Utah John

The only defense I can muster for Dennison isn't much of a defense. It's that the WRs and now the TEs are so talent-deficient that the defenses are stacking the box. There aren't any cutback lanes for Shady. The reason this isn't much of a defense for Dennison, is that this year's WRs aren't much worse than last year's. Watkins hardly played. Woods was better than people realized at the possession game. Now the only option for possession is the TEs, and with Clay hurt, they're too easy to cover. OK, so, you've got a very elusive RB, a pretty good power RB (Tolbert), the best running QB in the league, and a pretty mobile O line. You've got two weeks. Put in a very heavy run-first offense, including the option plays for the QB to run or hand off. Dennison doesn't have Payton Manning here, a great but immobile passer. He has the opposite. A decent passer (yes, really) who runs great. But TT just looks hesitant to run now, like he's having it drilled into his head not to. I agree with the OP that what's going on is a coordinator who's determined to impose his vision on the team, not to use the talent that's there to win. Greg Roman would be a big improvement. He put in the offense that Anthony Lynn simplified to get good results.

The Biils showed you can't win in this league even with a strong defense and a good running game. If you can't throw, you're too easy to stop. Take out Watkins, Matthews, Charles Clay, and Robert Woods -- what would you expect to happen? Andre Holmes is the opposite of a 7-11 -- he's never open. Zay Jones could turn out OK but he's getting doubled. There just isn't any talent left. Kaelin Clay's biggest play of his career came when he was playing for the University of Utah. Utah was playing Oregon when Oregon was really good, and Clay caught a long pass and was running in for a TD that would put Utah up by 14. But the showboat dropped the ball just before crossing the goal line, just friggin dropped it on purpose thinking he'd already scored, and the Oregon defender picked it up and ran it back for a TD the other way. Tie game and Utah would go on to lose and lose a chance for the Rose Bowl. So that's our new go-to guy. It hurt a lot to have Mabin playing in place of E.J. Gaines. And apparently no one playing in place of Humber, whom I'd never heard of before this season, but who showed by his absence how good he is. If Charles Clay is seriously injured, it's tank time. Either that or the Bills mortgage their future by trading too much for a third-rate WR or TE. I'd prefer the tank. Let the friggin Jets beat us twice to get to 5-11 and we edge them out for whoever the second-best looking QB is. Cleveland will take the best looking one and sprinkle poison fairy dust on him, and his career will be over before it starts.

Just wondering if Gilmore has made any tackles this year. I mean, intentional tackles, not where he happened to get run over on the play and couldn't dodge out of the way, so the ball carrier tripped over his prone, inert body. And Gillislee looks like a guy who's a great offensive or defensive coordinator, but lousy as a head coach. As a backup for Shady, when Gillislee came in, he could attack the D with energy and aggressiveness. But when he's on the field all the time, maybe he just can't keep the energy levels as hight

I think the biggest difference between the O and D is that the D plays consistently well much more of the time. Other teams generally get a couple of long drives (Atlanta did better, but with a really good offense), but the Bills force a lot of 3 and outs or short drives. The Bills O sometimes gets it going and dominates, but the next possession is a 3 and out. What's up with that? I really would like to see the Bills get MORE dominant on O when they have a lead. Step on their throat, as the current buzz phrase has it. I don't think this is correct. My understanding is that when the Bills came to him and told him they wanted him to take a pay cut, that essentially released him from his contract and let him offer his services to any other team. He got no takers, at least none he wanted, so he re-signed for less money.

We won't know who the best QB in this year's draft is for a couple of years. It takes some guys a couple of years to find their game. Aaron Rogers sat for a year or so behind Brett Favre, for heaven's sake, and he's the best QB playing now (my opinion). Other guys light up the league for a year or so, and then get hurt (so bad about RGIII, what a waste), or it turns out they played great because their O line and WRs and RB were great and he was not so much. Or the league figures out their game and how to stop it (Kaepernick). For now, enjoy watching Watson and the other new QBs, and watching to see how they develop. If you love football you love watching good players, even if they're on other teams.

He and the other DBs have played very well, but I think a big reason is that the D line is putting so much pressure on the other QBs. If Dareus gets healthy and gets his head on straight (not holding my breath), the D line will be even better and the DBs will miraculously get even better too.

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.