Utah John

Several year ago the Bills were playing the Broncos. It was late in the game and the Bills were clinging to a lead. Tyrod Taylor was knocked down during a play, either a sack or just contact I don't remember, and Von Miller reached down to Taylor as if to give him a hand up. Taylor reached up but Miller pulled his hand back, ha ha ha. Almost unbelievably, Miller got a 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalty. That helped the Bills keep the ball and run out the clock on the win. Afterward, Miller was a total professional. He took responsibility. He said he should have known better, as a veteran leader on his team. No criticism of the refs or the call. (I doubt the Broncos fan base was so calm about it, though.) As far as I know, Allen hasn't made any comment about the finger pointing penalty. No comment is good (any complaint would seem childish) but it would be even better if he took a page out of Miller's playbook, and said "I'm a veteran leader of this team and I should have known better." So it is, so it has been, and so it shall ever be. Particularly now that the league is in bed with the betting world.

I don't think the Bengals tried that play again. I wonder why.

Madden was all it took.

Allen used to be able to see the entire field and rarely missed seeing open receivers. Is he locking onto one guy now and ignoring the others?

I do think many of McDermott's in-game decisions are poor, but overall I think he'd be doing a lot better as coach if Beane was doing better at drafting. The main reason so many teams are now better than the Bills is that they've hit on a lot more draft picks. Epenesa has improved to meh status. Basham was traded for a bag of donuts. Elam is on "IR" to stash him in order to TRY to trade him for another bag of donuts down the road. Harrison Phillips was OK but clearly wasn't going to be the stuffer they needed. The Bills no longer have better personnel than other teams. The NFL is largely talent-driven, and the Bills as of today have only two premium players, Allen and Diggs. NONE on defense now that Milano is out. It's no wonder they aren't winning like they were. It was Wrecks who pushed Schwartz out the door. The Bills D was dominant in the last year before Wrecks arrived, and it immediately collapsed upon his arrival.

About Hines, his injury, his contract dispute, etc Is there any info about Hines' recovery from the jet ski injury? Will he ever play again? And will he play for Buffalo? I know there was a dispute between the Bills and Hines over an injury settlement. Usually (it seems to me) teams do this with players who get hurt and who won't play again, or won't play for them again. It's true though that the dropoff from Hines to whoever we're using for returns any given week, is really big. I honestly can't remember a single big punt return for the Bills this year. Not one. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Imagine how much worse it would be if Beane had given Poyer the big, multi-year contract he was after. The hole would be that much deeper.

Teams that aren't up by more than four scores do not take mercy. It's too common for a team to score quickly and put a lopsided game suddenly into play. The Bills had a relatively big lead on the Bucs and still nearly lost. Not that the Bills showed mercy or stepped off the gas -- it's more that the disorganized Bills offense could no longer move the ball, and the Bucs caught up. Part of the reason the Pats had top-10 defenses those years was also Brady, actually. Complementary football. He got the Pats into leads, and forced opponents to go one-dimensional. Complementary football is actually a thing. But, your point is still well-taken. It's silly to think the Bills offense could ever compensate for the huge holes in the defense.

We had one. His name is Zach Moss. What Moss is doing in Indy shows the talent he has if used in a scheme friendly for power backs. I have no argument with the Bills trading Moss since he was not going to sniff his potential in Buffalo. It's just that the play schemes, the blocking schemes, and the O line personnel in Buffalo are designed to emphasize the pass, of course.

USC lost because their defense sucks. It's amazing they were ever ranked highly. But Caleb Williams is a great talent and I guess the pundits figured he could carry the team. Well, no one could carry THAT defense.

I've been hearing that Douglas won't play which makes sense due to the complexity of the Bills defensive schemes. But I don't see why Fournette and Joseph couldn't play, and they both seem tailor-made for a game like this.

One of my regrets about the Bills of that era is that neither Stevie Johnson nor Freddie Jackson got to make the playoffs with them. They were both good but not really quite good enough to propel them, but still they both played with heart and desire.

Comparisons between the Bears now and the Bills during the dark years, are a little unfounded. The Bears are spending too much money, while the Bills refused to spend anything. There was an accountant who worked for Ralph Wilson (can't remember his name, thankfully) who blocked the Bills from ever being competitive. The Bears are spending too much, at least it appears that way. I watched parts of Bears games and saw Tremaine Edmunds floating around the defense and joining in on tackles that he should have made himself. Brought back a lot of bad memories. I think Bernard is turning out to be a better player and much cheaper as well.

There are a couple of issues at play. Which teams the Bills play in a given year is predetermined, as far as the ranking of each team in their own division the previous year. There's no favoritism going on. Same thing for which team is at home and which is away for a given game. The NFL's goal was to eliminate the perception of unfairness. But, there's nothing in those procedures that says when teams will play each other. There have been years when the Bills started the season mostly against top-ranked opponents, making it hard to avoid a losing record at the halfway point. In other years the Bills play a softer schedule early with the hard games later -- like this year, except the Bills screwed the pooch by losing games they should have won easily. Agreed. If the Bills are truly SB contenders, they should do OK against the best teams in the league. Maybe not win them all, but win their share.

If he IS the pusher, I hope the QB is the other Allen.

The Vikings had that magic last year and started this year by losing all the close games it would have won last year. That was before the Jefferson and Cousins injuries. To some extent winning in the NFL or NHL is a probability system. Imagine throwing dice. The good teams win with most of the dice combinations, but there are almost always one or a few combinations where the other team wins. The goal of an organization is to have as many dice combinations as possible in their favor. Consistently winning in the NFL or NHL when the dice are against you is like winning at slot machines in Las Vegas. You might get lucky once but if you keep playing you'll lose. The "house" is the Eagles, and the "player" is the Panthers.

DK1 and DK2 are not the same guy. Knox is a muscular, tough player who has once or twice completely steamrolled a defender. Kincaid is a slimmer, streamlined guy who wins by quickness and smarts. It will be so good to get them both on the field game after game, year after year, once our offensive coordinator figures out how to use them at the same time.

I saw two highly flawed teams, neither of which could take advantage of the other's problems. It turned out to be an exciting finish but both sides could point to a dozen what-ifs that could have swung the game. Levis looks like a raw Josh Allen, great arm talent but no discipline when it comes to footwork, a big strong man who has yet to learn how to take advantage of his gifts. Paging Jordan Palmer. Pickett OTOH is just not very good.

I'd say there's just as much chance of Douglas blowing an occasional assignment as there was watching Elam doing exactly that. And Douglas's upside is much higher. I'm not sure Douglas really has his head on right yet. He seemed very sad to be leaving Green Bay, although he said the right things about helping his new team win. Fingers crossed he's ready. Milano is missed, every play of every game when the Bills are on defense. Can't be helped. Bernard is looking very active and smart, but he's a little undersized and the Bengals are very physical. So who knows. Maybe the addition of Joseph can help.

Well that's true, the Bills returned to the US in a very diminished state. But neither Milano's injury nor Jones' injury was due to the crap field. Milano got caught up in a big pile and his leg got broken from someone landing on it. Jones tore a pectoral muscle which had nothing to do with the turf. That said, the principle of the matter, that the NFL teams have to play on a crap artificial field when a grass field was right there, is correct. Players COULD have had crushing, career-ending injuries due to the cheapness of the NFL and the stadium. The bigger problem in that game was that schedule, that the Jags stayed over while the Bills showed up a couple of days before the game and were still pretty wobbly. The incredible offense of the previous three games just couldn't get going. Partly because, as later games have revealed, the Jags have a very good defense. Did you mean Dawson or Dalton?

I think the Bills didn't add a LB because Beane thinks we're set at that position for next year. His time horizon is always two years downstream. He's expecting Bernard and Milano to be the guys next year, and he didn't want to expend draft capital (which he covets) for a third starter-quality guy. If the Bills had beaten any two of the Jets/Jags/Pats (which they really should have done) perhaps Beane would have gone all-in for this year. But the gaping holes on the D line, LB, and defensive backfield are too great, and he's being honest with himself that this year isn't going to be THE year.

Geez, enough with the Barkley shots. He had an important role on the Bills and did it well. He helped Josh become Josh. He's not a great QB, of course not, but most backups aren't.

That's wrong on both counts. First, I was able to freeze the replay showing the ball in Jones's hand with the center having his foot on the 27 yard line, two yards past the LOS, and the center heading downfield. Second, the center interfered with Bernard getting to the play, and Bernard was the one who eventually pushed the receiver out of bounds.

I haven't gone back to check, but I don't remember that we'd lost half our defense to injuries when we played that game. Nor did that game follow two stinkers including another game we should never have lost. But yes I hope we turn it around and at least get into the playoffs this year.

Get ready for every Bills opponent to follow Belichick's lead, and attack the deficiency in the middle of the Bils D. It's arguable about which defensive player's injury has hurt the worst, but I keep coming back to Milano. I hope that guy gets back to playing the way he was early this year.