Utah John

Not sure if anyone else posted this, but on the fourth and 1 play, the missing Bills defender was the LB who should have covered the RB who came out of the backfield, ran across the line to gain, and turned around, wide open. But Ryan was not looking his way. The biggest break of the game was Ryan failing to take advantage of our biggest mistake of the game. Whoops, my mistake. The play with the RB wide open over the middle was a little earlier, on second and 5 from the 14. The RB makes the first down easily. Instead Ryan completed to a WR and White pushed him out of bounds, setting up the final two incompletions.

What Ryan was able to do, was push the ball. He couldn't throw it, which requires his hand to be around the ball and in control of it. The announcers kept saying that Ryan had regained control of the ball. If he had, the ball would have travelled farther and looked like a pass. This wasn't a case where the QB has control, has his arm go forward, and then someone blocks his arm's motion so the ball squirts out. That would have been an incomplete pass. But, nothing like that actually took place. No one interfered with the motion of Ryan's arm going forward. Therefore the reason the ball moved like it did was that it was pushed and not thrown.

You fellow old timers can probably recall message boards reading just like this from 1999. Just substitute "Doug Flutie" for "Tyrod Taylor". I've been making the point for a while now that they're very similar in what they bring. Both short. Both extremely athletic and elusive. Both pretty good passers but not elite. Both focused on good down and distance, moving the chains, protect the ball. The difference is that Flutie actually had a lot better offensive weapons to work with. Eric Moulds and Andre Reed and Peerless Price. Thurman Thomas and Antowain Smith. Much better O line. And the defense still had Bruce Smith and Ted Washington. Taylor is winning with a very good D line, which is making the LBs and DBs look better than they probably are, an O line that hasn't figured out its blocking schemes yet, a great RB, a good TE, and the worst starting WRs we've had in a generation. Another big difference: Flutie was 37 in 1999, at the tail end of his career. Taylor is in his prime years as an NFL QB. Also -- In 1999, the Bills didn't have a single game with 300 yards passing. Enjoy the ride. Taylor will continue to show he's very good but not elite. He'll miss some critical plays, and you can choose either to remember those or the excellent plays he makes including some no other QB can make.

It's nice to have DBs who tackle. Ask Gilmore how 2-2 tastes.

This week I made the comparison between TT and Doug Flutie, who are very similar. Both short, both pretty good but not elite passers, both relying on strong defenses and not beating yourself, both focused on staying in good down and distance, keeping the ball and moving the chains. Also both supremely athletic and elusive. That's gonna be my story and I'm sticking with it. All the way to the playoffs, just like Flutie did in 1999.

Yeah. Ordinarily the FG is the smart call but the LOS is clearly owned by the Bills.

Can we get ANOTHER break?

What the hell is going on? Opportunistic plays, a great interception, who are these guys?

I don't understand this. A blatantly wrong call in favor of the Bills?

Well, if you recall, Flutie wasn't an overwhelming favorite either. There were a lot of Rob Johnson fans at the time, and the complaints about Flutie then were similar to those about Taylor now. Couldn't light up the scoreboard, couldn't throw for hundreds of yards. He just won.

There's a former Bills QB who TT reminds me of in many ways. Doug Flutie. Short. Focused on moving the chains, keeping the ball, getting first downs, staying in good down and distance situations. Pretty good passer, not elite. Supremely athletic and elusive. Flutie took the Bills to the playoffs in 1999, the last time they made it. We can argue forever about whether they would have beaten the Titans if Flutie had played instead of Rob Johnson, but the point I'm making is, he got us there to begin with. There's no reason to think TT can't do it too. I told a friend of mine before the Bills-Titans playoff that I thought the winner would be going to the Super Bowl, and I was right. That Bills team had a better defense and more offensive weapons. Next year the Bills will be loaded up and ready to go. I don't see any reason to assume our saviour QB will come in as a rookie and beat out TT and take the more loaded Bills team to the playoffs. I'm comfortable with Taylor until someone clearly and honestly beats him out.

Actually the two main receivers that Goff has, TT DID have last year. Watkins and Woods. He wasn't producing 300 yard games then either. So what. The Bills' scheme is different. This year the O line has not been as solid and there's no deep threat so the options for TT are different. At least he's not checking down over and over, and he's hitting passes over the middle which he never did before (hasn't anyone noticed that?).

I have noticed Humber make a lot of good plays, but also every time the opposing RB makes a gash run through the middle of the D, it's because Humber guessed wrong and ran to the wrong spot, leaving the middle vacant. Usually he's just adding his body to a big scrum, not really contributing even if the RB was trying to go there. But if there's a gap someplace else and the RB takes it, it's 12 yards and a first down and a safety making a tackle, every time. Having said that, that's probably two or three times a game that that happens. Lots of good plays otherwise. On balance he's doing very well.

Impossible to predict. What key injuries will the Bills have and what injuries will opponents have? If Shady gets a hammie and misses four games, it's over. Who knows what will happen.

Taylor has played well all year. Even in the Carolina game when our O line couldn't handle the D, he did as well as possible in the second half, with just a little too much on the last pass to Jones. If Jones makes that catch the Bills are 3-0. It could be he's in a scheme that works for him, finally. No QB thrives in the wrong scheme. Yesterday he was really good. His decision making is much better than previously. He's throwing over the middle of the field, and he's throwing receivers open. He missed one pass yesterday, to a wide open Jones, when running to his left. That makes it a tougher throw but no excuses, that was a terrible pass. But other than that he played really well, when the running game was shut down and he had to rely on receivers with no speed.

Unless the Bills get a WR with real speed, to force the defenses to back off, we won't be able to run, and that just shuts us down. Doesn't matter whether games are in Buffalo or on the road. Only weak teams with poor LBs will be unable to shut down Shady.

It's on TT 80% and Jones 20%. Jones will get better. I'm not expecting improvement from TT.

Certainly TT is a problem. The biggest problem though is no speed on the offense. I've been saying all along that the person who would suffer from the departures of Watkins and Goodwin is Shady. Without the threat to go deep, defenses crowd the box. They need to sign someone NOW who can go deep four or five times a game. Even if he doesn't catch much, the defenses will have to respect that.

CJ is a good person and was had a great year as a Bill. There's no reason to mock him or tear him down. He did have limitations as a RB in blocking and vision. If he still has speed and quickness he'd be an effective KR -- I still remember a Thursday night game where he ran a KO back. I don't know whether he'd be good at returning punts. He has the physical skills to be an effective slot receiver but probably not the ability to recognize coverages and make adjustments to get open. If his career is over, I wish him well. I also with the Bills had never drafted him since we didn't need him and we had so many other holes to fill, but it's never the player's fault if he's drafted higher than it turns out is justified.

The Bills and 49ers played a game a long time ago which was the first with no punts. The Pats-Saints game could be like that. I expect Brady to recall what Gronkowski looks like so even if Amendola doesn't play the Pats will still score a lot against the Saints defense. But Brees will destroy that horrible Pats D. When the Pats are so desperate they go out and pay that much to Gilmore, you know the glory days are over. Pats, 48-42. But the Saints have a decent shot if they can stop Gronkowski somehow.

What are the goals of a professional sports team? 1. Win the game. 2. Well, there isn't a 2. Maybe it's, don't show off capabilities you don't need to reveal, but only if you win to begin with. The Bills coaching staff put together a strategy that was sufficient to beat a crappy team. They won easily and could have outscored the Jets by more -- but why do that? Why use every trick in their bag to beat the Jets? It's much better to just win, and show future opponents as little else as possible. For the defense, the only threat was Forte and Powell. The Bills used their D line to eat up blockers and keep the blockers from reaching our LBs. I think that worked out perfectly. This approach won't work against good QBs but don't expect the Bills to use the same approach against good QBs. It's the coaches' job to figure out how to attack the other team. I didn't like the fact that Dareus got pushed back on the QB sneak. Other than that, he seemed to be doing exactly what he was told to do.

I lived in the East Bay for several years and of course hated both the Raiders and the 49ers, but a buddy (a Broncos fan) had a ticket and took me to the 49ers game where they had the Joe Montana retirement celebration, playing against Denver. It was a great event to have been at, but the stadium (Candlestick) was really bad. The slope of the stands was pretty flat so we were far from the field. The fans were just as obnoxious and vulgar, or more so, than even the drunks are at Bills games. Incredibly vulgar. It was a night game and it was COLD. It cost a fortune to park in a marsh. Candlestick was right on the Bay and at high tide the entire dirt parking lot turned to mud. I'm surprised more people didn't get stuck. Even not counting the parking lot, the traffic was terrible getting there and getting home. As someone else noted, San Jose is now the largest city in the Bay Area. With a better product and a comfortable stadium, the 49ers will do fine there. Yes, it's very hot in the entire area, except the peninsula including SF, in the summer, but the weather in the fall will be beautiful -- 60s and sunny most days. I suspect a lot of SF-based fans won't go to the new stadium because they're basically in denial about SJ taking over as the largest city. SF is still much more exciting and fun, and much more attractive, but a lot more people live in SJ and points south, including over the mountains in Santa Cruz and Monterey, and southeast to Gilroy and Salinas. The stadium is following where the fans are.

If this means, horrible QB play across the league, then I'm in agreement. There were a lot of plays left on the field by most of the teams. Alex Smith looked great but that was against a Pats D on drugs or something. If it means, for the Bills, I completely disagree. TT looked better than most -- very composed and in control. The interception was catchable by Clay, and for the most part he hit receivers, with most of his incompletions being well-executed throwaways. His running seems to be as elusive as ever, but he was running much less which is a good thing.

The AFC East has a tough schedule this year. You know who else besides the Bills plays that schedule? The Patriots. The Pats have been so strong over so long that their poor drafting position is starting to catch up to them. They've had to go to expensive FAs to fill gaps, arguably overpaying for some of them. Gilmore is a decent CB but he's getting Richard Sherman money. Gillislee is a good RB and I wish he was still on the Bills, but he's getting way too much. The Pats' D looked horrible against KC, and it looks like Brady misses Edelman more than we expected. I reserve the right to disavow this post in three months when the Pats win the SB again, but NE's fun and games have to end sooner or later. If the Bills DBs can get it together, I think the Bills sweep the Pats and Jets, split with the fish, and win the division at 10-6.

I never saw an explanation of the play in the first quarter when the Jets intercepted and the returner fell down from colliding with a teammate. He started to get up and a Bill jumped over to knock the ball away. The Bills all thought it was a fumble, and so did I, but the refs called the Jets player down by contact, and we just moved on. When exactly did that contact occur?