to straighten his face.
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Hasselbeck didn't take a single snap in practice this week. He was in the ER with a bacterial infection until Tuesday. He was still taking IVs this afternoon and isn't sure he can make it 4 qtrs. Josh Johnson was signed last week, released on Monday and then Re-signed yesterday... and hadn't taken an NFL snap in 4 years. The emergency QB is WR Griff Whalen who is taking snaps pre-game.
Ryan mallet didn't win the Texans QB job in camp but Hoyer got benched after 1 game so he started game 2. Mallet got benched halfway through game 4 and Hoyer finished... But now Mallett is back to starting.
Should be a great game!
All right, now I have to go watch this
Sean Payton Staying with the Saints
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted · Edited by Hopeful
OK, I know we won the game and the final score doesn't show us blown out in any game yet....but we've had a very cold start in 3 of our 5 games. How to put it nicely? Taylor may develop into a good NFL QB, Taylor may not develop into a good NFL QB, but for a guy who had the cashbox opened up for him to sign talent this off season and whose reputation is creative running schemes that work well with a "meh" QB, Roman's offense needs to work better than 1 1st down on our 4th offensive series, after 3 3-and-outs, before we need to worry about his off-season interviews.
At one point in the game we had 50% more yards lost to penalties than we had on offense. That's not exactly an effective NFL HC sales pitch.