Utah John

Ragland is too slow, but I wonder about Shaq Lawson. He might have enough speed to stay close and the size to battle for the football.

The biggest unknown is Shady's hamstring. The second biggest is whether the Seahawk's offensive coordinator is any good. The Bills D has some real strengths but also some holes. It's one thing for NE with Brady and five really good receivers, plus a strong RB, to rip up the Bills. It's another thing for other teams. Only the Pats (great all around), the Jets with the Bills stubbornly not giving safety help to the CBs, and the Dolphins (still can't believe that happened) have really been effective against the Bills. Can Seattle's offense find a way? I am thinking, no. The third is, has the league figured out Anthony Lynn? I thought maybe the Dolphins did, but Shady was a shadow of himself (see what I did there?) so who knows if the Dolphins really could have stopped the regular-strength Bills. I'm thinking Seattle's D is still really great, and they'll find a way to throttle the Bills. 13-7 final score. Bills win if Shady is 80% or better, Seattle wins otherwise.

I think the Bills have given up on finding an archetype QB. 6'4", 235, cannon arm, moves a little in the pocket. There are guys around with those measurements but when the Bills get one it turns out they can't read a defense, they can't move the team, they get hurt, whatever. There are maybe 10 really good QBs like that, tops, and the rest are strugglers or imposters. So the Bills tried something different. Instead the Bills have a point guard whose job it is to dish the ball to the open guy and let him make plays, and by the way is also the best running QB in the league. Creative, out of the box, could work, if the top 5 skill guys could just not get hurt. Watkins and McCoy are elite talents, sitting and watching. Clay is above average in skill but what about that shoulder? Goodwin could be dangerous but averages more injuries than catches every year. Woods is a little above average as a #2 but isn't viable as a #1.. (Hogan is better than Woods but not worth $12M to the Bills.) (Karlos Williams really hurt the Bills. Last year's KW would be tearing it up this year but nooo.) Gillislee is average and every time he tries to go Shady we see how special Shady is. So TT is TT. He isn't Brady, he isn't Big Ben, he isn't Luck. With the team the Bills built, he would be awesome. With the team the Bills actually send out on the field, he's going to be ineffective. Then again, with that team, so would Brady, Big Ben, and Luck.

Hogan was always better than the Bills thought he was. He outplayed Woods last year but was stuck behind him on the depth chart, and couldn't move up. So the Pats offered the chance to be a starter on a great team and 12 million other reasons. He left with a chip on his shoulder and he joined the Pats with a smile on his face. Gilmore is a good player. He's not a good enough player for the role Rex wants his corners to fill. Gilmore needs safety help particularly against tall, strong receivers. The problem in the Jets game was no safety help while Rex made sure he could stop the run (which he ended up not doing anyway, Forte got 100 yards) and Fitz having his annual early-season all-pro game, and the Jets big tall strong guys out-jumping Gilmore and the rest of the Bills DBs. After the Jets game, Rex went back to safeties playing safety instead of LB, and things got better. The Bills pass D has been pretty good generally, with Gilmore often the weak link, but Brady. Brady. Yesterday was going to happen regardless. My real concern is, no good safeties left on the team. Graham is old and slow, Meeks is meek and slow, Duke is exposed now that team know that the Williams in the defensive backfield isn't Aaron. Without safety help the flaws in Gilmore's game will be exposed. The thing is, it's too early to bail on the Bills season. They have a decent chance against Seattle, to win 10-7 or something, and the schedule gets easier after that. 10-6 is a stretch but still possible. It would be crazy to give up on a season where every other AFC team than NE has serious problems. 9-7 might do it. So don't trade Gilmore. Absolutely don't cut him. Maybe Rex is as smart as he thinks he is, and he can figure out a way to make lemonade out of lemons. This. That play and the one where Hightower tackled TT 10 yards out of the field of play with no penalty called. Seriously, the Pats don't need help.

For this year, it looks like a lose-lose. Presumably the Pats figure they have enough LB depth to win, which is probably right, but it's taking a chance on avoiding injuries. Collins will help the Browns go from abysmal to terrible or maybe all the way to pretty bad. Whoopee. Probably not enough to screw up and lose the top draft pick. Long term, it's a disaster for the Browns and a win for the Pats. I'm shocked, shocked.

It isn't whether Reed plays, it's whether Dareus plays. Not just gets in the game, but whether he dominates. With the O depleted, the best chance is if the D makes plays, and a pick six wouldn't hurt.

Did you have your Drunk Typing mode turned on? In Hogan's defense, it takes a while and a lot of determination to conduct a thorough evaluation of wings options in WNY. Could be his cholesterol levels didn't let him complete the job.

Spiller had a chance to be a special back for about three years. After that, his legs weren't the same and he didn't have the quickness and burst he did early on. There was only one year when things went pretty well for him, then he got hurt, then he got cut, and the pinball machine started. He is a good guy, a good teammate, an honorable person. No hate for him here. It wasn't his fault a team that didn't need a RB picked him in the first round. He came in, did his best, and then moved on when it was clear the Bills didn't want him anymore.

Marcellus Bennett dominated our D. And that without Gronk being right, or Brady playing at all. But, hey, there's a reason they play the game, right? Depending on two foot-long tendons (McCoy's and Dareus's hamstrings) the Bills either have a shot or no shot.

The Bills have 4 wins, and in each they battled against an inferior opponent until they wore the other team out. (I include NE. I can't even remember their substitute QB's name. The Pats defense got worn down because their O was so ineffective.) Then they proceeded to pull away and win by substantial margins. In the 3 losses, two consistent factors: 1. Strong opponent D lines bottled up our running game and then shut down TT. 2. Close games where no one could make plays to win. I think this is actually Ryan ball. He wants to build a bully so he can wear other teams down. He hasn't succeeded with the Bills but the improvement is clear. This could work out OK with more skill on the O line to go with bulk. Where I think the Bills sit right now is in the second quintile. A quintile is 1/5th of the total. About 1/5th of the league is clearly better than the Bills. About 3/5th of the league is clearly or at least somewhat worse. We'll generally win about 9 games in this situation. We need our three elite players (Watkins, McCoy, Dareus) all back and all healthy in order to move up and get to the top quintile and the 10-11 win level.

Same here. With the standing Buffalo helmets.

The penalty was called for unnecessary roughness, not for an illegal hit or a crackback block. That was the correct call. I see it as Landry hitting AW with his shoulder, primarily into AW's chest and shoulder, but not into his head. That would have been legal except for the violence of the collision. It was unnecessary to lay out the other guy like that, hence the call on the field. If it's anyone's fault, it's AW's. Sorry to criticize an injured player, and a Bill, but Landry didn't come at him from behind or the side. He was coming toward AW from AW's front, maybe at 2 o'clock. Williams should be more aware of what's going on. That said, I hope AW retires. He's been a good player but more importantly a very good citizen, at least by the standards of NFL players. His mobility and perhaps his life are at stake.

Not intending to get political here but a certain presidential candidate seems to be doing everything he can to convince voters to choose his opponent. The NFL seems to be doing everything possible to get us to watch college football. It's a much better game. I'd even give the CFL a shot if it was available in Utah.

My view is and has been that TT is a pretty good QB, the Bills' best since Kelly, maybe with one year from Bledsoe better than TT so far. But is he good enough? Here's a Washington Post article about the end of their game with the Lions, very complimentary about the Lions' QB, Matt Stafford. Stafford took charge of that game and made three outstanding plays, and the Lions pulled out that victory. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/football-insider/wp/2016/10/24/a-closer-look-at-the-redskins-defense-on-the-lions-game-winning-drive/#comments THIS is what we haven't seen from TT. Granted, Stafford had better receivers at the end of yesterday's game than TT had all game yesterday. Also, the rosy epidermises didn't really attack Stafford the way Miami was attacking the Bills' O line. Still, I can't think of a game where TT took charge the way true franchise QBs do.

Pissed? No, the guy's hurt, and hammies happen to a lot of players. There's no reason to assume Dareus got hurt because he wasn't in shape. Disappointed? You bet. He's an elite player on a team with only three of them. He could have prevented all those runs where the Miami O line got through to block our LBs. It would have been an entirely different game.

The offense couldn't run. Was that because Shady was hurt, or because the Dolphins D figured out Anthony Lynn? Whatever the cause, the cutback lanes Shady exploited weren't there and/or he couldn't get there even if they were. Without Shady, and without Watkins and Woods, the O had a hand tied behind its back. The O line did OK for a while until the Dolphins D could just tee off on them. With the O not able to stay on the field, the D wore down. Also of course this RB of Miami looks terrific. So many missed tackles by a good tacking Bills D. The Bills have a good roster all around, with a few special players, and they need those special players to make their engine work. All the special players were hurt. Dareus, Watkins, McCoy are all elite talents. No Dareus, nothing clogging the middle and keeping the Dolphins O line from engaging with our LBs. Without Shady or the holes that Shady got through the past couple of weeks, no running game. Without W1 and W2, no passing game except a bomb to Glass. Good job on STs. Great job by Lorax, all over the field.

The Bills traded him away, he didn't leave on his own like Hogan did. Then he got traded again. He was a fun player to watch, sometimes making spectacular plays, and sometimes taking the wrong gap on a run play and the other team gets a spectacular play. I had high hopes for him in his second season, but he was hurt before it started. And then high hopes for his third season, but we traded him. He's a good guy, a tough competitor, and he just happens to wear a different shirt now. No hate for him from here. Also he injured NE's Jimmy G so he did us a favor.

With Shady, Bills 35-10. Without Shady Bills 17-14. That's still Tannahill in the cotton candy unis. The Bills D is much better than the Steelers (next week, hell freezes over, but it's true) so they'll contain their running game, and Tannahill so we'll be OK on D. The O has me worried if Shady can't play. The fish run D is lousy but the dropoff from Shady to committee is vast. We need him on the ground to keep the ball and grind out the clock.

1. Half the teams in the AFC have a clear path to the playoffs. They just have to win out. In the Bills case, winning out makes them 14-2 and they have the tiebreaker over NE, so they have the clearest path of all. Do the Bills have some tough games? Yes, absolutely. Away games in Seattle and Oakland. It's always tough for the Bills to go to the west coast, and Seattle has a great D and Oakland has a very good offense. But neither is perfect. 2. NE deserves to be the favorite for the SB until proven otherwise. If no more injuries happen to any player on any team, NE probably has the best shot. But injuries are the wild card. 3. The Bengals and Chiefs seem to be struggling. The Texans looked lousy both times I saw them but they play in a terrible division so they might end up with a good record. I thought the Broncos looked great the first few weeks but not anymore -- what happened? Even their D is struggling now. Pitt's D is quite bad but their O is excellent. 4. The Bills have good balance between O, D, and ST, but their O is not balanced. They can't pass worth very much and they run great until they play a strong D line (Ravens, Jets) and then forget it. 5. The best news for the Bills is that their strong D front 7 is going to get better and deeper when Dareus and Shaq start playing. Darby is doing OK but Gilmore, geez, eww. 6. When will D coordinators figure out Anthony Lynn? Hopefully sometime next April.

Imagine a concert by a great pianist, who hits a few wrong notes over the course of 3 or 4 hours. Do you remember the beautiful music, or the wrong notes? Probably both. Stockton is still a very good announcer, with a great voice and a sense of what to say and not to say. Much better in this regard than a lot of the CBS announcers the Bills games often get. Some mistakes, sure, and they stood out to me too. I don't hear his games that often to know if this is a trend or an aberration.

The Bills D last year stunk. It was no surprise they went heavy on D in the draft, and considering the injuries to 1 and 2 it was good they went D on 3 as well. I think part of the improvement is due to the coaching and the players being on the same page this year, and the Ryan system making stars out of LBs and DEs. Still, if you had been asked before the season to pick the two Bills defenders who were likely to have a shot at the Pro Bowl, would you have picked Zach Brown and Lorax? Not Dareus, not Gilmore, not Kyle Williams, not Darby...? Considering some of the moves that have turned out golden (TT, Shady, Incognito, ZB, Lorax) maybe it's time to see our FO is doing OK. More to the point, that our pro scouting team is doing great. Now if we could just draft college players with as much accuracy as we pick up pros...

The Steelers have been winning with offense for a couple of years now. Their historically great D is no more. They have some good players but not enough to dominate. Unless injuries or bad officiating happen, the Bills should do much better against the fish.

It was great downfield blocking. Here's my question. Shady started the play to the left, and then cut back. The Bills had three receivers out to the right, and they didn't go downfield past the stick, which is odd considering it was third and long. Instead, they got into position to make the blocks. So could it be that the play was designed to start left and then cut back? I just thought it was Shady and his great vision and instincts and quickness that made the play work, but maybe that's not the story at all.

Sherman had his head around, looking at the ball, for quite a while, and it might have looked like he was competing for the ball. If the ref saw those things and not Jones' arm being held, I can see why there was no call on the field, particularly from behind the players. The replay makes it clear there was interference, and what else is replay for if not to correct gross errors? The problem is that most PI calls are not so clear-cut. If PI calls and non-calls are allowed, there will be no end to the arguments, first whether or not there needs to be a review, and then about the call itself. I think the league just doesn't want to go there at all, and it's willing to accept the gross mistakes when they happen a few times a year. In this case the PI happened at the end of a close game, so the magnitude of the incorrect non-call is larger. Too bad for Atlanta. They got robbed.

Kap has the right to his opinion and to express it peacefully, as he's been doing. You have the right to disagree, and to express that opinion peacefully, any way you want. But if you're spending all this time and effort on talking about the protest and the counter-protest, he's achieved his aim, which is to draw attention to the problem.